The Government has dismissed as fake news a report by a local daily newspaper alleging the presence in Zimbabwe, of a militia group from Mozambique.
NewsDay, owned by Alpha Media Holdings, on Tuesday, 18 April, published a front-page article titled; “Zanu ropes in Moza militia”.
The report alleged that a Mozambican militia group had been deployed to Chipinge at the invitation of the Government to campaign for ZANU PF ahead of the 23 August 2023 general elections.
In a statement issued yesterday, the Deputy Chief Secretary, Presidential Communications in the Office of the President and Cabinet George Charamba described the report as “reckless”. He said:
Nothing in Section 61 of our hallowed Constitution protects or condones the publishing of such reckless, politically motivated falsehoods.
We thus hope and expect that the Zimbabwe Media Commission (ZMC), takes a clear and bold position against this flagrant abuse of media freedoms whose impact on national security, and on inter-state relations, are dire and injurious respectively.
That the article repeatedly and self-consciously used the adverb ‘reportedly’, clearly shows deliberate, gratuitous malice, and a conscious decision to proceed to publish falsehoods regardless, as if to wilfully spite the rules of the craft.
So, too, does the tabloid paper’s decision to proceed on the basis of some spurious video clip anonymously placed and circulated on social media.
The intentions of the video are clear, namely to stir hostilities and to harm harmonious relations between communities on either side of our common border with the sister Republic of Mozambique.
A video clip has been circulating on social media platforms showing a FRELIMO official, whose name is not given, telling ZANU PF supporters in Chipinge South’s Ward 28 that businesspeople who fail to support ZANU PF in upcoming elections risk being shot and killed.
The official claimed he was in the company of an army commander adding that if ZANU PF loses to MDC and CCC, that will be the end of Zimbabwe’s relationship with Mozambique.
FRELIMO is the ruling party in Mozambique and has been in power since the country gained independence from Portugal in 1975.
Charamba demanded an immediate public apology from Alpha Media Holdings and an unconditional retraction of the article.
He warned that the Government will pursue and seek redress through legal options if no apology is forthcoming and the article is not retracted.
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