MEDIA AND HUMAN RIGHTS [Special Report] - The day of reckoning arrived for the media this week when the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) held its special hearing into the role of the media during Apartheid. It was the culmination of a controversial process that was initiated last year amid scepticism in some quarters about whether it will achieve anything significant, and open opposition from other quarters, who felt the TRC was overstepping its mark. The hearings, which were held from the 15th to the 17th, were preceded by a number of submissions from  several individuals and organisations, including the FXI, who all endorsed the right of the TRC to examine the role of the media in so far as it contributed to a climate in which gross human rights abuses were committed. The hearings this week provided an opportunity for current and former journalists, editors and newspaper proprietors to detail exactly how the media, as an institution, perpetuated oppression of black people, failed in its duty to keep the public properly informed thus allowing the authorities to get away with human rights abuses, and how it compromised its ethics by colluding with the authorities in covering up stories or spreading disinformation. It was also an opportunity for individuals or institutions to defend themselves against accusations levelled against them in previous submissions to the TRC. The Afrikaans media, which was widely regarded to have been intimately linked to the Apartheid propaganda machine, declined to make any submission to the TRC.

The first day of the hearings was devoted to broadcasting, and more specifically, the role of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC). In the FXI’s submission to the TRC in June,  the organisation said: "It is known that there was extensive government interference in the presentation of news both on TV and radio, that the dissemination of propaganda through the news programmes became second nature to the news departments and that general programming (drama, current affairs, etc) was selected and broadcast to support the apartheid policies of the government and denigrate opponents or to bear out is fantasies that total onslaught had been mounted against the country. It is also known that key members of the news staff worked in collaboration with military intelligence and its Stratkom (strategic communications) directorate and took instructions from it to distort the news. ...Members of the staff of the SABC were also members of Stratkom. Newsrooms and production studios as well as the administration were staffed to substantial levels by members of the security forces/Stratkom. The overall picture TV showed (and radio in voice mode) of what was happening in trouble-spots throughout the country...was severely distorted and was entirely in accord with the government’s propaganda. ...There is no doubt that by manipulating the news, blandly denying allegations, suppressing here, adding there, disinforming and, one should say, lying and cheating, the SABC on both radio and TV, managed to brainwash a substantial section of the White South African public into believing the government’s version of affairs and even supporting its policies and practices. ...The SABC’s conduct during election or referendum campaigns, in propagandising the government’s cause and rubbishing the opposition, certainly helped the government to win votes."

The chief witnesses for the SABC this week were Louis Raubenheimer, who currently heads SABC Television 3 and who was once editor-in-chief of news strategy, and Johan Pretorius, a former editor-in-chief of television news. It was hardly an in-depth examination of the SABC as  there was no former SABC Board chair nor was there broader representation from former departmental and other heads as the FXI in its submission requested. Both Raubenheimer and Pretorius denied that there was much direct political interference in the SABC’s news and actuality programmes during the Apartheid years, and also that they had consciously acted as propagandists for apartheid. They admitted though that SABC journalists routinely submitted "sensitive" items to their superiors for censorship before screening and that the SABC would not broadcast anything that would undermine the government or stoke revolution. Raubenheimer admitted too that he was a member of the Afrikaner Broederbond until 1990 and participated in Stratkom meetings. The Afrikaner Broederbond was a secret organisation dedicated to preserving White Afrikaner interests in South Africa. Raubenheimer denied, however, that these organisations yielded any influence over the SABC. Pretorius, while denying any state interference, conceded that the SABC reflected government views because it functioned under the Broadcasting Act, in terms of which the board was appointed by the government and accountable to Parliament. He conceded that the SABC and its journalists contributed to human rights violations and helped to keep the policy of apartheid going, but denied there was any conscious intent to abuse human rights.

The second day of the hearings was the most revealing when several police spies who had infiltrated the media during Apartheid took to the stand. Their revelations were startling, indicating that the spy network in the media stretched from newspaper owners, through management, editors, news staff to messengers. Virtually every mainstream newspaper and magazine in South Africa had been infiltrated. On former spy, Craig Williamson, said the infiltration of spies into the media was part of a psychological and political war to win the hearts and minds of the South African public. The spies collected information on colleagues who were seen to be anti-government, while also planting stories to smear the liberation movement or spread disinformation about government activities. The FXI, in its submission to the TRC, noted that: "This [the injection of spies into the newsrooms] was one of the most insidious attacks on the Press because they raised suspicions among journalists about the conduct of colleagues, increasing distrust and inhibiting the news gathering process. This activity was compounded by a disinformation campaign during which innocent journalists and others were maligned as beings spies, thus further increasing distrust". The second day of the hearings also looked broadly at the relationship between the media and the state and looked at, among others, individual experiences of how the Press was silenced through measures such as banning orders and detention.

The final day of the hearing concentrated on the print media and included representations from media companies as well as from individual journalists and journalist organisations. It was mainly promises that came from the two media companies who were the only proprietors to make submissions. Times Media Limited and Independent Newspapers, who together own close onto 40% of the newspaper market in South Africa, both acknowledged that their newspapers could have done more to oppose apartheid, and promised to implement steps to redress the wrongs of the past. They maintained, however, that given the hostile environment in which the media was operating at the time, they had acquitted themselves well in their duties. But the submissions from various Black journalists and organisations told a different story. Two of the leading black journalists in South Africa, Jon Qwelane and Thami Mazwai, said the mainstream newspapers had colluded with apartheid to oppress blacks and spread disinformation. They accused some of the main newspapers at the time of using Apartheid legislation against blacks who fought against the system, while also practising Apartheid in the workplace. Qwelane said that by choosing not to publish stories that highlighted the political problem then and black people’s’s struggle against Apartheid, the mainstream newspapers denied the public a basic human right, the right to be informed. He said: "I want to charge all the mainstream newspapers - English and Afrikaans - with collusion with Apartheid and having a hand, directly or indirectly, in the subsequent murder of tens of thousands of black people by the Apartheid army and police. I’m not off my rocker." Acclaimed poet and former journalist, Don Mattera, told the commission that the media during Apartheid was responsible for a "holocaust of the truth". He said that under Apartheid, most whites "lived in a state of Denmark; they lived and perpetuated that rot. The state of journalism cannot be divorced from the rotten state of South Africa as it pertained. White people were given a status that was almost the status Hitler gave his people." The TRC also heard submissions from the alternative press, who detailed the struggles  they waged during the 80's too keep people informed, and the harassment and persecution they suffered at the hands of the authorities. The TRC will conclude its work at the end of July next year when, in a final report to the government, it will most likely make a pronouncement on the role of the media during Apartheid flowing from the submissions and testimony it has received.

OTHER FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION NEWS FROM SOUTH AFRICA THIS WEEK:

MEDIA OWNERSHIP - Kagiso Trust Investment (KTI), one of the leading Black empowerment investment companies in South Africa, is set on becoming a major player in the media industry following the acquisition of a 53% interest in the specialist media group, Publico. Publico owns a wide variety of niche magazines and has a 34% interest in Ebony, the South African version of the popular American magazine. It also controls 50% of Systems Publishers, which produces a range of weekly and monthly publications aimed at the engineering, computer and marketing fields. In terms of the deal, which was announced on September 12, Publico will be renamed Kagiso Media Holdings and will be the holding company for KTI’s other media interests. These include two radio stations, East Coast Radio and Radio Oranje, Butterworths Publishers and another publishing house, Persbel. KTI’s 16.5% interest in Persbel’s makes it a joint controller of media house Perskor, which publishers the daily Citizen newspaper and is 50% owner of the Afrikaans weekly, Rapport.

ACCESS TO INFORMATION - The South African arms manufacturer, Denel, has promised to embark on a programme of transparency that is expected to lift the cloud of secrecy that has traditionally surrounded the arms industry. The company made the undertaken during a demonstration of new weapons capabilities to the media. The company said the demonstration was "part of the commitment of Denel to be transparent and show the break with the past". Last month, Denel successfully applied for court orders effectively gagging a total of 13 newspapers preventing them for reporting on the largest ever arms export deal in South Africa’s history. The court orders were later retracted when the information became widely available outside the media, and when one of the gagged newspapers defied the court order and identified the country involved in the deal.

PUBLIC BROADCASTING - The former leader of the National Party (NP), FW De Klerk, who stepped down from the party last week, has accused the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) of being biased towards the African National Congress (ANC). Addressing Parliament’s Press Gallery Association on September 15, De Klerk said it was ironic that the SABC, which had been derided as the propaganda instrument of previous governments, had now become, sometimes most blatantly, the mouthpiece of the ANC. Reacting to De Klerk’s statement, the SABC said it was not surprising the allegation was made on the day the Truth and Reconciliation Commission held a hearing into the role of the NP government and the SABC in the violation of human rights. The corporation said: "It is clear that Mr De Klerk wants to take public attention away from the role his government played in using the SABC as a propaganda tool."

DEFAMATION - The leader of the Democratic Party, Tony Leon, on September 16 threatened to sue the ANC over a statement associating him with the KwaZulu-Natal provincial leader of the National Consultative Forum, Sifiso Nkabinde. Nkabinde was arrested September 16 and is currently facing 18 charges of murder. In a statement, the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal described Nkabinde as "the colleague of Roelf Meyer, Bantubonke Holomisa and Tony Leon...".

OPEN PROCEEDINGS - The TRC on September 15 confirmed that the President of the ANC Women’s League, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, would appear at an in-camera hearing of the commission, despite her calls for an open hearing. The commission said it would be impossible to hold a public hearing as the logistic problems would be insurmountable at such short notice because all third parties would have to informed of allegations ahead of time. In calling for a public hearing, Madikizela-Mandela said she had nothing to hide and that anything she might say she would say out in the open and in front of her country and the world.

PUBLIC BROADCASTING - The SABC on September 17 announced a new programme format that would be implemented next month and which would see an increase in Afrikaans language programmes and a reduction in the amount of multilingual programmes. SABC spokesman Enoch Sithole said: "The SABC remains committed to language diversity but will focus more on using this diversity to broaden our appeal to audiences." Other changes include new in-depth nightly news focus programmes, as well additional news bulletins on television. The SABC has consistently come under fire from Afrikaans groups because of the corporation’s downgrading of the language. The corporation is currently engaged in a High Court action against two television licence defaulters who are arguing that as a result of the downgrading of Afrikaans, the SABC has violated Article 6 of the Constitution by failing in its duty to protect and promote indigenous languages and is therefore not entitled to their licence fees. They are arguing further that in failing in its constitutional duty, the SABC has infringed their fundamental rights.

ACCESS TO INFORMATION - The "Business Day" newspaper reported on September 18 that the work of the TRC was being frustrated by its inability to gain access to military archives detailing the defence force’s involvement in maintaining domestic order in black townships and  in destabilising the region. The report said the nodal point - a body set up to co-ordinate communication between the TRC and the military - had failed so far to facilitate access to the archives. The TRC, however, has had full co-operation from other state departments, particularly the national archives and intelligence services. A  meeting last month between senior government, military and TRC officials in an effort to gain access to the archives, had so far not produced any positive results.

ACCESS TO INFORMATION - A former intelligence agent, Pieter Pretorius, applied to the Pretoria High Court on September 18 to secure the release of a secret document that might show that the political party, the Afrikaner Volksvront (AVF), was a secret project of  the State Security Council and was formed on the orders of military intelligence. The AVF was formed in 1993 as an umbrella body for a number Afrikaner rightwing organisations opposed to the National Party’s process of reform. Pretorius says the document in question was written in 1993 by the former director-general of National Intelligence, Mike Louw, and was sent to the then-justice minister, Kobie Coetsee. He is demanding the release of the document as part of a R2.65 million breach-of-contract suit against the National Intelligence Agency (NIA). Pretorius claims the document holds the answer to his suspension from the NIA, for which reasons were never given. However, NIA says the document is classified.

FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION - The Musicians Union of South Africa (MUSA) is threatening to take the SABC to the Broadcasting Complaints Commission following the release of a CD on which television presenters perform cover versions of overseas artists’ songs. MUSA is aggrieved that the SABC did not use established local artists instead of the TV presenters, and that all the material on the CD are cover versions of overseas music. The unions says the SABC has a mandate to promote South African music, not only in terms of local content, but also according to the Broadcasting Act. SABC spokesman Enoch Sithole said the broadcaster was exercising its right to freedom of expression. He said: "It is sad when people who believe in freedom of expression go against others who try to practise it."