Mugabe accuses journalists of bias

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By Clarence Fernandez

ZIMBABWEAN President Robert Mugabe, widely denounced for human rights abuses and economic mismanagement, berated journalists on Monday for what he called a lack of objectivity.

Mugabe was among several leaders from Southeast Asia and Africa taking part in the Langkawi International Dialogue, aimed at fostering closer ties between the two regions.

"The press and journalists, are they driven by the sense of honesty and objectivity all the time? Or are they swayed from objectivity and truth by certain notions arising from their own subjective views?" Mugabe said at the only session of the three-day conference that reporters were permitted to attend.

"I say that in the light of reports quite often deliberately intended to tarnish and deceive. Should the journalists really indulge in what they know to be misleading stories, and therefore stories that go against objectivity and the truth?"

Zimbabwe is struggling to contain inflation running at 5,000 percent and battling unemployment of 80 percent under Mugabe's leadership. The country ranked 140th among the 160 countries whose press freedom was rated by watchdog Reporters Without Borders in 2006.

Last week, Mugabe signed into law an act allowing state security agents to monitor phone lines, mail and the Internet, a measure officially described as meant to protect national security and prevent crime, but which human rights groups feel will muzzle free speech under a crackdown on dissent.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, another leader whose relations with the media have been uneasy in the past, expressed worries over the quality of education most journalists received.

"How can someone who is not educated themselves educate another person?" he asked, pointing out that historical events did not happen at random and that journalists must stress the linkages of cause and effect in the events they covered.

Museveni's government maintained tight control of news during an election period early this year, prompted by a fight to hold onto power, and expelled a foreign correspondent, says Reporters Without Borders, which ranks Uganda 116th on its freedom list.

Frivolous issues divert journalists from the task of educating readers, said the king of Swaziland, who sparked acres of media coverage after picking a teenage student to be his 13th bride following a dance of 50,000 bare-breasted virgins in 2005.

"We have been talking about poverty eradication, but when you actually see tomorrow's newspapers, they will not reflect some of the important issues we have been discussing," said King Mswati III, the last absolute monarch in sub-Saharan Africa.

Since 1973, political parties have been banned by royal decree in the landlocked mountainous kingdom, which ranks 127th on the press watchdog's list.

The theme of this Langkawi International Dialogue, held every two years on Malaysia's tourist island of Langkawi, is poverty eradication. - Reuters
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