Zim police fighting a losing battle

LAST week, police announced that they have started a crackdown on those found in possession of shortwave radios that are not compatible with the country's licensed broadcasting stations.

The crackdown would extend to those caught distributing them.

Police argue that the radio receivers were communicating hate speech and cultivating intolerance which might lead to violence ahead of the referendum to be held in two weeks time and make-or-break elections expected around June/July.

Police believe that "subversive organisations" were at the centre of distributing these communication tools, "posing a security threat" by inflaming election tensions through hate speech.
Those found in possession of the gadgets have been warned that they face arrest, prosecution and imprisonment.

We had long seen it coming. Hardliners in ZANU-PF have previously gone to extreme lengths, without success, to shut out radio stations broadcasting into the country, among them Studio 7 and Voice of America. ZANU-PF has also taken offence with non-governmental organisations suspected of distributing radio receivers in areas that are not covered by the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC).

The latest development shows that the party is now going for broke.

But not many people had anticipated that the police would go to the extent of suppressing the free flow of information, particularly in places that have gone for decades without ZBC coverage.

As if that is not enough, there is really no law that criminalises the possession of shortwave radios.

What Zimbabweans are basically witnessing is a replay of the harassment and intimidation of members of the public by State actors that preceded  previous elections.

A number of civil society organisations, among them Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, the Zimbabwe Peace Project and the Zimbabwe Election Support Network had their offices raided by the police last month under the pretext that they were looking for subversive material.

The persecution of ZANU-PF's rivals strengthens the perception that the police are patently partisan, which undermines the credibility of the country's electoral processes.

By punishing ordinary people whose only crime is that of listening to alternative sources of information in the absence of ZBC coverage, police are taking things too far. Instead of pitying their fellow countrymen for the limited choices at their disposal, State actors are actually rubbing salt into the wound.

While no one has been arrested so far for possessing these "illegal" radios, we believe these are not idle threats. With elections around the corner, unreasonableness normally runs high among State actors that are bent on perpetuating ZANU-PF's hegemony.

But with all eyes on the country ahead of the elections, there must be unfettered access to information to enable Zimbabweans to make informed choices at the polls instead of persecuting them for possessing radio receivers.

In fact, the government should be apologising for its failure to provide radio and television transmission countrywide instead of penalising citizen for their ingenuity.
The only law people with shortwave radios which should be encouraged to comply with is the Broadcasting Services Act which requires them to pay licence fees to ZBC; but then again that legal instrument is being challenged in the courts of law for its irrelevance.

Could it therefore be that the police are angry on behalf of the bungling ZBC, itself the worst peddler of hate speech? Or could it be that police really believe that these radios are peddling hate speech? We think not.

The issue at stake here is that the police are acting on behalf of ZANU-PF which feels threatened by anything that contributes to the realisation of people's freedoms.

The police should concern themselves with more serious crimes being reported daily, particularly corruption in the inclusive government. Or better still, they must leave it to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission and other competent institutions to monitor the news media in line with their mandates.

By taking matters into their own hands, the police are merely barking up the wrong tree.

When partners to the Global Political Agreement (GPA) penned the power-sharing truce in 2008 and put their signature on it, it had been envisaged that the public media would be opened up to other voices, but this has not happened. ZBC has maintained its old habits due to the absence of competition. The public broadcaster has remained a willing ZANU-PF propaganda tool that is used to lampoon and denigrate the other GPA partners in violation of the pact and against the mandate for which it was established.

While government has tried to pull wool over its critics' faces by issuing two radio licenses last year, it hasn't succeeded in convincing anyone that indeed the airwaves have been opened because the so-called new independent players are owned by individuals or institutions that are aligned to ZANU-PF.

To make matters worse, government has delayed the issuance of community radio licences and television licences to new players in order to maintain ZBC's monopoly. This is despite the existence of a Supreme Court ruling allowing other private players to compete against ZBC whose coverage is downright partisan ' not to mention its poor quality programming.

During the colonial era, the Rhodesian government tried unsuccessfully to block alternative voices from being heard on the Rhodesia Broadcasting Corporation but the more Ian Smith's regime tried to muzzle them the more they failed.

It was for this reason that Voice of Zimbabwe, featuring the likes of Webster Shamu now Minister of Information and Publicity, became the most sought after source of information for the oppressed masses who wanted to know how the war of liberation was progressing.

Just as the Rhodesian government could not succeed in closing out alternative voices, the police are also bound to fail in their latest attempts. No amount of arrests and intimidation would stop people from seeking the truth until such a time that ZBC has seen the light.

Shamu, who was known back then as Charles Ndlovu, is obviously better placed to advise the police that they are fighting a losing battle.