“If your paper goes on the streets of Harare without a license I will send my boys to get you in your office.” This was George Charamba, the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Information and spokesman for President Robert Mugabe, shrieking at the owners of the independent newspaper News Day. Yes, Newsday does not have a license to operate, but does that mean you have to tyrannically threaten them? What happened to speech etiquette?
Spokespeople are supposed to be professional people who are cool, calm and collected. They know that they are representing who they are speaking for. They know that if they slip up, they will not be held accountable, but the person whom they are representing will be. Now that Charamba speaks like this, I understand the statements some of the government ministers (his bosses) say.
Robert Frost said that half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can't, and the other half of people who have nothing to say and keep on saying it. Charamba definitely belongs to the latter half. He seems to think that being called a media practitioner means you have to get militant about it. What kind of a spokesman has his “boys” who get people in their offices? Obviously one who does not know what being a spokesman is all about.
Spokespeople do make mistakes. US State Department’s press briefer, Christine Shelly screwed it up when speaking about Rwanda. But, her statements were nowhere near President Mugabe’s radical spokesman’s statements. Hitler had Goebbels and Robert Mugabe has George Charamba.
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