Around mid-2012 there was a flurry of media reports on the dispute in which Malawi and Tanzania were embroiled over the position of their border in the lake that acts as a frontier between the two neighbours. The tensions came to the fore following Malawi’s commissioning of oil and gas exploration on what it knows as ‘Lake Malawi’ but which is ‘Lake Nyasa’ to Mozambique and Tanzania. Tanzania told Malawi to call off the search for oil and gas reserves, pending talks about where the borderline should be. While Malawi laid claim to the whole water body, Tanzania argued that the line should be in the middle of the northern part of the lake.
Tanzania backed its claim to half of the water mass by referring to international customary law, developed in the 1960s, on equitable sharing of water bodies, while Malawi cited the 1890 Heligoland Treaty which handed sole ownership of the lake to Malawi, as well as the Anglo--Portuguese Treaty which came into effect around the same time.
The media in Malawi reacted in a variety of ways to the standoff between the two countries. In this practitioner’s note, I describe some of the reactions of daily newspapers, including online publications. First they brought to the attention of Malawians the simmering tensions over the lake. Then they began sounding the alarm, reporting that Tanzanian legislators were mentioning possible war over the border dispute. Finally, most of these newspapers appeared to be promoting mediation and dialogue.
The initial reports hinting at possible warfare jolted Malawian journalists into action, though that action did not always take the form of selecting appropriate sources. The subsequent reportage was generally based on quoting Tanzanian media houses and not diplomatic or other official sources. The effect of this failure to seek official sources was to aggravate Malawians’ fears that war was imminent. It took the visit of a senior cabinet minister to quell the unease in the border district of Karonga.
The Malawi government made further efforts to tone down the inflammatory reporting by calling for responsibility and calm. This appeared to work as the daily newspapers and online publications stopped relying so heavily on Tanzanian media houses. Possibly
they realized that relying on Tanzanian reporters would exacerbate the situation because these reporters were undeniably biased towards their national interests. Hence Malawian journalists began to use more diplomatic and government sources from Tanzania. Malawian history and law experts were also engaged to try to give a balanced opinion on the border dispute.
The spectre of war further diminished as both countries used the media to stress that dialogue would take precedence. But a faction of the Malawi media seemed to have abandoned journalistic ethics and continued to write in a manner likely to fuel tensions. A case in point is the Malawi Voice, which went so far as to publish false news that the Tanzanian High Commissioner to Malawi had been given 48 hours to leave the country (Nkhoma 2012). The fallout from the report included the arrest of the journalist who wrote the article.
In this note I argue that the Malawian press was at first somewhat naïve in its reportage but over time revised its approach and became more professional. I also argue that political interests made some publications attempt to worsen conflict between Malawi and Tanzania.
I suggest that the media in Malawi, Tanzania and indeed beyond should play a peacemaking role and practise peace journalism rather than fan the flames of conflict, as happened in the case of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.