Ibo Cardoso, the 12-year old son of the assassinated Mozambican "Metical" editor Carlos Cardoso, told his mother last month not to buy him any Christmas presents. He is afraid that the family will be left penniless after President Joaquim Chissano's son Nhimpine takes the family to court

Ibo and his six-year old sister Milena inherited the paper after their father was gunned down on a Maputo street on November 22 2000. Cardoso was Mozambique's best investigative journalist and he did most of the work on Metical. The remaining staff tried to keep the faxed daily running, but were not capable of maintaining Cardoso's standards, and the newspaper closed on 27 December 2001.

Chissano is suing Marcelo Mosse, who as acting editor tried to hold the newspaper together, for defamation. Chissano cites articles written by Mosse and published in "Metical" and Portugal-based "Expresso" last year, and an article in the "Mail & Guardian" that quotes Mosse.

Chissano is also suing Metical, and thus Ibo and Milena, claiming they are liable for the Expresso and M&G articles. The trial begins on 21 January.

This week the Commonwealth Press Union and the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative appealed for supporters of a free press to write to Mozambique's Prime Minister Pascoal Mocumbi to urge him to use his influence on President Chissano's family to drop the action against the children.

In a letter to the Foreign Minister, Leonardo Simão, the chairperson of the Trustee Committee of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, Richard Bourne, noted Cardoso's "young heirs are being pursued through the courts" by the President's son before the murderers of Cardoso have been brought to trial.

Cardoso's widow, Nina Berg, said "it was a shock for the family to find that Carlos Cardoso's two children and one of his main collaborators were the first to be put in the dock. This is a grotesque injustice. First, Milena and Ibo lose their father, murdered by a terrorist gang. Now they are called to appear as defendants in a court, before their father's assassins are".

After Cardoso was killed, Berg came under pressure from civil society to keep "Metical" running, marking the two children would be legally and financially responsible for the paper. News of Nhimpine Chissano's court battle prompted her to try to change the legal status.

Berg offered to sell the newspaper to the staff, but they declined to make an offer. Instead, they accepted $40,000 in compensation, and the newspaper closed.

In part this reflects what the New York-based Committee for the Protection of Journalists called a "climate of fear" in the Maputo media.

In an investigation last year, the CPJ found that after Cardoso's murder, Mozambican journalists were afraid to investigate corruption stories involving highly placed people. In that climate, and with President Chissano giving his blessing to his son's legal action against "Metical", no group was brave enough to buy the paper.

As the two Commonwealth bodies note, "to bring this action now, so soon after Cardoso's murder, is having a further chilling effect on freedom of the press, and can only further damage the image of Mozambique."

Despite the closure of "Metical", Cardoso's children are still liable.
 

Related articles:
Article by J. Hanlon on court action against Cardoso's children
AIM article: "Metical" libel case postponed again