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Land and the politics of power
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted of the Weekly Media Update 2004-22
Monday May 31st – Sunday June 6th 2004

THE chaotic nature of government’s land reforms, always dismissed by the authorities as a lie being peddled by government opponents to discredit the programme, resurfaced this week following the emergence of alleged eviction notices served on newly resettled farmers by the Lands Ministry headed by John Nkomo. Notable however, was the simplistic way in which the government-controlled media, particularly ZBC, The Herald and The Sunday Mail, covered the matter. They neither viewed the problem as arising from the general chaos that has characterised the reforms since their inception, nor a vindication of the results of government’s own land audits undertaken in the past two years. Instead, they personalized the matter by accusing Nkomo and his office of plotting to derail land reforms by handing back expropriated land to evicted white commercial farmers. This aroused the curiosity of the private media over a possible political motive for such an agenda.

In its initial report on the issue, The Herald (31/5) accused "a group of civil servants and some unnamed politicians as the protagonists in this despicable scandal", an allegation that was echoed by ZTV that same evening. ZTV also reported that the development had precipitated new farm invasions by "scores of land hungry Zimbabweans" in protest against "government bureaucrats trying to return land to the whites" thus derailing "an otherwise successful land reform". No analysis was made on the legality of such invasions. Instead, it quoted liberation war veterans and war collaborators’ groups as having "vowed to do all they can, including going back to war if some people are still bent on returning land to the white minority."

War veterans’ leader Joseph Chinotimba accused those behind the eviction notices as the same people who "played a part in suppressing the first land demos". But he was not seen revealing their names. However, he was more categorical in The Herald the next day (1/6) where he accused Nkomo and his permanent secretary, Simon Pazvakavambwa, of complicity in the purported withdrawal of offer letters to the new farmers. He also claimed that Nkomo had, during the height of farm invasions, ordered the "arrest of our members …carrying out land occupations and also demolished our houses when he was the Minister of Home Affairs".

Chinotimba even issued an ultimatum to Nkomo saying the minister should urgently convene a meeting to explain the deeds of Pazvakavambwa "or risk being hauled before a meeting that would be convened by war veterans". Nkomo and Pazvakavambwa were not given an equal platform to defend themselves. The paper merely cited Nkomo as having dismissed the eviction notices as "fake" during an interview with ZTV (31/5, 8pm) and that Pazvakavambwa could not be reached for comment.

However, the issue took a political twist with The Tribune (4/6) reporting that "tempers were high this week during the ZANU PF Cabinet and Politburo meetings" with some members saying there might now be "fifth columnists" in the party who were trying to destroy the ruling party from within after having failed to do so from outside. The Zimbabwe Independent (4/6) reported the same sentiments.

SW Radio Africa (2/6) quoted Zimbabwe Liberators’ Platform official Wilfred Mhanda speculating that Chinotimba was being used by some senior ZANU PF officials to attack Nkomo. The Sunday Mirror (6/6)’s Behind the Words column reflected a similar view saying Chinotimba was being used by "worms" within ZANU PF who espoused "policies that make Zimbabwe a laughing stock of the world" and spoke "destructive venom each time they open their motormouths".

However, in his interview with The Tribune, Nkomo alleged that the attacks on him and his ministry were calculated to divert attention from the irregularities bedevilling the land reform programme that his office had unearthed. For example, the minister claimed that the presidential land implementation team had uncovered several anomalies while verifying land allocation and ownership. These included multiple ownership, multiple allocations, double allocations and people on land without offer letters. Nkomo was quoted by the paper as saying they had since discovered that about 63 individuals owned multiple farms totalling 102 427 ha, which some of them had started parcelling out to relatives when they realised that the ministry’s net was closing in on them.

Although the paper did not ask him to divulge the identities of the 63, it claimed that its independent investigations had revealed that among them were ministers, deputy ministers and senior government officials. In fact, The Sunday News (6/5) revealed that some of these government officials were refusing to hand over their extra farms.

Nkomo was further quoted in The Tribune saying his ministry had discovered that there were 3,212 people issued with offer letters although they were not on the land. Said Nkomo: "This suggested that this land is hidden somewhere or …that there were some beneficiaries that had not been given (offer) letters and … that some could be ghost beneficiaries".

In addition, Nkomo said, there were 1,513 vacant A2 plots compared to 99 971 applicants on the waiting list, a situation which "did not make any sense" because government still held so much derelict land that had been offered but remained unoccupied.

The Daily Mirror (2/6), the Zimbabwe Independent and The Standard (6/5) carried an IRIN report alleging that several small, medium and large commercial farms given to resettled farmers under land reforms still remained fallow. In fact, serious economic repercussions arising from land resettlement were clearly indicated in a Daily Mirror (2/6) report, which claimed that despite government claims of a bumper harvest, the authorities were actually spending "hundreds of billion of dollars on maize imports with the assistants of US-based companies". The story, based on the London-based Africa Confidential, alleged that about 400 000 tonnes of maize had been imported between April and May this year. This was confirmed by the chief executive officer of the Grain Marketing Board, Col. Samuel Muvhuti, who stated that the importation of the food was "intended to feed the nation" during harvesting time.

But The Sunday Mail (6/4) would not debate these issues at all. Instead, it followed in the footpath of its stable-mate, The Herald, in personalising the problems besetting the agrarian reforms. For example, the paper’s faceless columnist Lowani Ndlovu diverted public attention from the real issues at hand by carrying personal attacks on The Tribune owner and ZANU PF MP, Kindness Paradza, for having allowed his paper to "trap" Nkomo into accusing some ZANU PF insiders of scheming to discredit his regularisation of the land reforms.  

Ndlovu noted that it was "simply unacceptable" for Paradza to attack ZANU PF policies or programmes outside the "party caucus". However, Ndlovu conveniently ignored how The Herald had provided Chinotimba with an unrivalled stage to attack Nkomo and his officers. In fact, Chinotimba, whom private media reports (The Tribune 4/6) claimed was due for disciplinary action over his outburst against Nkomo, was quoted by The Financial Gazette (3/6) as saying he would apologise to the minister "because we got to know he was unaware of the letters". The government media ignored this. Instead, The Sunday Mail added a conspiracy theory to the whole issue by implicating the MDC and the shadowy pressure group, Zvakwana. The MDC was accused of allegedly bribing some government and ZANU PF officials to produce documents purporting to withdraw land offered to new farmers in an operation aimed at restoring acquired land to former white farmers. No authenticated evidence was provided.

As the week drew to a close, The Herald, Chronicle (4/6) and ZBC (4/6, 8pm) reported that the Supreme Court had passed a "landmark judgment" that would bring relief to the new farmers who have been receiving eviction letters after the superior court ruled that an order to acquire land for resettlement could not be withdrawn six months after it has been issued. The ruling also empowered the Lands Ministry with the sole authority to either revoke or withdraw an acquisition order. This was a result of an appeal by Airfield Investments (Pvt) Ltd challenging the dismissal by the High Court of an application to bar the State from acquiring its property pending the determination of the constitutionality of sections 8, 9 and 10 of the Land Acquisition Act.

However, these media failed to fully examine the consequences of the ruling on the rights of the white commercial farmers, prime targets of the government’s land acquisition programme. The private Press missed this story.

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