Thursday, June 2, 2011

Tanzanian police are investigating the hacking to death of a farm manager

The northern Manyara region police commander, Parmena Sumari, said that his officers were searching for the killers of Sifael Jackson. A gang ambushed Jackson's car and killed him with spears, machetes and clubs. The murder comes amid strong opposition to the government's promotion of big-scale farming. "Mr Jackson was brutally killed and decapitated by a gang of about 15 people on Tuesday evening," Mwaipaja said. Some residents in the region accuse the government of threatening their livelihood by allocating land to big commercial farmers, including foreigners, he says. But the government says that its policy is aimed at boosting food production and ensuring that land is not under-utilized. At least four farms have been invaded in 2011 near Babati town in Manyara region, with fields torched and property destroyed. Mwaipaja said that the government was concerned that the violence would scare away foreign investors who it believed were helping Tanzania's "Green Revolution". The government's campaign to promote large-scale commercial farming is a dramatic reversal of the socialist policies it advocated after independence.

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