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Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 2004 9:21 PM
Subject: BBC’s onslaught to discredit Zim hits snag 


BBC’s onslaught to discredit Zim hits snag 



Herald Reporter 
THE British Broadcasting Corporation’s onslaught to discredit Zimbabwe’s human rights record has suffered a major hitch as the producer of its Panorama documentary on the country’s alleged torture camps is now backtracking. 

As part of efforts to place Zimbabwe on the agenda of the March 15 United Nations Human Rights Commission meeting to be held in Geneva, Switzerland, the BBC last week recycled discredited claims that the Zimbabwean Government has set up secret camps across the country in which thousands of youths are taught how to rape, torture and kill. 

It claimed in its Panorama programme that National Youth Service youths were taught to kill, rape and beat up opponents of the Government and Zanu-PF. 

However, in an apparent U-turn, BBC correspondent Hilary Andersson admitted that the stories were inconsistent and could not be substantiated. 

She said "some of the spin-off stories" written by other media organisations had misquoted "our findings in their hunt for a snazzy headline". 

"We have no evidence that 12-year-olds are taught to torture, nor that anyone in the camps is taught to rape. Our evidence is based on cataloguing the testimonies, gathered by ourselves and human rights groups of almost 100 youths who had been in the camps, and building up a picture of what happens inside. We chose not to broadcast interviews with many individuals who claimed they had killed and raped but whose stories were inconsistent. Mugabe is not a Hitler. He may not be involved in genocidal activities at the moment," she said in an article entitled ‘Secrets of Zimbabwe camps exposed’. 

The BBC has in the past heightened its propaganda against the Government each time elections or a major international event draws near. There have been false reports in the past of youths claiming to have escaped from the training centres and confessing to committing rape, torture and murder in the country. 

However, all these efforts to tarnish the country’s image have come to naught because they were based on falsehoods. 

The UN Human Rights Commission last year rejected a European Union and United States-sponsored resolution to condemn Zimbabwe for alleged human rights abuses. 

Out of the 53 members of the commission, 28 countries, mostly from Africa and Asia, rallied around a South African proposal for a "no action" motion against Zimbabwe while 24, mostly EU members voted against the country. 

The majority members in the commission expressed solidarity with Zimbabwe despite pressure from the US and Britain to do otherwise. 

A similar motion sponsored by Britain and brought up at the commission in 2002 was thrown out before debate after Nigeria rallied support for Zimbabwe from 14 African, Asian and Middle East countries to thwart the British move. 

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