Government, press clash over reporting on border situation

Human rights activists and the press in Namibia this week clashed with the government over accusations that reporting on tensions along the border with Angola had dented the country’s image at home and abroad. The dispute arises out of Namibia’s decision last month to let the Angolan army use some Namibian frontier towns to launch attacks against UNITA rebels. “People living outside Namibia who read the Namibian print media should be forgiven if they believe that our country is up in flames,” said a statement released by Acting Foreign Minister Tuliameni Kalomoh. “In recent months and weeks, the government of Namibia has been subjected to a barrage of all manner of vitriolic propaganda by the print media.” It also accused local print media of sympathising with UNITA by withholding crucial information about their movements from the Namibian security forces. It said the print media should be “patriotic” and share any information it had about UNITA, a movement to which the press gave credence, while “calling into question the veracity of the Government’s position”. “These negative articles regurgitated by foreign electronic media, have the cumulative effect of giving a totally distorted image of the country,” it said. Newspaper editors and diplomats in Namibia told IRIN they had repeatedly sought answers to questions on the border situation from the government in the past three weeks, but the authorities had preferred not to comment other than blame most attacks in Namibian territory, such as the murder last week of three French tourists, on UNITA. The NSHR, on Wednesday called the foreign ministry statement “evidence of growing signs of totalitarianism in a country previously described as a model for democracy and human rights”. Jeanette Minnie, regional director of the Namibia-based Media Institute of Southern Africa which promotes press freedom in 11 countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), said instead of holding regular news conferences, the government was “neglecting” its information role. “I think it is outrageous that the Namibian government is making such comments about the print media. They are doing their jobs, reporting what they finding out and expressing their concern, and that’s a legitimate role of the media,” she told IRIN. “The Namibian government is failing very seriously in informing the Namibian population on a regular basis of what is actually going on along its northern border. In these circumstances they should not be surprised if there is an element of speculation and sometimes an error. It is unfair to accuse the media of being propagandistic.”