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afrol.com, 20 September - The former chairman of the Zimbabwe War Veterans Association, Chenjerai Hunzvi, has made threats against Standard journalist Chengetai Zvauya, telling him that he faced more harm and harassment if the reporter continued to write critically about him. Now, fellow journalists from Southern Africa call for action against Hunzvi. Zvauya has previously been the target of harassment from war veterans. In July this year he was beaten up at the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) headquarters in Harare at a meeting convened by Hunzvi. On July 15, Zvauya was attacked by war veterans who claimed that he was "unpatriotic". The journalist was covering the launch of the government's land acquisition programme at the ruling ZANU-PF headquarters in Harare. Zvauya, who was sitting at a vantage point with other journalists, was singled out by a group of war veterans who claimed that he was a reporter from "The Daily News". Zvauya told them that he was not from "The Daily News", but from "The Standard". However, this did not help matters as they claimed that the paper was equally against war veterans. The group of war veterans grabbed Zvauya and told him that they were going to "deal with him". Attempts by the Chairman of the war veterans, Chenjerai Hunzvi, to save Zvauya from harm were initially unsuccessful. The war veterans ignored their leader and said that they were determined to "sort him" out in order to send a clear message to other journalists in the country. They then punched him in the mouth and in the stomach, prompting Hunzvi's bodyguards to rush to Zvauya's rescue. The bodyguards were pushed away and the war veterans took Zvauya's pen and notebook and detained him for about two hours. He was only released after the meeting at the ruling party headquarters and was told to leave the premises and never to come back. He was also told that he should tell his colleagues to be positive when reporting about war veterans. On August 24 2000, war veterans marching to the Zanu-PF offices, where they besieged President Robert Mugabe, shouted at Zvauya and said they would beat him up if he followed them. The next day, August 25, the war veterans office phoned the Standard offices inviting Zvauya to a press conference which was to be addressed by Hunzvi. However when he arrived, Zvauya was harassed and thrown out of the press conference. They accused him of writing negative stories about the war veterans' leader. On August 30, Zvauya was once again threatened by Hunzvi when he went over to cover Parliament. Hunzvi approached him and is reported to have said in Shona: "You have intensified your biased reports against war veterans, we are going to deal with you, if you start a war with me you will not win...you don't write correctly, that is why I let the war veterans beat you and I will tell them to beat you again". Zvauya has confirmed the threats to the Zimbabwe branch of the Media Institute for Southern Africa (MISA), which now is calling for action against Hunzvi's threats. MISA urges everyone to send protest letters: - Protesting the harassment against journalist Chengetai Zvauya; Letters should be sent to: Andy Mhlanga, Secretary-General Zimbabwe Liberation War Veterans Association
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