Three unidentified men admire PM Tsvangirai’s newsletter in Harare

ZANU PF propagandists launched a tired naked attack on the launch of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s newsletter released last Wednesday.

Writing in the editorial of the first issue PM Tsvangirai said the publication had been necessitate by the desire to “report back to the people the progress and the problems of the inclusive government” which he formed with president Mugabe in February.

In an article by a “mysterious author” in the Sunday Mail, ZANU PF progandists claimed that Tsvangirai was on a collision course with cabinet for not seeking cabinet authority before publishing the newsletter.

The article however shoots itself down by announcing that there was no law that stopped PM from publishing a newsletter. There was also no laid down procedures the the PM must seek cabinet authority before publishing a newsletter.

The Sunday Mail article was also fraught with factual errors or outright lies meant to raise alarm. It claimed that 400 000 copies of the PM’s newsletter were distributed when only 40 000, according to the PM’ website (www.zimbabweprimeminister.com) were printed.
This deliberate sensationalization will not fly in Zimbabwe. Zimbabweans are not stupid to believe the Herald. If they did Tsvangirai and his MDC would have lost last year’s election.

People fighting to get hold of a newsletter from the office of the Prime Minister in the CBD of Harare, a few days after Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai met US President Barak Obama..17 June 09

This week MDC legislator for Mbizo, Settlement Chikwinya tabled a motion in Parliament calling on the Executive to bring before Parliament a repeal or amendment of any pieces of legislation that curtail media freedom.

Chikwinya’s motion also raised concerns over the continued abuse of the state media. He called on Parliament and the Information Ministry to immediately constitute the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe, and grant licences to other players in the field.

We understand that information ministry permenant secretary George Charamba, stung by the impact the A3 gloss four-pager had, is leading the onslaught on the PM.

Tsvangirai is a fighter, and the mistake that George and the other nose-suckers are making is that they think they can shut Tsvangirai up. Little do they know that trying to do so is like fighting the whole nation.

The way the newsletter was received shows that Zimbabweans are starved of a reliable paper to read. Zimbabweans literally scrambled to get their hands on PM’s newsletter. Since the closure of the Daily News, by Charamba and his then information minister Jonathan Moyo in 2003, Zimbabweans have been bombarded with stupid shallow propaganda, made worse by the employment of geography teachers and hopeless Tom Dick and Harrys’ as senior reporters at the state run newspapers.

A soldier receives a copy of PM Morgan Tsvangirai’s Newsletter

The coming on board of Tsvangirai has forced them to come out of their cubicle and defende their territory which is inevitably shaken.

The collision that the Sunday Mail talks about is a figment of the mind. The Media and Information Commission which they have used all these years to silence dissenting voices has been declared illegal by the High Court. Which law is the mysterious author of the article talking about?

This Zimbabwe has gotten to a stage where no single being can dictate how it should move and worse no individual can dictate the speed at which this Zimbabwe should move.

For some of us the progressive minds, we are waiting to see how they intend to undo this momentum.