By KENNETH MUFUKA
On October 2, 2018, Jamal Kashoggi faced a 15-member black watch group in the Saudi Arabian embassy in Turkey. When he entered the embassy to get a marriage certificate, the street camera across the street had recorded his entry.
He never came out. We know now, from the US intelligence sources, that his finger nails were first pulled out by men in dark glasses. It was a warning that they were serious.
Jamal had worked for Saudi Prince Turki bin Faisal, security chief in the old regime. In that position, he was privy to the secret funding surrounding Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden. More, he had, in a previous life, been a mujahedeen and worked with Bin Laden in Afghanistan.
Returning home a hero, after the Russian infidels had been expelled from that country, he enjoyed the confidence of Turki bin Faisal. But another war had started at the turn of the century. The US, with Saudi support, had invaded Iraq. Saudi Arabia, with US support, had invaded Yemen. Both expeditions went sour.
At home, Prince Muhammad bin Salman, the new ruler, was suspicious of Prince bin Turki. Jamal got wind of it and crossed the border just before 30 journalists were arrested and Turki himself placed into “a restricted situation”.
Of the 21 eleven terrorists involved in New York Twin Towers bombing, 19 were Saudi nationals, funded and trained by Ai Qaeda. But Al Qaeda was the brainchild of Saudi and US intelligence against the Russians.
Then there were daily atrocities being committed in Yemen, in the hope of forcing Yemeni nationalists to accept a stooge government favoured by US-Saudi interests.
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Jamal, now a renegade journalist, was preparing an expose’ for the Washington Post.
Jamal’s fingers were chopped off. At this time it was too late to back off; to allow him to escape would have been disastrous for the House of Saudi. He was then hacked off piece by piece and the morsels packed into 30 boxes and shipped to Saudi Arabia.
Former president Donald Trump had but two choices. The Saudis were in an arms deal worth U$8.5 billion and more. If the US condemned the Saudis, they stood to lose business.
Ray Choto and Mark Chavunduka
Two weeks ago, I was in touch with Ray Choto, who with Mark Chavunduka, were journalists at The Zimbabwe Standard.
On October 22, 2011, Angus Shaw, reporting for the British Independent newspaper, witnessed Mark (37) and Ray (34) being released from a jailhouse on bail.
Both were tortured by Zimbabwe military police for a report about 23 soldiers who had been detained for incitement to rebellion.
While in prison, Ray was told that then president Robert Mugabe had signed a death warrant for them. Mark died as a result of the torture. Choto lives in exile as we speak.
Zimbabwe black watchers wanted knowledge of the reporters’ sources.
US: A different kind of torture!
The US is going through a different kind of soul-searching about freedom of speech. Last week, the US Supreme Court made its ruling on a case brought by Knight Communications Centre in New York.
While Knight rejoiced when Twitter banned Trump from using their platform, its complaint was to forbid Trump from blocking his opponents from cursing him out and saying bad words.
As private entities, rather than public platforms, Twitter, Google and Facebook do not fall under Section 230 of the Decency Act. Trump lost touch with his 33 million followers.
Justice Clarence Thomas regards this as a new form of monopoly or restriction of free speech, never mind it is Trump’s speech being restricted.
Thomas says when crossing Charles River Bridge, one must pay a toll. If the citizen prefers not to, he can swim across. Similarly, if one refuses to use the Oregon Turnpike Road, one can walk through the Oregon Trail to his destination.
Should the Turnpike or the Charles Toll Bridge, both owned by concessionary, companies be treated as private property, whose owners can refuse service to users whose demeanour or attire they loathe?
It is alright to lie about Trump
When Amy Gardner wrote in the Washington Post, January 3rd that Trump had pressured the Georgia attorney to move votes in his favour, and reverse the election outcome, that information was part of the impeachment material on January 6.
The transcript to Frances Watson reveals that Trump said that “dishonesty” occurred in Fulton County (the largest inner city black county), not Cobb County where Watson was looking. Trump never asked Watson or any other officer to change the vote.
On March 3, the Washington Post wrote a “correction”, but making itself the hero of the story. The damage was done.
It is this damage, which Thomas has worried about in his essays. Global Witness wrote several stories about oil exploration in Liberia. Exxon Oil Company employed a surrogate National Oil Company to smooth things over by sharing a U$4 million bonus with Liberian senators and congressmen.
Senators Christiana Tah and Randolph MaCain were mentioned in the story. These two did not receive any bonuses nor were they consulted before the story was published. Hidden somewhere, Global Witness confesses that there is no evidence that “Exxon directed National Oil Company to pay bonuses (bribes).”
Thomas argues, in his brief, that Tah and McCain’s characters were deliberately tarnished, and to assume that Global Witness did not appreciate the import of their article is being naïve.
Thus, there are two standards. In the Third World, journalists can find their fingers pulled out, (Kashoggi) and if they do not reveal what they know, their bodies will be cut into little pieces. In Egypt, journalists are picked up from the street, after years in prison without trial, dropped back on the street.
In the US, journalists are protected from the authorities, but not from their companies, which conspire to create fake news, banish certain ideas they don’t like, and act in a monopolistic way.
The result, as my journalistic brother Joram Nyathi has told me, is the same difference. One can count to six; the other can count to half a dozen.
Ken Mufuka is a Zimbabwean patriot. He can be reached at [email protected]. His books are available in Zimbabwe from Innov Bookshops and in the wider world from kenmufukabooks.com.
