Newspapers / The Carolina Times (Durham, … / Jan. 17, 1981, edition 1 / Page 13
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niLh .Mti 13 A Weekly Digest of African Affairs Nkomo, leader of the minority party in the coalition ' government. Home Affairs Minister Nkdmo said the govern- ZIMBABWE Government' Press To Run Newspapers SALISBURY AN pirSiaa-ni' press purchase was. colonial outpost here in 1890, one of his first moves was to start a newspaper for the com munily of whites he brought up from South Africa. Ninety years later, in his eighth month as prime minister of independent Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe has brought an end to white South African control of this country's press. Last week the government purchased controlling interest in the nation's only newspaper chain from South Africa's newspaper giant, the Argus Company. The move was not unex pected. At the time of in- ( dependence, says minister of Information Nathan Shamuyarira, the govern ment "had informmed the Argus Company that Zim babwe was no longer the colonial appendage of South Africa that Rhodesia was, and that ownership and manage ment of our press by a South African company was totally unacceptable. It .was an infringement upon our national in dependence, and in view of South Africa's hostility toward our new govern ment, it could be a securi ty risk." Even since in dependence, the press had continued to cater to the readership of Zimbabwe's minority white popula tion. On the day of the press acquisition, for ex ample, the Herald in; -Salisbury printed a front-' page story on the court ship of Diana Spencer by Britain's Prince Charles. And on several occasions! in the past few months, ihe t)tfss has .corae un$r4 strong government criticism for exaggerated, and irresponsible scare stories on internal political conflict. It took some time, however, to work out the mechanism for a take over. British financier Tiny Rowland, whose Lonrho company has wide-ranging investments in South Africa and several black African countries, offered to in vest more than $7 million in a daily newspaper that would be loyal to the government. But Rowland's investments in South Africa, his reputa tion as a wheeler-dealer, and his previous ties with Mugabe rival, Home Af fairs Minister Joshua Nkomo, made that offer, an unattractive one. In the arrangement decided upon, Zimbabwe bought the South African held shares with a grant of $8 million from the government of Nigeria, to which Mugabe made an official visit in December. The shares will be transferred to the Zimbab wean Mass Media Trust, a , government-created board which will run the Argus papers free from direct state control. Black editors are ex pected to replace the cur rently all-white senior editorial staff. Though black journalists are still few in number, there is already a Union of Zim babwean Journalists which has welcomed the takeover. The . country's newspapers had not en joyed much freedom of press Under the former white-minority regime, which imposed strict cen sorship. But the new move has aroused fears that white South African in fluence may now be replaced by strict government-controlled newspapers. Leader's of Zimbabwe's minority political parties have condemned . the government's acquisition, with former prime minister Ian Smith calling; the move yet another step! toward a one-party state. The most outspoken criticism, however, has come from Joshua tragic, and expressed sur-. prise that Nigeria, with probably the freest press; in Africa, would give money to a purchase that will result in a muzzled press in Zimbabwe. Nkomo is particularly bitter because he and his party are for the most part frozen out of news pro grams on state-run radio and television broadcasts, which instead concentrate on the activities of Mugabe's ZANU party. The Nkomo criticism followed by a ministry of information spokesman's comment terming it "reactionary, nonsensical and hysterical," poses a new threat to reconcilia tion between Nkomo's and Mugabe's parties. After increased tension last year, a joint Central Committee meeting held on December 19 had brought an encouraging note of reconciliation. Mugabe's party still argues that the interest of ; the Zimbabwean masses will be best represented without involvement of private capital in the con trol of key newspapers, and maintains that the trust board will include fair representation of minority parties. Informa tion minister Shamuyarira, a former journalist with a Ph.D. in political science from Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School, says the government does not want to stifle criticism, but will insist that the media reflect more accurately Zimbabwean reality and an independent African perspective. Ben Gcthi at the scene, of ficial investigators insisted that the damage pattern belied an air strike. - Kenyan police allege that Abd-el-Hamid was linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and: two West Germans who .were released from prison in Israel ten days before the bombing. The two along with three Palesti nians had been arrested in Nairobi in 1976 after an alleged attempt to blow up. an El Al (Israeli) airliner. Both the PFLP and the recently-released West Germans have denied any connection with the Nor folk blast. Salah Zawiwi, Nairobi representative for the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) who has recently been accorded diplomatic observer status by the Kenyan govern ment, denounced the bombing as "shameful and senseless aggression." The Nairobi press also . suggested that the Italian ; "Red Brigade" might be the possible culprit. This theory leaned heavily on the fact that the president of the Italian auto firm Fiat, which has had several top executives kill ed in recent years by the Red Brigade, had been booked into the Norfolk several days before the blast. In many peoples' minds, a credible motive for the attack is lacking. But Nairobi's ever-active rumor mill has been chur ning out stories. Some observers suggest the blast resulted from rivalry and plotting within the Kenyan' government. At least two top officials were schedul ed to attend New Year's Alabama Death Penalty Opposed By SCLC t 4 ', ' -t Too Many Decibels Brian Wright, 3, blocks his ears as the choir sinas durina the installation ceremonies of the Most Rev. Anthony M. Pilla at St. John Cathedral. Brian is the grandson of Willie Wright, a soloist in the choir. eve festivities at the Nor folk. Another theory revolves around the Norfolk's public image as a colonial symbol still linked to the white expatriate com munity, which maintains considepable influence in this former British colony." Th3 story of another mass killing at the hotel almost sixty years ago is well-known among Ke nyans. Some seven thou sand Kenyans gathered then to protest the im prisonment of the coun try's first major na tionalist leader, Harry Thuku. One of the women present, Mary Wanjiru, UPI Photo challenged the men to pro ve they were not afraid to confront the colonialists. Police as well as other whites opened fire on the crowd from the Norfolk slaying 21 of the demonstrators, including Wanjuri. The following statement has been released by Joseph E. Lowery, na- . lional president. Southern Christian Leadership Con ference, and John Nettles, Alabama State president, SCLC: MONTGOMERY, AL. The recent action of the Supreme Court of the State of Alabama affirm ing the death penalty is disappointing and disconcerting. We con demn capital punishment. It is cruel and inhuman by nature; irreversible in im plementinng; and discriminates against the poor and non-white in ad ministration. The legalized sanction of the killing of a human being as a means of resolv ing social problems sets an example of violence that has deadly reverberations throughout our imperiled civilization. The survival of the world is sorely , threatened by violence, and unless we put an end to violence, violence will put an end to us. The death penalty denies the sacredness of human life, while offering no proven deterrence to crime. We find especially disappointing, the opinion of Justice Adams that we must no longer fear racial discrimination in the im position of the death penalty. We strongly refute such an assertion. While we find it somewhat painful to repudiate the opinion of one we love and respect and who has attained a high office he deserves, nevertheless, our responsibility to cons cience, and our calling as advocates of the poor and as lovers of justice de mand that we cry out against that which denies the moral imperatives of our faith and ignores the lessons of history. .The indisputable fact is that in Alabama the deci sion to seek the death penalty in criminal cases is still (as always) and all white decision. The district attorney who make the decision, in all 38 judicial circuits in Alabama are white! The indisputable fact is that while blacks comprise ap proximately 25 per cent of the population, sixty per cent of the inmates' on death row are black. The indisputable fact is that the presiding officer in each case to be tried under the death penalty structure, in Alabama, will be while! Every circuit judge who tries, criminal cases in Alabama is white! (And always has been). Thcre is only one circuit .judge ;n Alabama who is black and he tries only cases related to domestic affairs. In virtually every case in Alabama involving a black defendant (and a white alleged victim), the district attorney "strikes" the available blacks from jury service. When Tommie Lee Hines was tried recently in Birmingham (where Mr. Adams was Hines' at torney), the district at torney used every single challenge afforded him by law to "strike" blacks from the jury. As a result, only one black juror serv ed on the case in spite of the fact that one of three residents in the communi ty is black. The total lack of black district attorneys and criminal court judges, and the pattern of racial discrimination in this state soundly refute any claim that justice is now color blind in Alabama. We ap plaud the appointment of Mr. Adams to the Supreme Court of Alabama as a step in the right direction, but stand in stout denial that this one step in the right direc tion wiDes out all the ine (Continued On Page 16) KENYA Vti. Hotel BoibMri etiU A M vet mtv NAIROBI (AN The Norfolk Hotel bombing here on New Year's eve has presented Kenya with one of the more baffling and shocking incidents in its recent history. The ex plosion, which rocked the one-time colonial gather ing place, has left at least fifteen people dead, 85 in jured (mostly foreigners) and many questions unanswered. ' The alleged bomber, known here as the "Maltese Falcon," is said to have flown out of the country hours before the fatal blast. Kenyan police, working with the Western based Interpol police agency, ' first identified him as Muhammad Akhila, then as Muradi Aksali, an "Arab ter rorist" traveling on a forged Maltese passport, annd finally as Qaddura Mohammad Abd-el-Hamid; a Moroccan na-, tional traveling on a forg ed Maltese passport. The Kenyan govern ment says he checked into the hotel on December 23 and was assigned Room 203. He requested instead Room 7, the source of the blast. He left the hotel about 11 a.m. on December 31 and did not return. ( The mid-evening explo sion was so powerful that thirteen people in the din ing hall directly under Room 7 were killed in stantly. Two others died later at the Nairobi hospital, and 24 people are still undergoing hospital treatment, three of them in intensive care, The bomb totally destroyed the two-floor unit of thirteen luxury1 double bedrooms, a con ference complex and a 150-seat restaurant below, and sent fire raging through the hotel com plex. Questions seemed to surround the incident , almost from the moment of the blast. Nearby observers reported sighting a plane (some said two) in the skies above the hotel minutes before the explosion . This sparked reports in the interna tional press of aerial sabotage. Strongly denied by Police Commissioner In our Dress Dept. liz irmnMcl il occuaj IllUUIilfti I W 1 J I J TAX SERVICE by H&R BLOCK On Misses Beautiful Maternity Wear! Colorful Tops Regular $12 each Colorful tops are patterned with pleated tops with deft fashion touches from stand-up col lars to bows. Machine washable in short or long sleeve versions. Misses sizes. Classic Pants Regular $10 V pair Pull-on pants in stretch polyester gabardine are machine washable. Set-in back waistband and stretch nylon front panel for a comfor table fit. Misses sizes. Sale ends Saturday Semi-Annual Intimate Apparel SALE! 30 to 37 OFF! A. 30 OFF1 Lace Cross-Over Bra Regular S6 iteach Of lacy Dacron polyester for comfortable fit. 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The Carolina Times (Durham, N.C.)
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Jan. 17, 1981, edition 1
13
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