IRAQ: The War As Seen Through The African Lens

By James Hall Reprint | | Print |

James Hall

JOHANNESBURG, Apr 2 2003 (IPS) - With the opinion of the African public and media community both almost unanimously opposed to the US-British led war in Iraq – indeed, it is hard to find a pro-war voice on the continent – many media organisations find it hard to achieve journalist objectivity. Some do not even try.

The Johannesburg Star echoes the opinion of former South African President Nelson Mandela, who has condemned the war as illegal. The opinion is not restricted to editorial comments, but informs story content. In one fairly typical front-page article devoted to an explosion at a Baghdad market, the writer began with a string of very unobjective adjectives that read like a dispatch from Saddam Hussein’s ministry of information.

"We’re giving the people what they want, and what we believe. What’s wrong with that?" a Star reporter told IPS.

Indeed, with South Africans receiving reports from Sky News that originated from the overtly pro-American Fox News Network, some journalists see anti-war coverage from a supposedly neutral location like Africa to be a beneficial balance.

Not that Africa is wholly unaffected by the war to achieve regime change in Baghdad. At a panel discussion of top news managers from the Southern Africa region sponsored by the South Africa Presidential Press Corps this week, Milton Nkosi, a BBC newsman who operates out of Johannesburg, said world media attention currently focused on Iraq means important news originating on the African continent is being neglected by international news organisations.

Ironically, one of the top stories reported by Reuters International this week originated from Swaziland, and told of how one African news organisation, hamstrung by finances, resorted to deception to be in on the Iraq War action.

The nation’s government-owned radio station, apparently jealous of international news organisations with the money to send correspondents to cover the war in Iraq, had an announcer phone in purported live broadcasts from Baghdad from his home, said members of parliament who exposed the rouse.

"Why are they lying to the nation that the man is in Iraq, when he is here in Swaziland, broadcasting out of a broom closet?" MP Jojo Dlamini demanded of information minister Mntomzima Dlamini at a House of Assembly session.

For the morning news programme of the Swaziland Broadcast and Information Service last week, announcer Phesheya Dube read copy from wire services for his reports. The programme host, Moses Matsebula, advised Dlamini to "find a cave somewhere to be safe from missiles."

Some MPs spotted Dlamini at the weekend, and expressed surprise that he had returned from Iraq. They begged him not to return to the war zone. Minister Dlamini told MPs he would investigate the hoax. But in a cabinet reshuffle yesterday, he was sent to the education ministry.

The Swaziland radio rouse was a humorous sidelight to the serious business of a war that media practitioners were denouncing throughout the continent. Corresponding through the African Economic Editors Forum, Ugandan editor Fred Ojambo faulted African leaders who backed the U.S and Britain in Iraq, and found a common denominator to link them.

"When only four African countries openly backed the American-led invasion of Iraq questions have raged why the deuce only these cheerleaders openly backed this aggression which lacked the UN mandate. By backing an illegitimate war, it is hoped Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, Paul Kagame (Rwanda), Meles Zenawi (Ethiopia) and Afwerki (Eritrea) will get legitimacy from their own questionable wars on the continent," Ojambo wrote.

"It is hoped the four leaders expect the Bush/Blair ‘coalition of the willing’ will close their eyes while these four leaders pursue their own adventures. And a likely paramount reason could be that the four leaders expect the US to handsomely open its purse in appreciation for their support."

A journalist from Ghana, Raymond Bulley, wrote to his fellow African editors, "The question that we should ask ourselves is whether this was necessary. For me, having seen war in Liberia and Rwanda, I still haven’t gotten it, whether there was really the need for war in the light of the forged documents that the US/UK presented to the UN to support their desire to attack Iraq."

Echoing the sentiments of other journalists, he concluded, "Much as I do not like Saddam Hussein, I don’t believe that the plan to remove him through external force was justified in the least. Well, the allied forces have not had it that easy, so that I say is how God planned."

An editor from North Africa, where large anti-war street demonstrations have flared from Tunis to Cairo, threatening those governments’ ability to contain them, one editor agreed with his Ghanaian colleague’s desire that the US be deflated somewhat.

"Reading the western press one gets the impression that the Iraq war is some kind of picnic, with Saddam Hussein a minor inconvenience, that the US and Britain have God’s permission to trash anything that they consider ‘evil.’ I do not think it hurts a bit to show that the US is not exactly invincible, that they are human after all or that they can actually be scared. If Iraq prisoners can be paraded before the western press, why shouldn’t the Iraqis parade the US prisoners? There appears to be different interpretations of the so-called Geneva Convention from both sides, so it depends who is talking."

African journalists are also chastising their western counterparts for what they see as pro-war stances. Wrote Mozambique editor Simeo Cossa, "I think with editorials laced with quotes such as ‘giving hope to Iraqi kids is the world’s best hope too’ – that the western media is displaying that it has, for the meantime, put aside journalism principles." (ENDS/IPS/AF/IP/JH/SM/03)

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