Steve Wilson and Jane Akre, a husband-and-wife investigative reporting team at WTVT, Fox's Tampa Bay affiliate, thought they had a dynamite story: Despite promises to consumers, supermarkets in Florida were selling milk produced with rBGH, a synthetic growth hormone developed by Monsanto that boosts milk production. The use of rBGH causes udder infections in cows, requiring increased use of antibiotics, but the monitoring of antibiotic residues in milk was inadequate, Akre and Wilson found.
Most ominously, the Fox reporters found that some scientists believe that rBGH-boosted milk contains heightened levels of IGF-1, a hormone associated with increased risk of cancer (Science, 1/23/98). Despite Monsanto's claim that rBGH is "the most studied molecule certainly in the history of domestic animal science," no thorough studies exist on whether milk produced with rBGH is carcinogenic.
These are vital facts for consumers in Florida -- and around the country -- to know. But the story never aired on WTVT, and Wilson and Akre are now out of a job and suing Fox -- because of Fox's efforts to alter their story to make it acceptable to Monsanto.
On February 21, 1997, days before the first installment of the rBGH story was scheduled to air, Monsanto sent a letter to Roger Ailes, the head of Fox News. (Ailes was a campaign advisor to Ronald Reagan and George Bush, and the executive producer of Rush Limbaugh's TV show.) The letter questioned Akre and Wilson's "objectivity and capacity for reporting on this highly complex scientific subject," and charged that the reporters "have prejudged the safety of [rBGH] and the corporate behavior of Monsanto." The letter urged Ailes to involve himself directly in an effort to "get the facts straight" about rBGH, hinting none-too-subtly that the alternative would be a massive lawsuit: "There is a lot at stake in what is going on in Florida, not only for Monsanto, but also for Fox News and its owner."
That same day, Akre and Wilson were told that their story was being postponed, and an endless round of revisions, cuts and conferences with lawyers ensued. (The pressure only intensified after Monsanto sent Ailes a second letter warning of "dire consequences for Fox News.") Fox's attitude was made clear by in-house counsel Carolyn Forrest, who reportedly told Akre and Wilson, "I don't think this story is worth going to court and to trial spending a couple of hundred thousand dollars to fight Monsanto." Her position, the reporters say, was that "it doesn't matter if the facts are true"; what mattered was that no story air that could result in a Monsanto lawsuit that wouldn't be immediately dismissed.
In a memo, Akre and Wilson assured station management that they were willing to work with lawyers to produce a balanced and accurate story that would be legally unassailable, but insisted that they could not take part in airing a program that was false or misleading. In response, the reporters allege in their lawsuit against Fox, they were told by station manager David Boylan: "We paid $3 billion for these television stations. We will decide what the news is. The news is what we tell you it is."
After dozens of rewrites, the journalists and the station still couldn't agree on a version of the report that everyone was happy with. Fox didn't seem to want to kill the piece, but that appears to have been more about fear of bad PR than about a commitment to report the news: At one point the station offered to pay Wilson roughly $125,000, if he would just go away and never tell anyone how the story had been handled. He turned down the offer.
After Keystone Kops-like personnel maneuvers in which the couple were variously suspended without pay, suspended with pay and forbidden to work out of the studio, Fox eventually notified them by fax that they were both fired on November 30, 1997. The station never aired any version of the story they had produced.
All this has come to light because of Akre and Wilson's lawsuit against the Fox affiliate, charging breach of contract and violation of Florida's whistleblower protection act. How far the suit will get is unclear: Courts have been rightly reluctant to second-guess news judgments made by media owners. But regardless of its outcome, the filing of the suit has shed light on the cowardice and compromise often exhibited by news outlets in the face of corporate pressure.
Many of the central documents in the case are on a website posted by Akre and Wilson (www.foxbghsuit.com). Rachel's Environment & Health Weekly has an excellent summary of the scientific questions about rBGH posted at www.monitor.net/rachel/r593.html.
Return to chronology Jun 1998
WebPosted Thu Mar 22 15:07:24 2001
BEIJING - U.S. President George W. Bush is being encouraged to ask for a scholar's release when he meets with Chinese Vice-Premier Qian Qichen on Thursday.
Gao Zhan, a Chinese-born sociologist at the American University of Washington, D.C., was arrested on Feb. 11 along with her husband and five-year-old son at Beijing's airport.
The U.S. State Department in Washington has demanded China release Gao immediately.
Her husband, Xue Donghua and U.S.-born son Andrew, were released 26 days later and returned to the United States.
But Gao is still being held on suspicion of "carrying out activities endangering national security," according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
No details of the charges have been provided by Chinese authorities.
Human Rights in China, a group based in New York, has asked Bush to make an appeal to Qian for Gao's release when they meet on Thursday.
The group is also concerned about reports the boy, who is a U.S. citizen, was held separately from his parents, and without notifying the U.S. embassy.
The detention of Gao is the third time in the past three years a Chinese-born researcher has been detained while on a trip home.
An expert on China's military who works at Stanford University was sentenced last month to 10 years in prison on espionage charges after being arrested in 1998. And a college librarian from Pennsylvania was arrested in 1999 while researching the Cultural Revolution, and was held for six months.
[NB: For researching the Cultural Revolution. Not even for criticizing it. --MN]
Copyright 2001, CBC News Online
Reprinted with permission of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Return to chronology 11 Feb 2001
KANSAS CITY, Kan. - The editor and publisher of a free newspaper face the rare charge of criminal defamation because of their published criticism against two Kansas City politicians.
Wyandotte County District Attorney Nick Tomasic filed 10 misdemeanor criminal-defamation charges March 1 against publisher David Carson, editor Edward H. Powers Jr., and Observer Publications, which distributes The New Observer through the mail and at businesses throughout Wyandotte County.
The Observer has been a constant and severe critic of Tomasic and Mayor Carol Marinovich, who is involved in a difficult reelection campaign in today's general election.
The criminal-defamation charges are a new arena for Tomasic, who has never filed them in his 30 years in office. Kansas is one of 25 states that still have criminal-defamation statutes, but this is the first time in many years it has been used in the state, said Ron Keefover, spokesman for the Kansas Supreme Court.
"These are usually civil lawsuits, and we have had those, but a criminal charge is an extremely unusual circumstance," Keefover said.
That's true across the nation, said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. "It is even more unusual that anyone wins one of these cases," she said.
In the Wyandotte County case, eight of the charges are based on claims in the Observer that Marinovich and her husband, District Court Judge Ernest Johnson, do not actually live in Wyandotte County. If true, Marinovich could not serve as mayor. She has consistently denied the allegations.
The other two charges allege that the men defamed Kansas City residents Andy Rollins and former Kansas City (Mo.) Star reporter Steve Nicely by accusing them of being hired "to lie for Marinovich."
Powers and Carson each posted $1,000 bond and have an April 10 court hearing. If found guilty, they could be fined $2,500 and jailed for a year.
Tomasic said he decided to file the charges because the allegations were "false and malicious" and "that's what the statute provides."
He declined to comment further to the Associated Press, but in an earlier interview with the Star, he denied that the charges were politically motivated and said Marinovich had not encouraged him to file them.
Marinovich and Carson did not return calls from the AP.
Powers declined to comment, saying he said all he wanted to in the Observer. In the edition published after the charges were filed, the Observer said that the charges were "obviously political" and violated the men's right to free speech. The paper also alleges that Marinovich and Tomasic conspired to bring the charges because they are concerned about her reelection chances.
The notion of criminal defamation is based on old English law that presumed the state had to punish falsities. The country got away from that idea in the early 1900s and embraced the idea that if there is an injury to someone's reputation -- but not a physical threat -- such complaints should be decided in civil court, Dalglish said.
The other problem with the charges, she said, is that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that prosecutors must prove actual malice to win.
"It's a real threat to free speech if you make it too easy to win these cases," Dalglish said. "It would really stifle speech, particularly in the context of a political campaign.
"Throwing someone in jail for speaking is misplaced punishment. The appropriate way to proceed is to seek civil damages."
Return to chronology 01 Mar 2001
FAIR-L
Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting
Media analysis, critiques and news reports
MEDIA ADVISORY:
Stations censor or fail to air scheduled shows about Pacifica crisis
March 28, 2001
The Pacifica radio network has been known for decades as the home of "listener-sponsored free speech radio." But recent incidents in which Pacifica stations have failed to air regularly scheduled shows featuring discussions of Pacifica have left the network's listener/sponsors in the dark about the growing Pacifica debate, even as mainstream media outlets are reporting on the story.
While instances of Pacifica stations censoring or failing to air discussions about the network have been reported over the past several years, since December's "Christmas coup" -- when workers at Pacifica's New York City station, WBAI, were fired and banned from the station -- incidents of Pacifica management silencing news about the network have increased considerably.
Recent instances in which Pacifica stations censored, silenced or failed to air discussions about the controversy include:
--March 26: Three days after a Los Angeles forum about Pacifica attracted more than 1,200, Pacifica executive director Bessie Wash interrupted the national broadcast of the show Democracy Now! to accuse critics of Pacifica management of participating in or encouraging violence. In the emotional four-and-a-half minute address, Wash served up inaccuracies and highly disputed allegations as facts, recounting two recent incidents in which she says critics physically assaulted Pacifica employees. Wash's actions suggest that Pacifica's "dirty laundry rule" -- which threatens broadcasters with disciplinary action if they discuss the Pacifica crisis on-air -- only applies to those with whom Wash and Pacifica management disagree. (Several broadcasters have lost their jobs for violating this rule.)
--March 16: Washington, D.C.'s WPFW censored an edition of Democracy Now! featuring a debate between Pacifica board member John Murdock and former Democracy Now! co-host Juan Gonzalez, who has called for the removal of some Pacifica National Board members and a boycott of station fundraisers.
--Week of March 12: FAIR's radio show CounterSpin featured a discussion with three Pacifica critics. (Pacifica management did not return several phone calls asking them to participate.) Only one of Pacifica's five stations -- Berkeley's KPFA -- aired CounterSpin as scheduled. Los Angeles' KPFK aired a documentary about Lady Bird Johnson instead, while New York's WBAI aired an old edition of the show. Houston's KPFT did not air CounterSpin's Pacifica program until two weeks after it was scheduled. WPFW canceled CounterSpin in 1999, following an earlier edition of the show that focused on Pacifica issues. CounterSpin has been censored or altered numerous other times by Pacifica stations when it has addressed the Pacifica crisis. (See "Pacifica Station Axes CounterSpin": http://www.fair.org/activism/pacifica-wpfw.html.)
--March 13: After weeks of refusing to allow Amy Goodman to assume her usual role as co-host of WBAI's Wake Up Call, interim WBAI station manager Utrice Leid officially fired Goodman from the program. Leid's action followed Goodman's written complaint that she had been harassed by Clayton Riley, whom Leid had appointed as a temporary host on Wake Up Call. Wake Up Call news anchor Robert Knight, who had also been covering Pacifica, was informed of his dismissal from the show a month before Goodman.
--March 9: Mario Murillo, another co-host of Wake Up Call, resigned from the show after refusing to submit to management orders not to book Goodman as a guest on Wake Up Call, a show Goodman had co-hosted for years.
--March 5: WBAI's Leid interrupted and then canceled the labor show Building Bridges while host Ken Nash was conducting a live interview about Pacifica with Congressman Major Owens. The show's other host, Mimi Rosenberg, had been fired and banned from WBAI studios several days before; Nash was dismissed after the cancellation. Owens has since described himself as "gagged" in a speech on the floor of Congress, noting that Leid had "proclaimed that she had to intervene because it was her job to allow only the 'truth' over the airwaves."
--March 1: Houston station KPFT censored Democracy Now!'s announcement of an upcoming meeting of the Pacifica National Board in Houston.
--February 28: WPFW cut away from a Democracy Now! commentary on Pacifica by Pennsylvania death-row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal, airing jazz music instead.
--February 14: Three separate independent websites featuring discussion of Pacifica issues -- savepacifica.net, wbai.net, and wbaifree.org -- received letters from Pacifica's lawyers at the firm Epstein, Becker & Green threatening suit if the groups that run the websites did not transfer the rights to the domain names to Pacifica by February 19.
--January 31: Democracy Now! co-host Juan Gonzalez resigned on-air; WPFW and KPFT cut away from his statement to other programming. Gonzalez cited harassment and muzzling of free speech as key reasons for his departure.
For most of its 50-year history, Pacifica has been a vital and vibrant resource for the progressive community. Recently, however, a self-selected board majority has acted to disempower listeners and local station workers, watering down the network's tradition of critical, independent programming. Listener groups, as well as staff at some stations, have organized ongoing protests against Pacifica's management and in support of a democratic, accountable and diverse network.
For more information, please visit: http://www.fair.org/activism/pacifica-history.html
Feel free to respond to FAIR ( fair@fair.org ). We can't reply to everything, but we will look at each message. We especially appreciate documented example of media bias or censorship. And please send copies of your email correspondence with media outlets, including any responses, to us at: fair@fair.org .
FAIR contact information deleted as redundant. Click this link to access particulars.
Return to chronology 28 Mar 2001
By freedomforum.org staff
08.02.01
China has formally charged a Chinese-born American writer and scholar with endangering state security, a U.S. diplomat said.
Wu Jianmin, who was detained in April, was officially arrested May 26 on charges of "collecting information that endangered state security," according to Mark Canning, a spokesman for the U.S. consulate in the southern city of Guangzhou, the Associated Press reported. Canning confirmed the arrest yesterday.
Reuters reported that Wu is suspected of contributing to The Tiananmen Papers, a book purporting to reveal the internal debates that led to the bloody 1989 massacre of pro-democracy protesters around Beijing's Tiananmen Square.
A Western diplomat in Beijing told Reuters movement on Wu's case had been expected and China had indicated the charges would be linked to espionage. But he said diplomats were unaware of any direct relation to the The Tiananmen Papers book.
Wu, 46, taught at a Communist Party school and was a journalist for a state newspaper in southern China from 1986 to 1988, according to Reuters. He later wrote a book about the Tiananmen crackdown, in which hundreds, perhaps thousands, of civilians were killed. He had been living in New York City.
The detentions of Wu and other U.S.-linked scholars by Beijing over the past year have strained ties with Washington and caused worry and dismay among China scholars. China convicted three scholars on spying charges last week and then set them free on medical parole ahead of a visit by Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Wu was being investigated on suspicion of spying for Taiwan, according to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. China alleged that the scholars released last week also spied for Taiwan, AP reported.
Chinese officials said the status of Wu's case had not changed since his formal arrest in May, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said yesterday in Washington. But the formal charge virtually assures that Wu will be indicted and tried.
The BBC reported that Wu "would probably go on trial in the coming week."
Return to chronology 26 May 2001
ACTION ALERT:
Let Democracy Now! Be Heard:
Crucial Pacifica show needs to be reinstated
May 29, 2001
FAIR activists came to the aid of Democracy Now! -- one of the best examples of investigative journalism in U.S. broadcasting-- when its award-winning host Amy Goodman was facing pressure from the Pacifica radio network where she works. Thousands of emails helped persuade Pacifica management to back down. Now Democracy Now! needs your help again, as the show has been silenced at Pacifica/WBAI in New York, the station where the program originates.
Apparently seen as insufficiently loyal to the new station management that has fired or banned numerous broadcasters, the show has been off the air at WBAI since the station launched its current fund drive on May 16. In the past, such "temporary" removals during fund drives have been a prelude to permanent cancellations at Pacifica stations.
Democracy Now! still airs on other Pacifica stations -- live broadcasts of the show returned to L.A.'s KPFK on May 24 after a protest campaign there -- but technical problems undermine the broadcasts because WBAI management has pushed the Democracy Now! staff into a second-rate auxiliary studio.
Amy Goodman has faced harassment on-air and off at WBAI, especially since Pacifica's national leadership abruptly imposed new station management last Christmas. She was recently fired from WBAI's popular morning show, Wake Up Call, after hosting the show with fired program director Bernard White since 1992. (Wake Up Call was cancelled following a "temporary" removal several months ago.)
ACTION: FAIR urges supporters of Goodman and Democracy Now! to contact WBAI in New York and Pacifica management, calling for Democracy Now!'s immediate return to the air.
CONTACT:
Utrice Leid
WBAI interim manager
Tel: (212) 209-2820
mailto:uleid@escape.com
Bessie Wash
Executive Director, Pacifica Radio
Tel: 888-770-4944 x348
Fax: 202-588-0562
mailto:bmwpacifica@aol.com
Contact Pacifica Board members:
David G. Acosta
Chair, Pacifica National Board
Tel: 713-926-4604
Fax: 713-921-2780
mailto:cpadga@aol.com
Ken Ford
Vice Chair
Tel: 202-822-0228
Fax: 202-822-0369
mailto:kford@nahb.com
Andrea Cisco
Secretary, Pacifica National Board
Tel: 718-624-6105
Fax: 718-624-6287
mailto:acdarius@aol.com
Bertram M. Lee
Pacifica National Board
Tel: 202-248-1896
John M. Murdock
Pacifica National Board
Tel: 202-861-0900
Fax: 202-296-2882
mailto:jmurdock@ebglaw.com
Karolyn van Putten
Pacifica National Board
Tel: 415-771-1160
Fax: 603-699-0715
mailto:kvpphd@aol.com
Wendell L. Johns
Pacifica National Board
Tel: 202-752-8193
Fax: 202-752-4281
mailto:wendell_L_johns@fanniemae.com
Bob Farrell
Pacifica National Board
Tel: 310-514-2052
Fax: 310-514-0967
mailto:rfarrell@kamber.com
Valrie Chambers
Pacifica National Board
Tel: 361-825-6012
Fax: 281-655-0266
mailto:Valrie.Chambers@mail.tamucc.edu
For more background, please see: http://www.fair.org/activism/pacifica-history.html
As always, please remember that your comments are taken more seriously if you maintain a polite tone. Please cc fair@fair.org with your correspondence.
FAIR contact information deleted as redundant. Click this link to access particulars.
Return to chronology 29 May 2001
08.02.01
A newspaper reporter and an opposition official in Zambia have been arrested and jointly charged with defaming the country's president.
According to MISA, the Media Institute of Southern Africa, Bivan Saluseki, a reporter with the privately owned newspaper The Post, and Edith Nawakwi, a senior official with the opposition Forum for Democracy and Development, were arrested on July 25.
The charge stemmed from a Post story published on July 16 in which Saluseki reported on an allegation by Nawakwi that President Frederick Chiluba had allowed his ministers to steal public funds, which they later shared with him, according to the Post story.
The two have been charged under section 69 of the penal code, which MISA describes as making it a criminal offense "for anyone to intentionally incite hatred, ridicule, or contempt against the president or publish any defamatory information which is insulting to the president."
MISA, based in Windhoek, Namibia, says the Zambian criminal offense carries a maximum prison term of three years, but there is no fine.
Saluseki and Nawakwi were due to appear in court on July 27, but the hearing did not take place. The state did not explain why the case did not begin, nor did it tell the defendants when their next court appearance would be.
Alfred Chanda, a law lecturer at the University of Zambia, was quoted by MISA as saying the defamation part of the penal code has "the effect of stifling freedom of speech and the press, as it does not lay down any guidelines for determining what constitutes an insulting matter. The police have the discretion to decide what publication is defamatory or insulting and what is not."
In January 2000, a government-appointed task force on media law reform recommended the repeal of section 69 because it contradicted democratic norms. "If the gains that have been made in the past few years in democratizing Zambia are to be consolidated, and an open and free society created, section 69 must be repealed," the task force said.
Return to chronology 25 Jul 2001
Return to op/ed piece on Vanessa Leggett case
WebPosted Wed Aug 15 07:30:43 2001
HARARE, ZIMBABWE - Police in Zimbabwe have arrested the editor of the country's only independent daily newspaper over the way his paper covered a recent outbreak of violent looting of white-owned farms.
A report in the Daily News alleged that police vehicles had been used in the looting.
Geoff Nyarota, the paper's editor-in-chief, was arrested in the early morning hours on Wednesday at his home.
An executive at the newspaper said he was being held at the Harare police station. He said police told him the arrest was because of a story in Tuesday's paper alleging police involvement in the violence.
The main opposition leader, Moran Tsvangirai, told a news conference on Tuesday that government vehicles had been used in the looting.
Police confirmed the arrest, but had no other comment.
Pro-government militants ran dozens of white families off their land this week, in a repeat of a wave of violence that gripped the countryside a year and a half ago.
In February 2000, men calling themselves veterans of the independence war seized hundreds of white-owned farms.
Earlier this week, white farmers near the town of Chinhoyi were terrorized. Police moved into the area to control the situation, which remains tense.
Nyarota has had troubles before.
The paper's printing press has been bombed and attacked by arsonists. He has been sued for defamation. And the paper's journalists have been assaulted and intimidated by government agents.
[On August 16th the High Court of Zimbabwe ruled that the arrests were illegal and the men were released. Leading to the following article. --MN]
HARARE - Authorities in Zimbabwe have charged four journalists with subversion for publishing a story that accused police of being involved in the recent looting of white-owned farms.
The Daily News story said looters used police vehicles in their attacks on farms in the Chinhoyi area. The fresh charges came after a court threw out another case against the journalists earlier this week.
Geoff Nyarota, editor-in-chief of the newspaper, and three colleagues were released after making statements to police. The News is the country's only privately owned paper.
The attacks in recent weeks by the country's militant war veterans forced several families to flee before police intervened.
Supporters of a jailed group of white farmers staged a protest in Chinhoyi after the country's high court postponed a ruling on their bail applications. The 21 farmers were jailed after clashes with militants occupying their land.
The country's president, Robert Mugabe, has accused the white farmers of inciting the latest violence and said they should not cry foul if this "ricocheted" against them.
White farmers have been targeted since February last year, when militants began invading their farms in what they said was a show of support for Mugabe's campaign to seize white-owned farms for redistribution to landless blacks.
Copyright 2001, CBC News Online
Reprinted with permission of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Return to chronology 15 Aug 2001
Last Updated Wed Jan 9 19:14:06 2002
HARARE, ZIMBABWE - Zimbabwe will hold presidential elections in early March, the office of President Robert Mugabe said Wednesday.
But the announcement came as cold comfort to Zimbabwe's main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change: Hours earlier, the army issued a statement saying it would only support a winner who had fought in Zimbabwe's war of independence, 20 years ago. MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, a labour activist at the time, did not, and Mugabe has in the past branded him a traitor.
The army's statement was the latest thinly-veiled warning that voting for the opposition could mean civil war.
Further hampering the opposition's ability to win an election were measures Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF was trying to push through parliament Wednesday. The bills would give police sweeping new powers to search and arrest ZANU-PF's political opponents, restrict the distribution of election posters and leaflets, and ban criticism of the president. As well, election monitors are to be restricted and foreign journalists banned from Zimbabwe.
Some of those measures were defeated in Parliament on Tuesday, but Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa vowed to re-introduce them Thursday, when more government supporters are present. That decision has angered opposition members who say such a move is illegal.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Tuesday in the House of Commons that if Mugabe's government presses ahead with the media restrictions "Britain will argue for Zimbabwe's suspension from the Commonwealth at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in March," which will be held in Brisbane, Australia.
The European Union has also threatened sanctions.
Copyright 2002, CBC News Online
Reprinted with permission of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Return to chronology 09 Jan 2002
Last Updated Fri Jan 11 20:40:29 2002
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM - The European Union appears to have accomplished what Zimbabwe's own opposition politicians could not: convince the country's rulers to allow foreign observers and the media to monitor its upcoming elections.
After a day of talks with Zimbabwean government ministers in Brussels, the EU said it had worked out a tentative agreement with Harare that will let international monitors and media into the country for the March 9 elections.
The EU also said it made some progress in convincing Zimbabwe's government to write up a code of conduct for political parties during the election campaign.
But the EU statement also cautioned that it remained to be seen whether Harare would live up to Friday's agreements.
The agreement came after the EU gave Harare a week to loosen restrictions on the media and opposition candidates, or risk economic sanctions.
The government of President Robert Mugabe has come under increasing international pressure all week for its much-publicized attempts to ban foreign journalists during the campaign, hinder opposition politicians and restrict foreign election monitors.
When the government lost a parliamentary vote over those measures, it vowed to implement them anyway. At the same time, the army issued a public statement warning it wouldn't recognize an opposition party win, and hinting that civil war could result if Mugabe was not re-elected.
On Friday, Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu added his voice to the crticism. Speaking in Cape Town, Tutu said Africans should hang their heads in shame over the conduct of Mugabe.
The former archbishop and respected anti-apartheid campaigner said Mugabe was one of Africa's leading lights when he led Zimbabwe into nationhood. But he said Mugabe's recent attacks on human rights and his political opponents are a disgrace.
"It's unbelievable that he should have become what he has become. I've said sometimes that he's almost a caricature of the kind of leader that the world thinks African leaders tend to be. And it's a great sadness, great sadness to see the subverting of the rule of law, seeking to cling to power, at all costs. It is horrible, horrible, horrible. And we have to, in a way, hang our heads in shame."
Copyright 2002, CBC News Online
Reprinted with permission of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Return to chronology 11 Jan 2002