Zimbabwe has allowed the BBC and CNN to resume operations in the country. This development is the outcome of meetings held by representatives of the organisations with the Minister of Media, Information and Publicity, Webster Shamu and his Permanent Secretary, George Charamba, the Zimbabwe Standard has reported.
The details: [Link]
The BBC last officially covered in Zimbabwe in 2001 five weeks after the authorities expelled the organisation’s Harare correspondent, Joseph Winter. CNN ceased operating after the authorities allegedly questioned the organisation’s coverage of the country’s land reform programme.
In a letter to the BBC after the meetings, Mr Shamu claims the government had never banned the organisation from reporting in Zimbabwe in the first place. “We agreed that whatever communication problems which the BBC and the officials of the Zimbabwe (government) may have had in the past, the Zimbabwe government never banned the BBC from carrying out lawful activities inside Zimbabwe,” Shamu says in his letter. “For the purposes of the record, I restate the main points of our meeting. We acknowledged the need to put behind us the mutually ruinous relationship of the past.”
The letter says the BBC and the government agreed that the former would employ locals at its proposed Harare Bureau. The organisation was, however, still free to send its crews to Zimbabwe whenever the need arose. It was also agreed that BBC and CNN would respect local legislation and uphold professional standards.
The BBC and CNN are still to indicate when they plan to start broadcasting from Zimbabwe.
