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PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe's government yesterday unveiled its long-awaited plans for a "patriotic" national news service and the report of its committee into ethical standards in the media.

State radio said the committee, made up of sympathisers with Mugabe's 22-year rule, urged tough penalties for those intruding into the privacy of government figures or publishing material which is found to be defamatory.

In the wake of his disputed re-election as president earlier this month, Mugabe signed into law a controversial Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act which aims to subject all journalists to a state-appointed disciplinery committee, enforcing a state- drafted code of ethics, on pain of a maximum two-year jail term.

Last-minute amendments, made when the law was rushed through Parliament in January, allow existing correspondents for the world media to operate until the end of the year without having to seek fresh accreditation.

In the past year three correspondents have been deported.
The new law initially intended to ban all foreigners from reporting here.

The once burgeoning privately owned local media have been banned from launching private broadcasting, the presses of the only daily outside state control were blown up, and journalists have been subjected to repeated arrests and assaults by pro-Mugabe militants.

A statement from Mugabe's Department of Information and Publicity said the government planned to re-launch its debt-ridden national news agency, Ziana, to "project Zimbabwe's identity and national point of view", extendings its operations into 24-hour broadcasting.

State radio said the full report of the media investigation committee, set up by Mugabe last year, would not be available until tomorrow but its chairman, polytechnic lecturer Tafataona Mahoso, claimed to an interviewer the current "poor state of the industry" was due to "racism, polarisation and ownership".

Mahoso, an avowed Marxist, criticised the influence of whites and non-Zimbabweans in privately owned publications which he said caused polarisation between it and the state-owned media.

This in turn led to "confusion in national values and ideas".

"There are so many ownerships who have so many ideas which are contrary to national values," he said.

"Most people feel that the penalties for defamation are too lenient so there should be a minimum penalty - the fines should be high enough to bite."

Iden Wetherell, editor of the Zimbabwe Independent, a weekly newspaper outside state control, said: "We are not going to subscribe to Professor Mahoso's perverse notions of patriotism which are merely to support the Mugabe regime regardless of its trail of corruption and brutality."

He said Information Minister Jonathan Moyo had revealed his own plans when he claimed the independent press was guilty of an abuse last year for criticising government's refusal to heed warnings of impending food shortages.

Wetherell said falling circulation of the state-controlled daily, the Herald, from 130 000 to 70 000 a morning, while the independently owned Daily News was constrained from expanding its 90 000 circulation by problems with printing, showed Zimbabweans' hunger for accurate information.

"We shall challenge any attempt by this corrupt state, this malign state, to curb our operations. The best thing we can do to show our patriotism is by doing our job conscientiously," he said. - Nampa-Sapa-DPA