Fact Check: What did Chamisa say about land reforms? - ZimFact
Ngoni Mhuruyengwe
July 18, 2023
Claim: A 25-second clip which went viral on Twitter and Zimbabwe social media platforms  in the last couple of days quoted Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) opposition leader Nelson Chamisa saying “everyone who was removed from their farms should be reinstated.”
The clip has Chamisa bellowing in Zimbabwe’s Shona language “…wese akatorerwa….anofanira kudzorerwa” has largely been interpreted to mean that the CCC leader said he would reverse the state seizures of formerly white-owned farms — and therefore dispossess the black farmers settled there.
Is this what he said: true or false?
Verdict: False
The 25-second clip was edited to change the meaning of the full statement and the context of what was said in the original statement.
What Chamisa actually said at a rally in Gweru on July 16 when he launched his 2023 general election campaign was that if won power on August 23, his government would reallocate land to villagers in Chilonga, Binga and Mutoko, whom he alleged are being forcibly evicted from their ancestral lands for some projects.
The shortened version on social media has been manipulated to omit the context of Chamisa’s statement on July 16 2023, including his promise to award full ownership Title Deeds to the black farmers now occupying the previously white-held lands which the country’s long-ruling ZANU-PF party seized under a controversial resettlement programme.
The manipulated clip can easily mislead  some people  as Chamisa’s rebranded CCC party was for years opposed to the farm seizures, as in its garbs as the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) it was associated with a political drive of reversing a programme that ZANU-PF sees as a redress of colonial injustices.
ZANU-PF accuses CCC of being a Western-sponsored puppet organisation dedicated to pursuing foreign interests, and those of Zimbabwe’s former ruling white minority.
The opposition dismisses these as false labels by a party which has economically ruined  the country, and abused Zimbabweans for over 40 years.
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