Black Britain -- The western media, particularly BBC and CNN, have been accused of vilifying President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and presenting him as a ‘terrorist’ for “reasons of paving way for the implementation of US and Britain’s agenda for the country.”
Patrick Mlalumi and Nelly Chikava, two Zimbabweans who were in Ghana for a week's visit told Black Britain in Accra that “The human rights situation in Zimbabwe is being twisted to paint a picture of Zimbabwe that is at variance with the true situation on ground. I stay in Harare and I can tell you that the international media seem to be pursuing a hidden agenda judging by the way they report situations there," said Mlalumi.
“I am not comfortable with many actions that Mugabe has taken in the past few years and the whole nation today feels the impact of those actions but I am put off by the campaign of calumny that BBC, CNN and other western media have been championing in recent times,” he added.
The 35-year old economist accused the west of a grand design to unseat President Mugabe because of the takeover of farm lands from white farmers in the country.
“What Britain must acknowledge is that they created the problem in the first place. Whites in colonial Rhodesia simply dispossessed locals of their land without paying any form of compensation at all. I know that there has been huge international outcry about that but I think it is because the white farmers are the ones that have the means and contacts to attract the attention of the western media,” stated Chikava who works with a consultancy firm in Harare.
“Yesterday BBC told us that Morgan Tsvangirai was seriously sick and could rarely talk. Yet he was granting interviews same day and from the way he talked you could see that he is not as sick as he was been portrayed. It is obvious he is being sponsored from by the west,” she further stated.
BBC accused of biased reporting
“We will like to see Mugabe go. We want change but we wouldn’t want a puppet of Britain and America for president,” said Mlalumi.
Yaw Mensah, a Ghanaian who spoke to Black Britain also decried the coverage of the Zimbabwean situation by the western media describing it as part of a “conspiracy to perpetuate colonial strongholds in Africa.” I have been listening to BBC this part few days and I must say I am appalled by its bias,” Kojo Asare,” another Ghanaian told Black Britain.
But Kwesi Tetteh, a high school teacher in Accra believes there is need for an international coalition that would compel Mugabe to stop human rights abuse: “If what we hear from daily news report is right then I think the AU should mediate immediately and force President Mugabe to yield to the voice of reason.”
Morgan Tsvangirai, the main opposition leader was moved into the intensive care unit of a private hospital in Harare Wednesday after reportedly suffering a suspected fractured skull, brain injury and internal bleeding.
"There are lots of people who've been subjected to this kind of torture, this kind of brutality by this regime," Tsvangirai said in an interview with local media from his hospital bed. Presidents John Kufuor of Ghana, chairman of African Union, and Thabo Mbeki of neighbouring South Africa, have come under intense international criticism for failing to take action to quell the deteriorating political situation in Zimbabwe.
Kufuor in an interview Wednesday described the political situation in Zimbabwe as embarrassing to the continent. What was happening in that country, he said was making the AU uncomfortable. The Ghanaian president who concluded a three-day official visit to the UK Thursday, said the body was 'very concerned' about the deteriorating political situation in Zimbabwe.
Robert Mugabe was one of the African leaders that attended Ghana’s golden jubilee where he took time out to pay visit to the family of Sally Mugabe, his first wife, a Ghanaian, who died in 1992. Mugabe met her in the 1950s while working as a teacher in Ghana.
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