Mozambican police questions editor of weekly paper

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Mozambican police questions editor of weekly paper

8:29 CAT | 15 Jun 2016

O País

Mozambique’s Criminal Investigation Police (PIC) on Tuesday questioned the director and chief news editor of the weekly paper “Zambeze”, about a story it had carried on alleged attacks by gunmen of the Renamo rebel movement against Zimbabwean solders inside Mozambique.

There was no mystery about this story – the sole source is an item carried on 3 June by Nehanda Radio, an on-line radio station run by a Zimbabwean exile named Lance Guma.

This story is extremely thin. It stated “an unconfirmed number of Zimbabwean soldiers were caught up in a shoot-out with Renamo rebels, according to a report coming from Mozambique. A bus full of Zimbabwean soldiers was attacked by Renamo (rebels) on their way to Gorongosa to help the Mozambican government. The bus was attacked at Mesica turn off. Many deaths (occurred), said the source”.

This anonymous source is not remotely credible. There have been no reports of any Renamo activity on the road concerned (the road from Machipanda, on the Zimbabwean border to Chimoio and on to Beira).

No other news medium has reported a Zimbabwean, or any other foreign presence, in the current clashes between Mozambican government forces and Renamo.

Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama has claimed that the Mozambican government is being supported by forces from Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Angola, China and North Korea, but nobody else has seen any sign of such an unlikely coalition.

Demanding that the “Zambeze” director Joao Chamusse, and the chief news editor, Egidio Placibo, go to PIC headquarters to explain the story looked like intimidation.

According to a report in Wednesday’s issue of the independent daily “O Pais” the two journalists were suspicious of the identity of the policemen who came to the paper’s offices. They refused to enter the police vehicle and preferred to walk the short distance between “Zambeze” and PIC, where they were questioned for over three hours. They were not arrested.

Chamusse and Placido said the PIC agents quizzed them, not only about the story on Zimbabwean soldiers, but on items which claimed the security forces were attacking civilians in the centre of the country.

The police should have known that, under the Mozambican press law, journalists have the right not to reveal their sources. Interrogating the “Zambeze” journalists was thus futile.

Chamusse told the independent newssheet “Mediafax” that the police wanted to know what evidence there was for a story that the security forces had been stealing chickens in Vanduzi (a crime which has also been attributed to Renamo). “We have credible sources”, said Chamusse.

Placido said he regarded the way the two were notified to go to PIC as a form of intimidation. There was no need to send five police agents to the “Zambeze” office just as ask Chamusse and Placido to go to PIC.

During the questioning “they only wanted to know why I had published those news items”, said Placido.

Source: AIM