Wilf Mbanga: ‘Zimbabwean government realised that burning the news attracts world headlines’
December 1, 2009 by Webmaster
By Chris Kay
In Zimbabwe there are nervous and wishful whispers that the banned independent press may return. Yet, Wilf Mbanga, the self-expelled editor of The Zimbabwean newspaper based in the UK, is in no rush to fly home to the troubled country.
“It’s safe here for me. I don’t have to worry about a knock on the door at 4am in the morning,” he says.
A critic of President Robert Mugabe’s regime, Mbanga was arrested in 2001. In 2003 the government shut down Zimbabwe’s only independent national newspaper, The Daily News, where he was the publisher’s managing director.
“[The state-controlled media] declared me an enemy of the people,” he says. The same year he fled to the Netherlands before settling in the UK.
After working as a journalist for 40 years, Mbanga launched The Zimbabwean, a weekly newspaper, starting off with a modest circulation of 5,000 copies in the UK and South Africa.
“Zimbabweans in the diaspora are desperate for information from back home,” he explains.
Realising the popularity of The Zimbabwean, the print run increased to 200,000 and began to send truckloads into Zimbabwe itself. It soon became the country’s best selling newspaper.
The Zimbabwean is now at the heart of the struggle to dislodge Mugabe’s iron grip on the country.
I think its high time people started telling the truth about Wilf Mbanga and his newspaper.
When Wilf Mbanga was arrested he was no longer managing director of The Daily News. He had parted ways with it already after some acrimony with the newspaper’s management and was running his own public relations firm. He was still a shareholder and his arrest and appearance in court was connected with issues to do with the newspaper when he had been one of the major people involved with it.
He did not flee into exile. He left, according to what he told his friends, to take up an offer from the Netherlands to spend a year (or perhaps it was two years) in the Netherlands writing a book on Sir Seretse Khama, the former president of Botswana.
He took his time preparing for his departure and held a farewell party at his home prior to leaving. His departure and reasons for it were know to all and they had nothing to do with fleeing into exile.
It did seem strange that the Netherelands should be willing to finance his writing such a book and he did say that his association with the Daily News and its being shut down had been a factor.
Some of us thought at the time there must be a pay back time and of course there was. After writing his book, Wilf Mbanga started The Zimbabwean, initailly with Duttch funds according to reports at the time. He concocted this story about fleeing into exile and being unable to return home because he was regarded as an enemy of the state. I suppose this was intended to give him some sort of credibility and credientials. Those in the foreign media in Zimbabwe who knew him, even those opposed to the government, were incredulousthat he could make such a claim and said that, if he was correctly reported, then that was ‘naughty ‘ of him to fabricate such a claim.
The claim that he was regarded as an enemy of the state was, of course, poppycock. He could of course now justifiably be considered in that light, considering the damage he has since tried tinflict on Zimbabwe through the lies and gross distoritions of fact that appear in his newspaper.
A newspaper founded on a lie (that its editor was driven into exile) is flawed from the start. The downright untruths that appeared in the newspaper meant that it lost its credibility from the start. Many are those who depsite being anti-government would say: I’m anti-Zanu (PF) but this newpaper goes too far. It is unbelievable because it is full of so many lies.
It would be very surprising if it were true that The Zimbabwean has become the country’s most popular paper. It completely lacks credibility in most people’s eyes.
It is possible that in more recent times it has changed and become more truthful. I wouldn’t know as I dismissed it as a scurrilous rag long back not worth spending any money on.
Incidentally the Daily News was shut down because it refused to comply wiht the law and seek registration, contrary tothe advice ofits editor. Those independent newspapers, even those highy criticla of the government, that did apply for registration were registered and most of them continue to this day.
The impression given that there is no independent press in Zimbabwe is also false. There are several weeklies that are not only critical of government but abusive in their references to the head of state in a manner that would never be tolerated in Britain, the USA or most other countries. It is true that there is not yet an independent daily although there are several publishing houses preparing to launch dailies soon.The Zimbabwean has never been banned, despite the untruths that it prints.
Some of us who knew, or thought we knew, Wilf Mbanga well, are disappointed that he could have, presumably for the sake of the money he gets from his sponsored propaganda campaign, embarked on a campaign of untruthfulness against his own country, particularly when one looks at the effects that sanctions by those who can use the sort of drivle he publishes as ammuntion to justify their actions, has had on ordinary Zimbabweans. . We used to have respect for him as a principled professional. I doubt he will ever be seen as that again.