INTERVIEW WITH THABO MBEKI,
PRESIDENT OF SOUTH AFRICA

President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa met recently with a delegation from the World Association of Newspapers to discuss global press freedom and agreed to an interview in conjunction with World Press Freedom Day. This is the text of that interview.

WAN: What would you think generally is the role of a free press in society?

Thabo Mbeki: Let's talk about here, it might answer your question. In this country, as you know, we are faced with lots of big challenges to change the society, to address the legacy of apartheid, racism, which you'll see everywhere -- in education, in the economy, you need to change the society altogether. It is quite clear that, as part of the process of that change, you need also to liberate people from a frame of mind and a psychology which was oppressive. Which, among other things, said there were some opinions that are bad, and if you express them you will get locked up. So generally, the liberation of people to hold an opinion, to express it, to defend it, becomes part of the remaking of the society.

I think it's a fundamental condition for the transformation of society, and meeting all manner of challenges. That, indeed, this freedom of expression, of thought, including press freedom, has to be a fundamental element of this. Otherwise you don't succeed

WAN: Would you agree that a free press is necessary if any nation can hope to overcome problems of violent conflict, poverty, disease and illiteracy?

Thabo Mbeki: Not only in those circumstances -- in any circumstances. I don't think it is only related to those things. I'm putting this in a wider context. For the capacity of people to think freely, to express their opinion freely, the media is very important in regard to that.

Bear in mind that press people say, 'you can't yell fire in a closed cinema hall.' But beyond that, any question, any situation, would require a free press to allow the people to participate, and therefore for the media to report accurately and truthfully.

WAN: What do you think is the role of the press in the development process?

Thabo Mbeki: I think that, if I put myself in the position of a newspaper editor -- this is entirely idealistic -- I would say, 'I want to report what is happening, some of which will be positive, some of which will be negative.' But you need to report that, and report it in a way that is as balanced as possible. I think that's first.

Here, in this country, if you look at a lot of journalists based in Johannesburg, and that includes the public broadcaster, it is easy to work around Johannesburg. The streets are paved, the telephones work and you can get into a taxi, and there is a restaurant where you can have lunch. But 500 kilometres away are rural areas, and people are working very hard at changing their lives, but to get a journalist from Johannesburg to drive 500 kilometres into a dirt road, is not so easy.

So, I would say, as such an editor, that I would try to report this, including these areas which are inaccessible. That's an important part of the development issue.

I would also say that, as this editor, I have the responsibility to fight against racism, and therefore I would do something to use this media to contribute.

WAN: Many leaders of totalitarian and newly democratic states claim that press freedom can wait and that the priority is to achieve economic and social development. Do you think that this argument is credible?

Thabo Mbeki: No. You can't say that the things you're doing in post-colonial Cameroon, for example, to build a new society, including the economy and social developments, you can't say that you are doing that, and, at the same time, you restrict press freedom, freedom of thought, freedom of expression. It can't be correct.

It's a larger question. There's a lot of criticism of the South African government about what is described as an inflexible labour market. When you probe the thing a little bit, you're given examples of countries is Asia -- this is what happened in Singapore, this is what happened in South Korea, this is what happened here and there and the other. But we can't repeat that. You've got a strong trade union movement, which will be organized, go on strike and do things that trade unions do. The thing that's been raised is that people say, 'you can't allow that. Because then South Africa isn't internationally competitive'. We cannot take a position like that. It's wrong.

WAN: South Africa has a fully free press. But unfortunately, 47 out of 54 countries on the African continent do not have a fully free press. Why do you think African nations have been so slow to embrace this fundamental condition of democracy? Do you think the 'African renaissance' of which you have spoken can happen without a free press?

Thabo Mbeki: I think that you have to place this matter, as far as the African continent is concerned, within the larger context. Certainly, in most of the countries in that group of 47 that have this attitude towards the media, there are other things that are wrong.

Last year or the year before, I was asked to speak in a conference in Namibia, and I spoke about one particular country where an election had taken place. I said that, in reality, what had happened was that the president stole that election. They fiddled it. And I'm absolutely certain that, in a situation like that, the president will insist that the press must not report. It's part of a larger issue. It's got to do with the entrenchment of a democratic society, and if you don't have that, the media will be adversely affected.

I don't think you can address these African challenges without the press playing the role it should play, independently. You can't solve the problems. The fact of those 47 countries is a reflection of the fact that in many of our countries, we really don't have a properly functioning democratic system.

We come from the ANC, and one of the principal slogans of the ANC is, 'the people shall govern.' And when we negotiated with the regime from the 1980s, they didn't understand this, it took us a long time to explain. Because they thought what we meant was that the ANC shall govern. And we said no, we mean the people shall govern. You need the involvement of the people in the process of the formation of the society. That openness, including the capacity of people to communicate their views, and the media -- where you don't have it, you have destruction of that notion that the people shall govern.

Why are governments afraid of people? Why are they afraid of critical opinion? Why are you afraid to say, I am wrong? What's wrong with that?

WAN: Why is it that, in spite of the Declaration of Windhoek, a statement of principles calling for a free and pluralistic media, which was endorsed by all African states nine years ago, freedom of the press continues to be so flagrantly violated? How can transnational organisations, such as the OAU and the SADC, contribute to the development of a free press?

Thabo Mbeki: If you put me in a conference, and pose questions to me or say, stand up and make a speech, I would stand up and say, 'I'm fully in favour of press freedom. Fully in favour of the right for all parties to exist and campaign for elections. Fully in favour of an independent judiciary' and so on. Because there is nothing else I can say. I couldn't possibly say, 'look, I don't want freedom of the press or the judiciary.' So I make that statement. And then you get a Declaration that's strong and very correct.

But when I'm confronted with the practice in my own country, the practice varies from the statement. And that gets reflected in these international organisations. Take the Secretary General of the OAU. The Secretary General of the OAU must do something. The first thing he's going to think about is, what will the member states say? And the tendency will be to look for the lowest common denominator instead of looking for the highest uncommon denominator. After all, I am the Secretary General representing these member states. That, to some extent, will incapacitate the Secretary General, because he has to do that.

If you talk about the African continent, those statements made by the organisations you are describing are important. But I think you need the activity of some countries to say, 'we all agreed in Windhoek, but why are you not keeping to it?' Rather than a complete dependence on those continental or regional organisations because their secretariats have structural limitations in terms of the capacity to promote those Declarations.

What I'm trying to say is, you need activists to promote this. And your regional and continental organisations are not necessarily the best instrument.

WAN: Over 100 journalists have been arrested and detained in Africa over the past year and 17 were murdered in 1999. How does South Africa intend to promote democracy, rule of law and free expression on the continent, and particularly in reference to Angola, Zimbabwe and Swaziland?

Thabo Mbeki: The first thing I think about in Angola is the hundreds of thousands of people who died because of the war, who continue to die. It is a major, major human catastrophe. It is necessary for all of us to ask as firmly, as strongly, as consistently as possible, to assist Angola to arrive at the situation of peace. Because the human suffering there is really very bad.

Now, that is the first thing that occurs to me when I think about Angola. Peace is absolutely critical. There's a consequence to that, in regard to the press. I'm quite sure you couldn't deal with this issue of press freedom in Angola outside the context of war. Press freedom is part of the solution of the Angolan problem, but I think you have to place it in that context now. In reality, the ability of the press in Angola to act as a free press -- I don't think you can deal with it comprehensively in the situation of Angola. I don't think it's correct, I'm not saying it's right, but I think it's the reality.

There's a real genuine land problem in Zimbabwe. In my view, much sharper, in a strange way, than in South Africa. Land dispossession of Africans in South Africa was much, much more extensive than in Zimbabwe, but because of the way the economy in this country evolved, we had more people being absorbed into other sectors of the economy than in agriculture -- a movement away from the land. It didn't happen in Zimbabwe to the same extent. So, though we had a much more extensive process of land dispossession, the issue in Zimbabwe is much, much hotter than here.

WAN: In the 1970s and early 1980s, you were in charge of publicity for the ANC, putting you in a unique position to assess the press' role in the ending of apartheid. In your view, what were the press' contributions and failings in the struggle to end the apartheid regime?

Thabo Mbeki: Well, I think the contribution of the media in this country was very uneven in terms of our struggle against apartheid. You had the Afrikaans press, as well as the public broadcaster, who supported the government, basically. Until the late 80s when some change began.

I remember when some of these journalists started visiting us in Lusaka. They used to send their crime reporter to come and talk to us -- because we are criminals, so they send a crime reporter.

In the English language press, I think , again, a very uneven response. I think one or two outstanding examples of people standing up and saying, we can't accept this thing, it's offensive, it's bad, it's wrong. I think, in general, the English media tried to walk a very careful balance. They didn't want to get banned, they didn't want to get harassed by the security police, in general they didn't want to get into trouble. This is why you had quite a strong push for what was called the alternative press, lots of small newspapers . I think of all those papers, the only one to survive was the Mail and Guardian. But there quite a lot of those described as the alternative press, because there wasn't a sufficiently strong voice from the established media.

WAN: Was it crucial, that contribution?

Thabo Mbeki: Yes, it was. The ANC broadcast on the radio, from a number of African countries, from Zambia, from Angola, from Madagascar, from Tanzania. And that radio station was very important. People would get short wave receivers and listen to what was broadcast. Because of the weakness of the communication media here. It was very popular, Radio Freedom, because we would say, there was a strike at such and such a factory, Bishop Tutu has made a statement, this is what he said. The local media was not reflecting sufficiently this kind of thing.

That alternative media was very important, and you also had -- there's a very senior journalist in America, he worked here for quite a number of years. And he would come and see us quite often in Lusaka. He was a very experienced correspondent, and he said that one of the things he had learned was that, if you come as a foreign correspondent, you naturally get among the press corps, they tell you where the best taxi stand is, where the best restaurants are, it is information you need in order to work. And he said the problem he had seen with himself was, if you then stay within that group, you then begin to absorb the opinions of the local journalists. You are informed by what the national journalist corps thinks. So once he got the information, he would break away.

One of the things that actually distressed him was, you had the local press corps centred around Johannesburg afraid to go out and report. Because they had the security police. So he ended up being the expert to South African journalists about what was happening in the context of the struggle. He found South African journalists coming to him and saying, what happened, what do they think? What is their view?

WAN: What do you think the press' role should be here in South Africa at this time? Do you think the press plays a role you would like to see?

Thabo Mbeki: You know, I got myself into trouble in 1994-95. I was saying that, a lot of the media during the apartheid years correctly took the position that apartheid was bad -- and they might not have reflected it properly in what they published, but generally they didn't like this thing. And therefore they were opposed to the apartheid government because they were opposed to the system the apartheid government represented.

So I said, I think that got transposed into a general principle which I think is wrong. Which is that, by definition, that the media is opposed to government. You are correct to be opposed to apartheid government. You are correct to be opposed to any government that is based on injustice. But I don't believe that, as a general principal, that the media is an 'opposition party' by definition. Because I don't think it is correct.

You can say whatever you like about the government -- criticise it and this and that and the other, that's fine. You can hold any opinion you want. But to proceed from this principle, which came out of the apartheid years, I don't think is correct.

So they said, no, no, no, no, now you want to suppress the press, you are against freedom of the press. That was the response, very strong.

(Another problem) has to do with quality of the journalists. You have two problems here -- the government and the private sector has absorbed quite a number of senior journalists here so you deprive the media of people who are more experienced. So you then get very young people in the newsrooms. It has an impact on the quality of your reporting -- that 's one problem.

Then you've got another problem, and that is of promotion. You get to a certain point as an actual working journalist. In order to get to the next stage, and therefore a higher salary, you are promoted out of journalism into management. So you then lose that experience.

But I think now, I raised these questions, I'm innocent, I'm a greenhorn. A number of editors said to me -- I was Deputy President at the time -- Mr Deputy President, let us give you some advice -- shut up. Don't say these things because the only thing that is going to happen is that we'll all get together and we're going to say, you're against freedom of the press. I did, I listened to them, I said, OK, I don't talk about it anymore. And I haven't, for the last three or four years, I avoid the subject. But it's a real challenge. It has to be addressed.

WAN: Could you say a few words about the consequences of the current land crisis in Zimbabwe for South Africa? Are you worried about a wave of immigration? Are you also worried about instability in the area affecting some of the foreign investment in South Africa?

Thabo Mbeki: Our view is, one of the things that needs to happen in Zimbabwe is, indeed, the British and Zimbabwe governments need to get together to deal with this question. Fortunately, there is a delegation from Zimbabwe that is going to London soon, I'm told. So that the land question is addressed, but addressed in a manner that doesn't produce a conflict. Because, indeed, whatever happens in Zimbabwe affects us here. If there is instability in Zimbabwe, people will cross the border. We already have lots and lots of Zimbabweans in this country who are driven out of Zimbabwe because they think there are better prospects for jobs here. And if you have instability and more shock, it will spill over.

Zimbabwe is probably our largest trading partner on the African continent, so if you're in the situation of economic crisis, that also will affect us. This question you are raising about general perceptions of the region -- if anything goes wrong in any of our countries, the further away people from here, they don't say something has gone wrong in South Africa, they say something that gone wrong in Africa, in the region.

So, yes indeed, we are very keen that stability should prevail in Zimbabwe. This land question is an important question, and it must be addressed but done in a manner that doesn't produce instability. This is a general view in the region. I'm sure that all of the governments have been talking to the Zimbabwean government about this. Certainly, any instability in the region, for anywhere, is a negative.

The delegation included Roger Parkinson, Chairman of The Globe and Mail in Canada and Treasurer of WAN; Pius Njawé, Publisher of Le Messager in Cameroon and a member of the WAN Press Freedom Development Committee; Scott Low, President of Bridges Worldwide, former WAN President and a Senior WAN Ambassador; Eelco Van Den Linden, Correspondent for the Netherlands Press Association; Ignacio Cembrero, Foreign Editor of El Pais, Spain; WAN Policy Advisor Anne-Marie Stott; and WAN Director of Communications Larry Kilman.

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