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SPENDING three hours with President Robert Mugabe will always be an eye-opener because very few people have had an opportunity to get inside the mind of a man considered to be one of Africa’s worst dictators.
It was at the rare meeting with editors from all media houses in the country that Mugabe revealed that he had once assured a hesitant Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai at one of their meetings during the arduous negotiations that led to the formation of the unity government a year ago that “I also eat what you eat.”
For a lot of people, Mugabe’s ideological rigidity and his penchant to resort to violence when his authority is challenged meant he was less human and those who trusted him did so at their own peril.
Most journalists who trooped to Zimbabwe House on March 6 had wanted to confirm their worst fears — most of them fuelled by a detached understanding of the reclusive Mugabe — that the coalition government was dead because the “Great Leader” is impervious to calls for reform.
They expected the 86-year-old president to confirm that he is not happy with the pace of reforms and is in favour of a reduction in speed.
But having attended at least two previous meetings where I had the chance to hear what Mugabe does not often share with ordinary Zimbabweans in my almost a decade in journalism, I strongly believed he was not the real problem.
The problem is his hangers on who think Mugabe must be shielded from the realities of his disastrous 30 years in power at all costs.
South African journalist, Heidi Holland, in her psycho-biography Dinner with Mugabe makes the interesting observation that the main reason behind the veteran ruler’s spectacular failure to lead is that he is often misled by officials too desperate to impress him.
They often feed him with the wrong information and therefore his sense of reality is always at variance with the situation on the ground.
There were two incidents that helped re-inforce this school of thought at his first meeting with journalists from diverse media houses in a decade.
First it was his spokesperson and well-known opponent of media plurality, George Charamba who tried to prevent the editors from recording or taking notes of their once in a lifetime conversation with President Mugabe.
Charamba made strange claims that Mugabe might not open up if he sees journalists sharpening their swords against him.
In the end, common sense prevailed after Mugabe overruled his overprotective spokesperson.
However, the most revealing incident was when a journalist asked Mugabe why it has taken the newly constituted Zimbabwe Media Commission (ZMC) so long to start its work.
Charamba said his ministry’s understanding was that Mugabe had to swear in the nine commissioners before they can start their work.
The cat had been let out of the bag!
It became clear to everyone that some people have been withholding from the president crucial advice for their selfish ends.
Mugabe appeared equally shocked that people who were appointed almost a month ago still awaited his blessings to start their work.
It is almost a month since the ZMC was formally appointed but Zimbabweans are still in the dark about what its intentions are.
The deafening silence by the ZMC commissioners since their appointment was first announced on December 19, has cast serious doubts about their readiness to carry out the enormous work that awaits them.
The onus is now on the distinguished journalists and media trainers who make up the ZMC to prove this assessment wrong.
We do not have too much faith in those who owe their appointment to the commission to their strident support of Zanu PF’s fascist media policies.
Media reform is a key result area for this faltering unity government.
I am convinced the men and women of high standing that have been chosen to lead this process would not want to be remembered for having done nothing when duty called.
They should not be intimidated by what Tsvangirai often refers to as the residues of resistance so well personified by Charamba and the media hangman, Tafataona Mahoso.
The life of this inclusive government is too short for the commissioners to be prevaricating.
By now ZMC chair, Godfrey Majonga and his colleagues should have organised a press conference or issued statements to state how they intend to exercise this important mandate bestowed on them by a nation long on expectations.
Publishers who have been waiting on the wings since the formation of the unity government want to know where to submit their applications for licenses.
They want to know how long it would take them to start giving Zimbabweans an alternative voice they have been so cruelly deprived of since the previous Zanu PF administration introduced the notorious Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act in 2002.
The success of the commissioners would be measured by the degree to which they helped Zimbabwe’s transition to democracy by a world that has invested so much hope in this country despite attempts by few Zanu PF adherents to resist reform.
The commissioners must be able to tell Zimbabweans if anyone is hindering their work so that they are judged accordingly.
A few in Zanu PF badly want to see the status quo to prevail because they know that if Zimbabweans get to know their inadequacies and corrupt tendencies they would become unelectable.
This means that the work of the ZMC would never be a stroll in the park and it would require people of principle and whose commitment to duty is beyond reproach.
Mugabe is without doubt at his weakest and desperately wants the unity government to succeed.
He has given the commissioners the green light to get on with their work and they should seize this opportunity to change the media landscape.
Zimbabwe does not deserve another Media and Information Commission, which became too drunk with Zanu PF ideology and became so instrumental in the destruction of this once promising country.
BY KHOLWANI NYATHI
News Editor
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