Zim bans Sky reporters

2004-05-01 10:47

Harare - British documentarians were banned from Zimbabwe after previously receiving clearance from top ruling party officials, according to media reports on Friday.

Information czar Jonathan Moyo ordered that the documentary team with British-based Sky News leave the country just hours after their arrival in Zimbabwe on Thursday.

The independent Daily Mirror said the trip was cleared by Zanu-PF politburo member Nathan Shamuyarira "to give the government and ruling party an opportunity to ... counter the negative publicity" allegedly broadcast by the international media.

The television programme was to include an interview with President Robert Mugabe, the newspaper said.

Since Moyo became "minister of state in the president's office for information and publicity" in 2001, there has been a virtual ban on visits by foreign journalists and local journalists are forced to work under one of the most draconian press regimes in the world.

'Traitors'

This week the state-controlled Daily Herald newspaper urged the government to deal with journalists who were "traitors" and "giving aid to the enemies of the country by deliberately portraying it in a bad light".

It was the second time in recent weeks that Moyo, once a fierce critic of 80-year-old Mugabe's rule, has countermanded instructions by top officials of the regime. Earlier this month he dismissed orders by vice-president Joseph Msika for state officials to move off one of Zimbabwe's biggest horticultural project they had seized in violation of a court order.

Moyo declared publicly there would be "no going back" on the illegal occupation.

Zimbabwe is in the midst of a worsening economic and humanitarian crisis with 7.5 million people estimated to be facing starvation, inflation running at 600% - the highest in the world - and the gross domestic product has shrunk 30% in five years.

The government claims reports published abroad of Zimbabwe's catastrophic situation are British- and American-inspired propaganda to try and oust Mugabe. - Sapa-dpa

- SAPA