Lie-O-Meter – ZBC
Posted by ZDN on December 5, 2009
Week ending 4 December 2009
This week ZBC TV and Radio get the perjury prize for a change. Their whole week has been dedicated to shouting about how Minister Biti is ‘witholding funds’ for agricultural inputs. This, accompanied by threats that ‘we cannot tolerate this any longer’ have the ordinary folk wondering if Zanu-PF are actually trying to stir up the anger of the masses in order to create a volatile situation they can then exploit. (see Dirty Tricks Manual, page 1)
In addition, this week proved once again that Mugabe and his band are thoroughly versed in the evil art of propaganda. As the infamous Nazi media boss Joseph Goebbels said, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”
The other theme this week was spouted by the state-owned Herald, which in typical insane fashion, blamed the sanctions for the deadly cholera epidemic. Huh? And Taffy Maho-so-so, in his weekly drivel in the Sunday Mail, merely copied and pasted – yes, word-for-word – a third of his article from the previous week. (He gets paid for word count, obviously). Plus like Goebbels he knows his job is to repeat, repeat, and repeat the same lame fibs all the time. Below we give you a few of the lies in all their unabashed glory, and the scoop on what’s really going on.
The Lie
ZBC: Finance Minister Tendai Biti is sabotaging the season’s agricultural inputs, by withholding funds, so that whites can go back to their farms.
The Reality
Minister Biti has released all the available funding for seed and other farm inputs, and encouraged the NGOs to distribute as much as they can. What the minister is holding back on, is using that big IMF loan that Zanu-PF is dying to get their hands on. Biti has repeatedly warned that Zimbabwe is in extreme debt already (six thousand million US$) and we should not take on more. And ZBC’s deeply flawed logic – withhold inputs so that whites can return – is just so twisted as to be pure Zanu-PF.
The Lie
The Herald: …people ululate at that nonsense forgetting that because of these illegal and cruel economic sanctions relatives succumbed to cholera last year.
The Reality
Let’s get this straight: you’re saying travel and shopping sanctions, targeted at a tiny group of Zanu-PF elite, caused a cholera epidemic? Or that the embargo on weapons did it? That’s just plain absurd, and a waste of ink. The sanctions are neither illegal nor cruel, unless of course you think that not buying new shoes in Paris is a terrible deprivation.
The Lie
Mahoso: The people of Zimbabwe made a tragic mistake…by voting indifferently and indecisively in March 2008
The Reality
What is this drivel, Daffy? There was nothing indifferent or indecisive about their vote. They decisively voted for Tsvangirai and for change. Period.
The Lie
Zanu-PF youths: The Kariba draft is the country’s current constitution.
The Reality
The Lancaster House constitution (amended many times to suit Zanu-PF) is the current constitution. The Kariba draft is being put to the people before it is adopted as the official constitution of Zimbabwe. But Zanu-PF youths are lying to people in Chiadzwa, making them believe that the Kariba draft is final and already the current constitution. They’ve also allegedly been forcing people to meetings where they demand them to adopt the Kariba draft as the constitution. It also shows that they don’t know what the word ‘draft’ means.
The Lie
The Herald: MDC-T’s new demands are aimed at collapsing the inclusive Government.
The Reality
It’s just the opposite. The MDC’s demands are aimed at making the government more inclusive, as up until now Zanu’s still been calling the shots.
The Lie
Mahoso: [The MDC] relegates the popular masses to the role of spectators who must be impressed through propaganda, deception, media stunts and lies.
The Reality
Stick the label where it fits, Taffy. That’s a perfect description of Zanu-PF’s strategy of trying to fool all the people all the time.
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