Harare — THE egregious efforts by the BBC to perpetuate the image of a pariah state in Zimbabwe, even in the aftermath of the inclusive Government, is not without precedence.

The Western media has a long history of acting as a weapon of mass distraction -- tactfully shifting the public's attention from the core issues behind the West's animosity towards its declared enemies and making them focus on made up fictions that are in reality facades of good intentions.

The Zimbabwean co-Minister of State for National Healing, Sekai Holland, allegedly gave an interview to the BBC claiming the most bizarre happenings that even a fiction writer would not even dream of conjuring.

We have heard reports that the Minister is furiously backpedalling from her alleged outrageous allegations against her partners in government, Zanu-PF -- vehemently claiming that the BBC misquoted her.

She claims the interview was given way back, before the inclusive Government was put in place, as if then she was licensed and justified to blatantly lie against Zanu-PF.

The BBC proudly broadcast to the whole world that the inclusive Government was paying more than US$3 million a day to "Zanu-PF militias" so they could "beat up MDC supporters".

They added that Sekai Holland had said "no one" was safe in Zimbabwe and that there was an assassination list held by Zanu-PF and that the assassins were threatening MDC officials daily by phone.

The dissonance of this kind of reporting when one looks at not only the prevailing peace and tranquillity in Zimbabwe at the moment, but also at Prime Minister Tsvangirai's efforts to convince the world that Zimbabwe is progressing positively, is not by mere coincidence but a well-designed ploy to mislead the world on the realities in Zimbabwe.

It was not by accident that as soon as the BBC carried its "manufactured truth" on what was happening in Zimbabwe, the lies were eloquently tabled for debate in the House of Lords.

The calculation is to hoodwink the gullible into accepting that whatever is debated by the so-called "Lords" is legitimate and well founded.

Traditionally, the West's "free Press" has ably carried out its services for the cause of the state.

The BBC was just doing the bidding of British politicians and preparing for grounds to refuse cooperation with Zimbabwe's inclusive Government.

Much insight into the contributions of the "free Press" to establishing the State line is provided in a study by Edward Herman of the New York Times when he studied reporting of the 1984 Nicaraguan and Salvadoran elections.

The US was so happy with the Salvadoran government that they wanted them to win against the leftist opposition at all costs.

To this end, the Times overwhelmingly relied on US officials and Salvadoran officials while the opposition was primarily cited only on matters relating to how disruptive they were.

To date all comments sought by Western media on how viable the Zimbabwe inclusive Government is have been requested from Prime Minister Tsvangirai's MDC while Zanu-PF has been cited primarily on matters related to disrupting progress, or on such ills as the appalling state of prisons in the country.

In Nicaragua, the United States was backing the opposition Contras, and in dramatic contrast to what was happening in El-Salvador, the opposition Contras were cited extensively and given ample opportunity to explain their objections to the planned elections.

US officials and the Nicaraguan opposition provided over 80 percent of the direct citations, and constituted 60 percent of the sources cited, according to Edward Herman's study.

In contrast, US and Salvadoran officials provided virtually all of the direct citations in the case of the Salvadoran elections and 80 percent of total sources used.

Although there were more cases of abuse of freedom of Press, violation of candidates' rights and repression of organisational freedoms in El-Salvador than was the case in Nicaragua, the New York Times never reported on these issues, but extensively repeated articles and news items on these matters when it came to Nicaragua.

The idea was to demonise the Sandinistas and to portray the opposition Contras as persecuted advocates of democracy.

These methods of thought control are characteristic of corporate media and they are sophisticated devices that are often employed to impose the imperialist state propaganda system.

In the case of the Nicaragua 1984 election, Shirley Christian of the New York Times had her opinion pieces appearing as "reports" on the news pages.

She was allowed to baselessly inform American citizens that the Sandinistas had approached Central American countries -- specifically El-Salvador -- with an offer to address some of these countries' concerns if these countries could "abandon their demands for democratisation in Nicaragua".

Plainly the Sandinistas never said, "Please abandon your demand for democratisation in Nicaragua," or anything remotely similar.

Rather what Christian was saying was a paraphrase of what the Sandinistas were supposed to have said as prescribed by the State disinformation system that controlled both Shirley Christian and the New York Times.

For Zimbabwe, we have had quotations attributed to Zimbabwe's service chiefs and other senior government officials who are viewed as sympathetic to Zanu-PF.

We are told that they have approached whoever cares to listen asking for immunity from prosecution for crimes allegedly committed during their tenure as security chiefs.

Plainly, none of these chiefs has approached anyone and said, "Please provide us immunity for the crimes that we have committed," or anything remotely related to this.

The idea is to legitimise the Western State disinformation system that says Zimbabwe's security forces have waged a war against the citizens of the country.

It is like the profound implausibility of much of the debate about Iran and nuclear weapons, and a manufactured climate in which Teheran is assumed to want to destroy Israel.

Paranoid assertions are in this case treated as facts and now that President Ahmadinejad has won another mandate as leader of Iran, much to the chagrin of the West -- the unfounded fictions of how much of a monster Teheran are just going to continue.

The author of "Holy War", and a member of the Zionist think-tank Herzliya, Max Woolsey, addressing an enthusiastic audience, presented Iran as a monster even without the barest of evidence to support his outrageous accusations.

Said Woolsey, "Destroying Israel and the US is the essence of the Iranian state, and trying to convince Iran to stop it is like trying to convince Hitler not to be anti-Semitic."

The crowd instantly became his. Woolsey gained momentum and he gazed over the panellists adding, "I agree with Dr Gold. Wahhabi Islam, Al-Qaeda and Vilayat e-Faqih cannot be treated individually.

Those who say that they will not co-operate with one another are as wrong as those who claimed that the Nazis and Communists would not co-operate."

The audience could not contain its excitement and started clapping riotously. This writer attended a public seminar in Sydney in 2007 addressed by a fellow Zimbabwean and University of Zimbabwe law lecturer -- where the leftist comrade compared President Robert Mugabe to Adolf Hitler and the rightwing audience that had invited him gave a wild standing ovation.

To the credit of this brother of mine, he explained that the MDC had expelled him from its ranks because they wanted "to impress Western capitalist elites" and "to protect the incoming moneybags".

The crowd wiped off the anti-Mugabe smiles and sobered up a bit.

Anyway, the point here is how negative images are created on the basis of historical engineering where the devils of yesteryear are superimposed on the characters of perceived enemies so that the public may be distracted from the truth.

Back to Woolsey's wild rhetoric on Iran, he silenced the raucous crowd and continued, "We should listen to what they say, just like we needed to listen to Hitler."

Everyone immediately granted Woosley a very attentive silence.

He reciprocated by shouting, "We must not accept totalitarian regimes, and we should not tolerate nuclear weapon capability for Iran.

If we use force we should use it decisively, not execute some surgical strike on a single or two or three facilities. We need to destroy the power of the Vilayat e-Faqih if we are called upon and forced to use force against Iran."

Essentially, Woolsey was advocating terror against Iran and of course Israeli and Western terror are entirely appropriate because it is from Western democracies.

It is the terror of others against the West that is totally deplorable.With his audience in war mood Woolsey decided to take them to Syria.

"It is a shame," he said, that Israel and the US failed to "participate in a move against Syria last summer".

He paused and added" "Finally, we must not forget who we are. We, as Jews, Christians and others, are heirs deriving from Judaism."

This narration is borrowed from Jonathan Cook's book "Israel and the Clash of Civilisations".

Woolsey thought by attaching Hitler and the Nazis to every mentioning of the name Iran that would somehow create evidence that Iran wanted to destroy Israel.

Similarly, this writer has seen similar efforts on the Zimbabwean leader, President Mugabe and his Zanu-PF party.

It is very hard to understand how a liberation movement that fought colonialism in a protracted war such as was Zimbabwe's liberation struggle can be meaningfully compared to the Nazis of Germany, or even to the Allied Forces -- all brutal imperial forces that were fighting over the spoils of colonial robbery.

The media as a weapon of mass distraction can take away people from the realities behind many conflicts involving Western elites.

The British want everyone distracted from the realities of the land conflict between their government and Zimbabwe.

They cannot even come in the open and say they want prime agricultural land in Zimbabwe to be returned to ousted white commercial farmers.

All they say is that there is lawlessness in Zimbabwe and that for the sake of indigenous Zimbabweans who are "oppressed by their own government", the "rule of law" must be restored and "property rights", read "stolen land rights" must as well.

Zimbabwe's Prime Minister, on behalf of the inclusive Government and its leader President Mugabe, has embarked on a tour to "re-engage" the West but this effort can hardly succeed for as long as the West are not forthcoming in accepting their own excesses in the standoff of the last decade.

It is difficult to imagine how Zimbabwe can successfully engage a group of people who, when it suits their ego declare that sanctions will not be removed, and when they want to appear as moralists they vehemently deny that such sanctions do even exist.

To the West, all the world must see in Zimbabwe is a Zanu-PF that is keeping a "democratic MDC" out of power.

All the positives scored so far by the inclusive Government are inconsequential for as long as President Mugabe is still in power.

It is time we as Zimbabweans refuse to be distracted from the progress to which we have committed ourselves and we realise that efforts to divide us will only result in the ruin that we saw in the last ten years.

That chapter cannot be repeated again.

It is time to rebuild and time to re-unite as children of one country bonded by one history and one heritage.

Zimbabwe we are one and together we shall overcome. It is homeland or death!

Reason Wafawarova is a political writer