The Editor
The Witness
via email: [email protected]
Dear Sir:
Recently an opposition party, fed-up with one journalist’s biased reporting, removed him from their mailing list. The IFP can sympathise. We are repeatedly subjected to fact-less, biased reporting by journalists with a personal agenda. Mr Duma Pewa is a great example.
Each week he abuses his platform in the Weekend Witness to defame the IFP President. The media archives reveal an avalanche of Pewa’s preposterous attacks on Buthelezi, often thrown into the midst of totally unrelated topics.
Last week Pewa wrote that “(Buthelezi) should be rearing chickens and writing his will”, as though Buthelezi is too old for politics. Yet there are prominent figures much older than Buthelezi who still play a meaningful role in politics today. Andrew Mlangeni (84), who served on Robben Island with Mr Nelson Mandela, is a case in point. Mlangeni is still a leading figure in Parliament today.
This week Pewa lumps Buthelezi together with Mugabe and Swaziland’s King Mswati II, suggesting that their judgment day is coming. This is gutter journalism. An objective journalist would know that a Mswati/Buthelezi comparison is baseless and Mugabe/Buthelezi absurd. Mugabe’s record of human rights violations is in stark contrast to Buthelezi’s six decades of international acclaim for championing justice and human rights.
Pewa’s unhealthy obsession with Buthelezi betrays no political wisdom or insight. But his continued tirade exposes The Witness as complicit in the campaign to discredit the IFP President. To preserve its credibility, The Witness should bar Pewa from writing about Buthelezi.
REVEREND MUSA ZONDI MP
IFP SECRETARY-GENERAL AND NATIONAL SPOKESPERSON