Chronicle of an Election Foretold - by Zenzele Ndebele
June 16, 2008
In the March election, many Zimbabweans thought they were going to deal with the Mugabe-led Government once and for all. The majority of us voted for change. ZANU PF lost the election, but unfortunately, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change didn’t quite manage to win: Read more
Watching ZBC, by Philo Ikonya
June 16, 2008
Kenyan writer Philo Ikonya recently returned from a fact finding-mission to Zimbabwe, organized by an international body of media organizations. This is her story.
Watching Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation is a lesson in how to enlist state machinery to the service of a political campaign. Even the business updates are cast as advertisements for Robert Mugabe’s ruling party, ZANU PF. Read more
Statement of the Zimbabwe Fact Finding Mission of African Media Organisations: 13 June 2008. Harare, Zimbabwe
June 16, 2008
From June 8 to13 a Mission made up of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ Africa Office based in Senegal), Southern Africa Editors’ Forum (SAEF), Southern Africa Journalists Association (SAJA), the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Regional Office and the Network of African Freedom of Expression Organisations (NAFEO) visited Zimbabwe on a fact finding mission to ascertain the conditions of media and freedom of expression in Zimbabwe in the light of the arrests of journalists, both local and foreign and the deteriorating freedom of expression environment. This mission also comes in the context of the forthcoming Presidential election run off slated for 27 June 2008. Read more
Kibera Noir - an excerpt, by Arno Kopecky
June 9, 2008
Kibera Noir, another of our election dispatches, tells the story of what happened in Kibera on the night of December 30, 2007, after Mwai Kibaki was sworn in at State House. The following excerpt takes up the story moments after the writer and his photographer companion, Chris Ojow, emerged from the flames.
Having stumbled our way out the back of Kibera, we finished the night in what felt like the last and best bar on the planet. Whispers Pub was a shabby and intimate place, buried somewhere in Langata; a neon green woman in a miniskirt was painted on the wall behind Ojow, who like me sat at the bar. The only table in the room had six people seated around it - the eight of us filled the place up.
“Do you have any cigarettes?” was the first question they asked when we poked our heads in.
“There are absolutely no cigarettes anywhere in Langata.” Read more
