Wall Street Journal - September 1, 2006

Unfortunately, President Thabo Mbeki sometimes acts as if he believes such problems might go away if nobody talked about them. He often uses his weekly "Letters from the President" to attack the press or complain about public "bad mouthing" of South Africa or his party, the African National Congress. He once lambasted Tony Trahar, CEO of the natural-resources conglomerate Anglo American, for telling a newspaper that political risk in South Africa, while diminished, still existed. Just last month, Mr. Mbeki complained of what he called "consistent and seemingly compulsive negative reporting about Africa" and wrote, "perhaps the time has come that...we, as Africans, take responsibility for how our continent is portrayed."

Mr. Mbeki's complaints suggest a high level of insecurity for a leader with a 77% approval rating, according to a recent poll by Afrobarometer. So far, however, he has never joined his fellow African leaders in curtailing press freedoms. Until now, that is.

With virtually no warning or public discussion, Mr. Mbeki has put forward a bill, to be presented to Parliament today, that would amend the country's Films and Publications Act so as to subject print and broadcast media to censorship. The ostensible reason for the amendment is to deter child pornography, but this hardly seems credible. News outlets in South Africa -- regulated by the country's Press Ombudsman and the Broadcasting Complaints Commission -- have never once been charged with promulgating child pornography, according to Raymond Louw, publisher of the Southern Africa Report and deputy chairman of the Media Institute of Southern Africa-South Africa.

The new bill does not deal only with child abuse. It names four sweeping categories of content that must be submitted to authorities "for examination and classification" prior to publication or broadcast. The classification board may designate certain content a "refused classification" and may "determine...the conditions to be imposed on the distribution, exhibition and possession of any...publication."

Subject to this scrutiny and process would be "descriptions or representations of...a) sexual conduct, b) propaganda for war, c) incitement to imminent violence, or d) the advocacy of hatred based on any identifiable group characteristic."

"That's so broad you could drive a couple of railway trains through it," Mr. Louw told us by telephone. "It's a lot wider than child pornography, and includes political content." A huge amount of recent war coverage -- describing anything from incitements to killing during the Rwandan genocide to former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's speech describing American motives for attacking Iraq -- might have been subject to censorship under the draft law.

Though the proposed amendment may not survive the parliamentary process, it is another worrisome glimpse of Mr. Mbeki's thinking about the role of the media in a democracy. Government spin won't solve the AIDS crisis any better than will the curative tonic of beets, lemon and garlic endorsed by his controversial health minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, who earlier this month invited a media pasting at the 16th International AIDS Conference in Toronto with her novel treatment.

Spin and censorship will not fix the country's severe economic problems, or stanch a murder rate of 51 people a day. In fact, cracking down on those who would shine light on these ills -- and point to potential solutions -- is a surefire way to ensure that South Africa's troubles linger on.

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