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New wave of violent farm invasions
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Weekly Media Update 2005-36
Monday September 19^th – Sunday September 25^th 2005

THE government media’s status as unreliable sources of information was again affirmed by their failure to expose a new wave of violent farm invasions, leaving the responsibility to the niche market private media.

For instance, The Standard (25/9) reported that armed gangs led by state security agents and other government officials had seized farms in Chipinge and Nyazura after brutally assaulting farm workers and harassing the owners. In one incident, the paper reported, Ashanti Farm manager Allen Warner was severely assaulted after a failed attempt by a senior official of the Central Intelligence Organisation, Joseph Chiminya, to shoot him with an "Uzi light machine gun". The gun reportedly "jammed" when he tried to fire it.

In another case, a senior official from the Zimbabwe Embassy in London allegedly invaded Brackenridge Farm with "12 police officers in tow" and instructed the owner to "vacate the farm at night". Four of the police officers were reportedly armed with AK 47 automatic rifles. The Standard presented the violence as being linked to National Security and Land Reform Minister Didymus Mutasa’s incitement against white commercial farmers during his address to the Masvingo land audit committee two weeks ago.

Mutasa reportedly told the committee that the few remaining white farmers should be "cleared out" because they were "dirty" and "filthy".

However, the paper reported Mutasa as having distanced himself from the mayhem, saying farmers should report the invasions to the police.

Studio 7 (21/9) and The Daily Mirror (24/9) carried similar reports although they did not link the invasions to the hate language attributed to Mutasa. The Daily Mirror quoted the evicted farmers as having said invaders told them that they had no "rights to the land" under the 17^th Constitutional amendment.

The failure by the government media to report these disturbing new developments buttress arguments that they are complicit in these incidents of violence, racial bigotry and incitement precisely because they have allowed government officials to break the law with impunity. This grave dereliction of duty by the public media reinforces demands for the establishment of alternative mass media free from government control to record accurately the realities of Zimbabwean society.

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