Banned Zambian newspaper now on the Web
We now have the banned February 6 issue of _The Post_ online! Frank Stuart kindly provided a copy of the text. I've HTMLized it, added background documents and information about other international censorship efforts, and put it online at: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~declan/zambia/ Zambia's president-cum-tyrant Frederick Chiluba has plenty of practice censoring local dissidents, broadcasters, and newspapermen. Now, if he likes, he can take on the Net. I've copied this message to the state news service, Zambia Today. Please redistribute as appropriate. -Declan ------------------------------------------------------------------------ http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~declan/zambia/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ NET CENSORSHIP AND ZAMBIAN DICTATORS By Declan McCullagh declan@well.com Zambian President and Dictator-for-Life Frederick Chiluba has made a career of intimidating, harassing, arresting, and censoring those who disagree with him. Now his attempts to muzzle his critics have reached the Net -- specificially, Zamnet, the only Internet service provider in this impoverished African country. Chiluba has plenty of experience intimidating traditional media. At Chiluba's bidding, in December 1994 an armed paramilitary unit raided the Lusaka offices of The Post newspaper and its printer Printpak in Ndola looking for "seditious and defamatory material" -- just as the presses were starting to roll. Germany's ambassador to Zambia, Peter Schmidt, who witnessed the raid, told InterPress Service that "the raid amounted to an attempt to intimidate the free press." A few days later, police arrested the top editors of the weekly Crime News and held them without bail and without filing charges. The journalists' offense? The newsweekly had revealed that Chiluba's wife was involved in drug trafficking. The year before, Chiluba sued The Weekly Post for libel after the paper reported on his shady financial dealings with South Africa. Chiluba also fired the head of the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation for not broadcasting appropriately pro-government programming. In 1994, the ever-vigilant Chiluba introduced legislation to make the Zambian media answerable to a government-appointed secret tribunal with broad, undefined powers of censure and punishment. Chiluba's latest state-sponsored terrorism came in early February 1996, after The Post published a report revealing the government's plans to hold a referendum on the adoption of a new constitution -- plans Chilbua hoped to keep secret to the disadvantage of his political opponents. True to form, the hypersensitive Chiluba ordered his forces to invade the newspaper's office, ransack the paper's files, arrest the editors, and stop the presses. Security forces then sealed the offices of The Post. Chiluba's despotic behavior is reprehensible. Foreign governments immediately should yank the $1.8 billion in foreign aid Zambia receives each year and demand Chiluba's ouster. That failing, it's high time for the Zambian people to kick their thin-skinned tyrant out of office. February 16, 1996: Zamnet Communication Systems, which hosts the the web version of The Post, removes the online copy of the February 5 issue after police threaten a raid. David Lush of the Media Institute of Southern Africa publishes an advisory. February 18, 1996: After reading Lush's advisory, I send an appeal requesting the text to several mailing lists. February 19, 1996: Frank Stuart contacts me when I'm logged into the WELL, saying he has a copy of the banned issue of the newspaper. February 20, 1996: This archive goes online after I translate Frank's text into HTML. ###
[Please forward along to fight-censorship if non-redundant] I applaud your quick response. However, you should read more and consult people with area expertise. At least do the five-minute AltaVista and DejaNews search I did; don't just trust the information that gets sent to you, or you're likely to be used. I think you're at least 95% right here, but it is worth noting that The Post has ties to the former dictator of Zambia, who was replaced by the more or less democratically elected Chiluba whose ouster you so precipitously are demanding. First impressions and fast action are often necessary, but it's not responsible to stop there. Life & death politics isn't a toy. Chiluba is no saint, but he's no two-bit dictator, either. I'd probably rate him a notch or two below Aristide, no worse. He's certainly no Castro, Kim, or Idi Amin.Chiluba is pretty good by Sub-Saharan African standards (which, unfortunately, isn't saying much). For informed opinion, you should start with the Association of Concerned African Scholars: http://www.prairienet.org/acas/ You might want to add Amnesty International's 1995 report on Sub-Saharan Africa, which has some background on Zambia and Chiluba: http://www.amnesty.org/Africa95/360195.AFR.txt For those who read Swedish, this appears to be a more specific Amnesty report: http://www.everyday.se/amnesty/zambia2.html See Chiluba's comments on Nigerian human rights violations: http://www.prairienet.org/acas/chiluba.html Official statements of the Zambian government: http://www.zamnet.zm/zamnet/grz/govstate.html Two trivial stylistic whines: HTML bug: You need to prepend mailto: to the link to fstuart@vetmed.auburn.edu Graphical excess: And as I'm sure you're aware, the lead graphic is a bit large for most browsers. It takes up the whole 13" screen I have at home. -rich
Rich: You assume I did little research; this assumption is incorrect. Did you actually read the documents your search turned up, including the ones in Swedish? I spent a few hours last night reading documents that Altavista found, including the U.S. State Department's report on human rights in Zambia under Chiluba. It says in part: Police often ignore procedural requirements and engage in abusive and brutal behavior, including beating and at times killing criminal suspects and detainees... The press and other media continued to run afoul of legal restraints on freedom of expression and suffered political reprisals for expressing independent views. I also read enough back issues of _The Post_ to get a feel for their editorial tone, and even if they had ties to the former dictator (an assertion you don't back up), their recent coverage of events was not unfair, IMHO. I've also read three reports by the Media Institute of South Africa (MISA), calling for sanctions and a withholding of foreign aid to Zambia for their human rights abuses, especially of members of the media. I agree, and I also called for pressure through foreign aid. You seem to be unduly critical of my report. *shrug* I don't expect everyone to agree with me, and I suppose I should be happy that you think I'm "95% right," whatever that means. -Declan On Wed, 21 Feb 1996, Rich Graves wrote:
Date: Wed, 21 Feb 1996 01:55:01 -0800 (PST) From: Rich Graves <llurch@networking.stanford.edu> To: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> Cc: cypherpunks@toad.com Subject: Bravo, mostly (Re: Banned Zambian newspaper now on the Web)
[Please forward along to fight-censorship if non-redundant]
I applaud your quick response. However, you should read more and consult people with area expertise. At least do the five-minute AltaVista and DejaNews search I did; don't just trust the information that gets sent to you, or you're likely to be used.
I think you're at least 95% right here, but it is worth noting that The Post has ties to the former dictator of Zambia, who was replaced by the more or less democratically elected Chiluba whose ouster you so precipitously are demanding. First impressions and fast action are often necessary, but it's not responsible to stop there. Life & death politics isn't a toy. Chiluba is no saint, but he's no two-bit dictator, either. I'd probably rate him a notch or two below Aristide, no worse. He's certainly no Castro, Kim, or Idi Amin.Chiluba is pretty good by Sub-Saharan African standards (which, unfortunately, isn't saying much).
For informed opinion, you should start with the Association of Concerned African Scholars:
http://www.prairienet.org/acas/
You might want to add Amnesty International's 1995 report on Sub-Saharan Africa, which has some background on Zambia and Chiluba:
http://www.amnesty.org/Africa95/360195.AFR.txt
For those who read Swedish, this appears to be a more specific Amnesty report:
http://www.everyday.se/amnesty/zambia2.html
See Chiluba's comments on Nigerian human rights violations:
http://www.prairienet.org/acas/chiluba.html
Official statements of the Zambian government:
http://www.zamnet.zm/zamnet/grz/govstate.html
Two trivial stylistic whines:
HTML bug: You need to prepend mailto: to the link to fstuart@vetmed.auburn.edu
Graphical excess: And as I'm sure you're aware, the lead graphic is a bit large for most browsers. It takes up the whole 13" screen I have at home.
-rich
On Wed, 21 Feb 1996, Declan McCullagh wrote:
You seem to be unduly critical of my report. *shrug* I don't expect everyone to agree with me, and I suppose I should be happy that you think I'm "95% right," whatever that means.
No, you shouldn't care what I think. You should care about being right. Which I think you are, at least 95% of the time. But calling for Chiluba's ouster after a couple hours' reading is a little hasty IMO. I'd have stopped at something like, "Chiluba again showed his lack of respect for democratic institutions and the free press by censoring the newspaper reproduced below. He has also been criticized by the US State Department and Amnesty International, though Zambia's record is better than that of many other Sub-Saharan African states, most notably Nigeria, Rwanda, and Burundi (which you might consider small praise indeed)." He's no hero, but I'd reserve the "Get the hell out" rhetoric for complete tyrants who kill people for fun, and tolerate no independent press at all. There's plenty of those around. You'll be taken more seriously (and I think you SHOULD be taken more seriously) if you don't overreact. -rich
participants (2)
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Declan McCullagh -
Rich Graves