Examination of Witness (Questions 100-119)
MR JOSEPH
WINTER
TUESDAY 21 JANUARY 2003
Chairman
100. You said you were expelled. What were the
reasons given for your own expulsion?
(Mr Winter) There were various differing accounts.
The information minister officially said that there had been a
problem with renewing my accreditation but there were also other
things. He was also talking about the coverage of the BBC and
things. There are two departments. The Department of Immigration
summoned me in and said "Your permit to stay in this country
has been revoked". They were saying I could leave and then
reapply to come back under these new rules for accrediting journalists.
But the information minister gave a different account. He actually
accused me of bribing a civil servant in order to renew my work
permit, which is completely untrue. Basically I think the real
reason was an attempt to throw out the BBC and make a big public
stand against the BBC possibly as a way of intimidating other
journalists.
Mr Olner
101. Are there any BBC journalists in Zimbabwe
at all?
(Mr Winter) There are Zimbabwean journalists who are
working for the BBC fairly regularly, or have been working fairly
regularly until a couple of weeks ago.
102. The BBC sub-contract them, do they?
(Mr Winter) Yes, they are freelance.
103. How many journalists would you say there
are in Zimbabwe able to put up a stand against a regime without
being threatened by it? I am trying to get a feel of it. Is there
no press freedom within Zimbabwe? Or is there a little bit?
(Mr Winter) The situation is about to change. We are
not sure. There has been a new law called the Access to Information
and Protection of Privacy Act. It is a rather strange name, but
it has been passed and is in the process of being made effective.
For the moment, for example the Daily News which is a privately
owned newspaper, is still published every day. But they now have
to register with the newly created Media Commission.
104. This is a licensing regime?
(Mr Winter) Yes. They have to get permission to publish
a newspaper from the Information Ministry. As of now that licence
has not been granted because it has not yet come into effect.
If that licence was not granted then that would really make a
huge change to media freedom. For the moment they are still being
published and there are other weekly newspapers such as the Financial
Gazette, the Zimbabwe Independent, the Zimbabwe
Standard. There are at least three which are still being published
weekly. Within the next couple of weeks or so that situation may
change.
105. It may well be that the Mugabe regime will
look on any broadcast whether it be from the BBC World Service
or whether it be from SW Radio Africa to be tainted by ourselves.
Are there any African countries who broadcast into Zimbabwe?
(Mr Winter) South Africa certainly. There is something
called Channel Africa which was set up by SABC (the South African
Broadcasting Corporation) and that is a short wave station for
Africa. You can also get SABC on satellite TV. That is obviously
for a privileged few. Otherwise I do not think there are very
many. I do not think other African stations are broadcast.
Mr Hamilton
106. Mr Winter, can I just turn to the extent
of the humanitarian crisis. We have discussed this quite a lot
this afternoon. As you know, up to 8 million people are estimated
to be at risk of starvation in Zimbabwe at the moment. On 30 April
last year the journalist Richard Dowden argued that "There
is no sign, that I have seen, of a great popular uprising. The
people in the towns who have suffered most through price rises
and so on have tried demonstrations and they turn quite nasty.
The poorer people get the less likely they are to cause that sort
of trouble." What is your understanding of the current extent
and severity of the food crisis in Zimbabwe?
(Mr Winter) It is extreme and severe. Up to eight
million people are facing hunger and are extremely hungry at the
moment. There are not many crops in the field so that situation
is only going to deteriorate in the near future, and certainly
in terms of food in the shops. People have to queue up for bread,
for sugar, for basic foods. People are quite hungry. As Georgina
said earlier, it is not cases of mass starvation and massive deaths
from starvation at the moment.
107. Would your information back up what Ms
Godwin said about the fact that most people now have a meal maybe
once every two days? Would that be accurate?
(Mr Winter) Yes. Certainly in the rural areas the
situation would be more severe. In towns a lot of people would
have lost their jobs and have no income as well. But in towns
there are more ways somehow of finding a few Zimbabwean dollars
from somewhere or other and getting a loaf of bread or something.
Certainly the situation is severe.
108. Is there any evidence or do you have any
information that ZANU-PF officials have diverted food aid for
their own use?
(Mr Winter) There have been several reports supporting
that argument. There was a report from a Danish minister speaking
on behalf of the EU at the time saying that that was happening.
And the Americans. And also the Danish physicians for human rights
were saying that. I think there have been widespread reports along
those lines, yes.
Sir John Stanley
109. Mr Winter, is the BBC World Service providing
an on-line news service?
(Mr Winter) Yes.
110. What sort of hits is it getting each day?
Do you know?
(Mr Winter) It is getting overall about nine million
a day, of which somewhere around two or three million are for
the international service.
111. What sort of length of broadcasting is
taking place into Zimbabwe?
(Mr Winter) There I am talking about the written stories.
112. I am talking about audio broadcasting now.
(Mr Winter) A day broadcasting to Africa you would
have somewhere around three hours. Three hours specialist for
Africa. There are around twenty-one hours overall which are broadcast
in Africa which is not purely African news and African affairs.
113. Is all that being received inside Zimbabwe?
(Mr Winter) Yes.
114. Do you think the World Service could be
doing more to give more news and information access to people
inside Zimbabwe?
(Mr Winter) I think they could be doing a lot more
if their journalists were allowed to operate in Zimbabwe. Not
being allowed to operate in Zimbabwe does make life more difficult.
But you can still interview a lot of people over the telephone
and re-broadcast those interviews.
115. Is the World Service doing enough to make
that telephone source of news available and public? Do people
feel they can contact the World Service as easily as they can
contact SW Radio Africa, for example?
(Mr Winter) A lot of Zimbabweans may not phone up.
It would generally be up to the people in London who are producing
the day's programme to see the news and to phone up the people
involved in the news. One of the problems might be publically
interviewing people on the street—vox pops—for which
you would get into trouble with the authorities. Getting the view
of—not that there is such a person—the ordinary person
in the street might be difficult. You can generally get hold of
the opposition activists, occasionally some government ministers
and various players in the political scene.
116. You will be aware that around the world
when you are dealing with regimes that are trying to restrict
news—oppressive regimes—you can only get feedback
by actually soliciting invitations from people inside the country
concerned to ring out. I wonder whether, from what you are saying,
that the World Service is doing enough of that.
(Mr Winter) There are more interactive programmes
on the Internet where there is always a form for you to send in
your comments about this story or occasionally will ask questions.
Just last week we had a discussion, a talking point, on the Internet
about this possible offer between Emmerson Mnangagwa and Tsvangirai
and so people were able to send in their comments on that story.
That is more for the Internet side of things, but obviously your
average Zimbabwean does not have access to the Internet.
117. From your own personal history and knowledge
of Zimbabwe, give us your overall perspective on how successful
the independent media are being in being able to inform people
inside Zimbabwe as to the realities of world opinion as to what
is going on inside that country.
(Mr Winter) I think in towns people are very well
informed. Even if they no longer have the money to buy a newspaper
people talk to each other. One person would read the newspaper,
spread the word around. Also the newspaper vendors help. If you
cannot afford whatever it is to buy a newspaper, you can pay a
small fee to read it from the vendor. That is one way of getting
information around. The big problem has always been in rural areas
where people have less disposable income and even if they have
the disposable income a newspaper certainly would not be sold
in a local shop in a small village. That has been a problem. On
top of that there has always been a monopoly of broadcasting from
within Zimbabwe. The newspapers and short wave radio and satellite
TV provide the only non-state news. People in rural areas who
listen to their radios—FM or medium wave—generally
only get the state broadcasts.
Andrew Mackinlay
118. You heard me ask the former High Commissioner,
for me the sixty-four thousand dollar question is, is there anything
more which the British Government should be doing which it is
not doing? In your opinion? I am desperate, if you like, to find
this gold nugget—and I am not being facetious—but
there is all this inference in our press and media here in the
UK that there is a magic wand that the UK could wave and I am
really hungry to find out what more we should be doing. I wonder
if you can help us on that?
(Mr Winter) Unfortunately not. I do not think there
is much more to say. If the British Government did anything overtly
would just play into the government's hands in terms of portraying
Britain as a meddling, former colonial power. Doing things through
international organisations, lobbying through international organisations
would be the way that the British Government could seek to change
policy in Zimbabwe.
119. There is one other thing which I want to
explore—this will be using you almost as a dress rehearsal
for the Minister—and that is that it seems to me if the
shortage of nutrition is so widespread and it is on-going, there
comes a point—and presumably someone somewhere must be able
to project it—where it stops being lack of nutrition and
becomes a famine on a large scale. It is not a shading; it does
not gradually happen. Presumably there are whole regions where
the vast majority of people are of the same nutritional value.
You go through a threshold and we would then have a mass famine
in a key part of Africa which then does raise the political stakes
internationally and here in London. The British Government have
a policy of saying that they would not stand idly by and see a
repetition of what happened in another part of central Africa.
What is your assessment—although you are a layman on this—as
to the extent and depth of the nutritional deprivation across
Africa? It would seem to me that there is going to be a month
this year, presumably, where, if what we are told is true—and
I have no reason not to believe it—we will actually have
people dropping down dead in large numbers. Then it does raise
the question for South Africa, the Republic of South Africa, for
the European Union, for the international community because they
do not want to see a repeat of other things they acquiesced in
central Africa.
(Mr Winter) First of all, I do not think there would
be a threshold, a sharp dividing line. One factor that is making
the situation in Zimbabwe much, much worse is the prevalence of
HIV and AIDS which is up to about 25% to 30% of the people. That
is a large number of people. A lot of people are weak anyway and
their immune systems are not functioning properly so they are
more vulnerable. Those people, the elderly, the young would probably,
if the situation does not change, are going to be in the front
line and become weaker before other people, before healthy young
men and women.
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