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MOZAMBIQUE
State of the media in Southern Africa 2002
Satar (alias “Nini”), one of the businessmen
accused of ordering
Cardoso’s assassination. According
to “Mediafax”, Opa testified that
Nini had told him he was merely a
go-between, acting on behalf of “o
filho do galo.” The following day, an
article by Lima, entitled “A chicken
called Nyimpine”, identified “o filho
do galo” as Nyimpine Chissano,
President Joaquim Chissano’s son.
Lima said that when asked the identity
of “o filho do galo”, Opa had
given Nyimpine Chissano’s name,
and the president son’s name had
been entered in the minutes of the
hearing.
The men who delivered the live
chickens to the three journalists
claimed they were a gift from the first
lady, and journalists believe they
came from a poultry farm owned by
Marcelina Chissano in the city of
Matola. However, a spokesperson for
the first lady’s office denied any
knowledge of the chickens.
“Mediafax” interpreted the delivery
of the chickens as a peculiar type of
veiled threat.
Pinto’s letter neither confirmed nor
denied that Marcelina Chissano had
sent the chickens. The letter insisted
that “no journalist was, or ever will
be, intimidated or threatened.” Pinto
claimed that the first lady’s “most elementary
individual rights [had] been
violated,” notably through “lack of
rigour and objectivity” in the press.
“Facts are invented, rumours are
used, the privacy and intimate sphere
of her family relations are invaded,
with the intent to create tension
within her family, and seriously damage
the good image and reputation
of all her relatives,” Pinto claimed.
The honour and consideration due to
the first lady “have been deeply and
seriously affected, with grave social
repercussions,” the letter continued,
while calling for an end to “public
trials” in the pages of the press, and
stressing that “it is universally recognised
that all citizens have the right
to honour, good name, reputation, the
defence of their public image, and to
their privacy.”
UPDATE
DATE: 2002-12-12
PERSON(S): Carlos Cardoso
VIOLATION(S): Killed
On December 10, 2002, two colleagues
of murdered journalist Carlos
Cardoso told the Maputo City Court
that two of the six men charged with
the assassination had regularly visited
Cardoso’s offices.
Victor Matsinhe and Zacarias
Couto were reporters at “Metical”,
the daily newsletter owned and edited
by Cardoso. Couto was also the
“Metical” office manager. They both
said that Carlitos Rashid Cassamo,
the man who has confessed to firing
the shots that killed Cardoso, visited
the “Metical” office regularly in October
and November 2000. The two
journalists also confirmed that Anibal
dos Santos Junior (alias
“Anibalzinho”), the man accused of
organising a death squad to assassinate
Cardoso, visited the “Metical”
office twice.
In a related incident, on December
10, Eduardo Jorge, a Portuguese
lawyer who is representing Maputo
loan shark Momade Assife Abdul
Satar (alias “Nini”), one of the men
charged with ordering Cardoso’s
So This Is Democracy? 85