BBC should not lie about Zimbabwe

Itayi GARANDE (21/04/08)

CAN the BBC tell the truth about Zimbabwe when its senior managers are appointed by the United Kingdom government and will they be fired if they step out of line and become realistic about Zimbabwe?

Along with others like the New York Times, Sky News and CNN, the broadcaster is notably egregious, given its reputation that's now decidedly undeserved.

The BBC has muted its criticism of Zimbabwe and framed it in the continuing “cycle of violence and impunity that has plagued the Southern African country for so many years.”

However, the agenda of the BBC, New York Times and ‘their friends’ is clear: ignore realpolitik, press for Mugabe’s exit, and in the process, disenchant members and supporters of his Zanu PF party.

The BBC and New York Times have both fallen trap to lies and have, at most times, become the peddlers of lies themselves.

In 2007, the BBC’s own report concluded that it was biased and talked of a “Roneo mentality” where staff ape each other’s twisted values.

Is it not amazing that the BBC actually had the fortitude to admit that its lustre is lost?

Only last week, Chinese students in London matched against the BBC’s biased reporting on the situation in Tibet. This was televised on the BBC.

Watching one of the weekly flagship political talk shows, David Dimbleby’s “Question Time,” one could sense that the BBC was being used as a regime change tool by the British government.

Fundamental questions on the situation in Iraq, Afghanistan and Zimbabwe are suppressed and cosmetic questions are allowed to filter through.

Last Thursday’s show was proof that the real agenda on Zimbabwe was cover-up; cover up of the real causes of the problems in Zimbabwe. A woman who dared suggest that western sanctions had crippled the Zimbabwean economy was met with resistance by both Dimbleby and his gullible audience.

Recent scare mongering tactics by the BBC have made a lot of people, worldwide, sit on the edge and wait for the day that Zimbabwe will eventually collapse. Yet it never came.

BBC propaganda barely hints at western responsibility for the problems facing Zimbabwe today and the most appalling crimes of war and against humanity that were perpetrated by Ian Smith and his Rhodesian Front members in pre1980 Zimbabwe.

The BBC and its website, fails to mention Clare Short’s 1997 letter to Minister of Lands Kumbirai Kangai and the notorious ZIDERA US legislation of 2001 – two single pieces of paper that are responsible for where Zimbabwe is today.

The BBC last week reported that former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, one of their favourite individuals, had succumbed to MDC calls and urged African leaders to "do more" with regard to Zimbabwe.

One wonders why the BBC does not see fit to ask why Kofi himself did nothing during his many years as Secretary-General?

Annan did nothing during the Rwanda genocide and the Darfur genocide. The pious words of the morally bankrupt Annan are reported by the BBC as if they have real moral and political meaning when in fact it is obvious that they are unreal.

Recent BBC headlines

Recent headlines from the BBC have included the following: “Mugabe: Lots of laughs, no answers,” by Farai Sevenzo (in Harare); “Why Mugabe is deaf to the West”, “Harare diary: police flex muscles,” “Call for action on Zimbabwe war”. This is just a cross section of the many pathetic headlines carried by the BBC on Zimbabwe.

The BBC has also become careless with spellings and facts. A recent headline talked of “Tandai Biti of the MDC”. They also ran a report of a man allegedly beaten up by Zanu PF thugs last week and wrote, “We could not independently verify whether Zanu PF militias had indeed beaten up the man. He could hardly identify them, everything was happening under the cover of darkness.”

If the BBC doubted the authenticity of the story, or they could not independently verify it, why did they run it in the first place? The story had a headline, entitled: “Zimbabwe victim: ‘I wailed in pain’.

Yet what is new? It's the way the BBC reports on everything, from the time the Zimbabwe land invasions started. Fiction is substituted for fact, news is carefully filtered, wars of aggression are dubbed ‘fighting for democracy’.

The BBC reflects UK government policy. The BBC over-publicised the ‘sexed up’ Iraqi dossier, which led to the war in Iraq.

Current UK and US strategy, which almost crippled Zimbabwe, is supported by the BBC and other western media, like the New York Times.

It is hoped that this type of reporting, combined with international isolation, will not only cripple the Zimbabwean economy, but also (possibly) lead to a regime change.

Adam Boulton, political editor of Sky News, told a House of Lords select committee in 2007 that the BBC’s coverage came dangerously close to peddling government propaganda. Evidence of this is mounting daily.

Fact and mission

The BBC should be commended for one thing: they never let fact interfere with mission.

The mission for the BBC in Zimbabwe is to tarnish the image of, and overthrow, the ‘illegitimate government of Robert Mugabe,’ as a recent headline suggested.

Their man in Johannesburg, Will Ross, says there is insurmountable evidence that Zanu PF will rig the recount and that violence has escalated in recent days; yet fails to point out that the MDC is also a perpetrator of violence.

Ross would not know about, or care to report on, the Nyamweda bus that was torched by MDC thugs. He would be less interested in, or care to report on, the many MDC youths who were arrested for politically motivated violence.

Again facts will not interfere with mission here.

Ross attacks the Zimbabwe government with familiar innuendoes that appear throughout the major media to smear it unjustly.

Quoting South Africa’s extreme right wing publication, Noseweek Online, he suggests that arms destined for Zimbabwe would be used in ‘a war against the opposition’ designating Zimbabwe a state sponsor of violence against its own people.

Noseweek is known for its links with extreme right wing elements in South Africa and Rhodesians currently resident in South Africa.

The publication has pursued President Mugabe since the farm evictions in 2000 and made a mockery of the ‘African Rennaisance’ dismissing it as a ‘wild dream’.

In 2001 the publication called then vice-president Zuma a spy and has run a seven year old smear campaign against President Thabo Mbeki.

Yet this is the ‘authoritative source of information’ for the BBC.

Ross and others like him in the mainstream, keep at their appointed mission — attacking the most vulnerable African state in the region with a clear and purposeful aim — to destabilize, destroy and transform Zimbabwe into a neo-colony and reverse the gains of the land reform programme.

The right wing Rhodesian lobby and the MDC

The BBC’s destabilisation strategy is supported by the uncompromising extreme right in SA and the Rhodesian lobby located in that country — waiting for an opportune moment to return to ‘Rhodesia’.

A puppet organisation, the MDC, is also now conveniently located in South Africa, close to Rhodesian financiers and the BBC.

Expect lots more BBC commentaries aimed at destablising Zimbabwe. They are part of what one critic called the West’s "asymmetric - 4th Generation War – against” world revolutions.

The dark forces the BBC represents won’t quit; so enlightened Zimbabweans and others must keep exposing their schemes to protect Zimbabwe’s glorious independence.

http://www.zimupdates.co.zw/archives/bbc_lies.html