This report gives a description of how Zimbabwe resent presidential elections have become a battle for power. Most important it reports how two different news media describe this recent event.
Zimbabwe has face terrible crises throughout the years, and more since the presidential election took place earlier this year. Robert Mugabe as well as opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai claimed the presidency of Zimbabwe. During the first electoral rounds Tsvangirai won more votes, but electoral officials said neither one had 50 percent of the votes required to win.
During the Second round of election a number of violent events happened to the opposition party of Mr. Tsvangirai. The New York Times espressed that the reason why Mr. Tsvangirai pulled out of the electoral race was because many of his members were being assassinated. The BBC modestly expressed that the reason that Mr. Tsvangirai pulled out of the race was because of violence against it supporters.
For the first time in about 10 years both leaders meet in order o reach some kind of agreement. The BBC & the New York Times have two different narrations for the events. BBC position is very neutral toward Mr. Mugabe and does not at any moment questions his past actions nor his decision of why he wants to reach a new deal with the opposition. The New York Times in the other hand, portraits Mugabe as an opportunistic who is acting out of interest in order to gain legitimacy in Africa.
In addition, The New York Times expressed in more detail why The European Union is giving more sanctions to Zimbabwe, even though the president is willing to reach an agreement with the opposition. The newspaper specify that the sanctions are for “senior officials”, The BBC just referred them as people and does describe what types of sanction The EU is enforcing.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7518883.stm
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/23/world/africa/23zimbabwe.html?_r=1&ref=africa&oref=slogin
1 comment:
This "power sharing" meeting between Tsvangirai (MDC) and Mugabe (ZANU-PF) is a step in the right direction. Although, and perhaps this is the cynic in me coming out (happens from time to time), this sort of thing has occurred before, in the wake of the Matabeleland massacres in the mid 80s. A "power sharing" agreement was reached wherein the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) merged with the ZANU to form what is now the ZANU-PF (current party).
Thereafter, Mugabe maintained and fortified his power by making his opposition join with him. The people of Zimbabwe have still suffered since that occured because of Mugabe's poor policies (most particularly his land "reforms"). The fear here is that the same sort of "power sharing" agreement will occur and nothing will change.
Perhaps in order to understand why a media source like the New York Times has expressed in more detail why The European Union is giving more sanctions to Zimbabwe, despite Mugabe's "willingness" to reach an agreement, one must go no farther than this story curtosey of the Catholic Church titled, "Breaking the Silence - Building True Peace based on the testimonies of 1,000 witnesses." Here is an excerpt:
"In February 1983, the Fifth Brigade of the Zimbabwean army went to Neshango, a small village in the then rebellious southern province of Matebeleland and rounded up scores of villagers for interrogation. Among those rounded up were two young pregnant girls.
As if to confirm its notoriety, the Fifth Brigade - a North Korea-trained unit - soon got bored with merely interrogating its captives on the whereabouts of the armed rebels who were fighting President Robert Mugabe's government.
The soldiers picked out the two pregnant girls from the rest of the villagers and shot them at close range to death. That did not seem to meet their standards for bestial ruthlessness and - using bayonets fixed on their AK-47 rifles, the soldiers then slit open the dead girls' stomachs exposing their moving fetuses."
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