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State media conceal "land reform" chaos
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted of the Weekly Media Update 2004-6
Monday February 9th- Sunday February 15th 2004

Despite government's claims that its controversial land reform was nearing completion, the media continued to expose the chaos that has characterised the whole process since its inception. However, the reports, which mostly appeared in the private Press, were piecemeal and as a result failed to give a more holistic picture of the situation on the ground. Notable, was the way the government media tried to cover up for government's complicity in the breakdown of law in the sector as epitomised by their reports on farm violence and other related disturbances.

The Herald's (10/2), for example, underplayed the farm violence perpetrated by state security agencies and ZANU PF supporters at Charleswood Farm owned by MDC MP Roy Bennet in Chimanimani, SW Radio (9/2), Studio 7 (12/2), The Daily Mirror (10/2) and The Zimbabwe Independent (13/2). The report merely reported that a man had died "at a farm in Chimanimani following violent clashes between farm labourers and newly resettled farmers" but masked the identity of the farm and the name of the victim, Shemi Chimbarara, a farm worker at Charleswood. The paper merely restricted its report to a Zimbabwe Defence Forces

(ZDF) statement claiming that Chimbarara was killed when he and other farm workers ambushed settlers and tried to disarm a soldier. The soldier, alleged the story, was accompanying the settlers to their plots, which they had earlier fled after being "overpowered" during an earlier "clash" with the farm workers. Claimed the Zimbabwe Defence Forces: "In the scuffle that followed, the rifle discharged and one civilian was killed".

This report contradicted those carried by the private media. The Daily Mirror, for example, quoted MDC spokesman Paul Themba Nyathi alleging that about 20 ZANU PF supporters, including a "former police detail", triggered the clash by attacking the house of Charleswood farm security officer, Amos Makaza, prompting other farm workers to defend him. ZANU PF supporters had then dispersed but regrouped, this time, in the company of an armed soldier who eventually fatally shot Chimbarara and seriously injured another farm worker.

Corroboration of the Mirror report appeared in SW Radio (9/2), Studio 7 (12/2) and The Zimbabwe Independent. The Zimbabwe Independent quoted Charleswood farm operations manager James Mukwaya as saying Chimbarara "was shot from an estimated 40-metre distance" and not while trying to disarm a soldier as claimed in The Herald.

Besides the shooting, ZANU PF invaders also allegedly sexually molested three women and stole 300 cattle from the farm, SW Radio (9/2) and Studio 7 (12/2). Even The Manica Post's (13/2) account of the incident differed from that carried in The Herald. It quoted police spokesman Inspector Edmund Maingire saying the slain worker died after security forces who had come to quell the violence on the farm "opened fire" after farm workers ignored warning shots and continued attacking "the forces with stones".

The paper accused Bennet of inciting his workers to resist government's efforts to acquire his farm. It ignored the fact that Bennet has won four High Court rulings against his eviction.

SW Radio (10/2 & 12/2), The Daily Mirror (11/2), The Herald (12/2), The Zimbabwe Independent (13/2) reported of similar disorders at Kondozi Farm in Odzi, Hippo Valley in Chiredzi, Matebeleland North, Goromonzi and at another unnamed farm in Manicaland.

The government-controlled media largely continued to gloss over these problems. For example, they failed to make government account for the chaos bedevilling wildlife conservancies, caused by the illegal invasions of these areas by pro-government supporters during land seizures. Instead, they accepted passively the authorities' plans to legitimise such chaos by enacting a law to protect the illegal settlers through 'indigenisation', ZTV (12/2, 8pm and 13/2, 6am) and Power FM (12/2

6am) and The Herald (13/2). This came amid revelations in The Financial Gazette that some members of the ruling elite were corruptly granted hunting concessions in Matabeleland North at the expense of locals and emerging safari operators. Meanwhile, The Daily Mirror (11/2) revealed that in an effort to solve labour shortages for the resettled farmers government would "soon allow prisoners and ex-convicts who have a good track record to be hired as labourers by newly resettled farmers". This report preceded accusations by Mashonaland Central governor Ephraim Masawi against unnamed NGOs for allegedly "fuelling labour shortages" by denying relief food to former farm workers working for resettled farmers, ZTV (10/2).

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