Charamba's pathetic attack on John Masuku only exposed ZBC as the new frontier of colonial-style repression

Often, the vitriol intended to destroy another serves only to expose the hater.


When George Charamba, the quintessential architect of Zimbabwe’s modern propaganda machine, took to social media to exhume and desecrate the legacy of the late John Masuku, he did more than just insult a veteran broadcaster; he inadvertently provided a flawless anatomical sketch of his own hypocrisy.

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In his vitriolic dismissal of Masuku as a “colonial-time radio announcer” and a “knave” of foreign interests, Charamba attempted to draw a sharp line between the “dark days” of the Rhodesian Broadcasting Corporation (RBC) and the “liberated” airwaves of the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC).

Yet, for any Zimbabwean who has lived through the transition from the green-and-white flag to the multicolored banner of today, Charamba’s rant was a masterclass in psychological projection.

It revealed a devastating truth that the regime has spent four decades trying to suppress: the ZBC of the “Second Republic” is not the antithesis of the colonial RBC—it is its most faithful, most disciplined, and most vile successor.​
The tragedy of the Zimbabwean media landscape is that the liberation struggle did not end with the democratization of the airwaves; it ended with the changing of the guard.

Charamba sneers at Masuku for his role in the RBC, accusing him of “turning Rhodesian propaganda into vernacular idiom for maximum impact on rural listeners.”

This critique is staggering in its lack of self-awareness.

If we were to strip away the dates and the names, Charamba is describing the exact operational mandate of Radio Zimbabwe today.

The “vernacular idiom” that Charamba condemns in the 1970s is the same weaponized language used by the ZBC in the 2020s to isolate rural populations from the reality of national decay.

The “rural mind” is still treated by the state as a fortress to be occupied, not a public to be informed.

In the eyes of the current regime, the Shona and Ndebele languages are not vessels for cultural pride or honest discourse, but tools for the “maximum impact” of a different brand of propaganda.

The only thing that has changed is the color of the hand holding the microphone and the specific acronym of the party being deified.​
Charamba’s celebration of signal jamming is perhaps the most honest confession of his career.

By boasting of the ‘high masts’ at Cranborne and Makuti used to jam signals from stations like Voice of the People (VOP), SW Radio Africa, and the Voice of America’s Studio 7, Charamba has provided a brazen confession that the regime does not merely fear the free flow of information—it actively utilizes state infrastructure to wage electromagnetic warfare against it.

He mocks the “intrusive” nature of foreign-backed stations, ignoring the historical fact that the very liberation movement he represents only survived because of “intrusive” extraterritorial broadcasts from Maputo, Lusaka, and Cairo.

When the nationalists did it, it was a “Voice of Zimbabwe”; when modern Zimbabweans do it to escape a local news blackout, it is “pirate radio.”

This is the core of the Charamba doctrine: rights are not universal; they are privileges reserved for those in power.

To Charamba, sovereignty does not belong to the Zimbabwean citizen who seeks a variety of perspectives; it belongs to the state’s jamming towers.

He has effectively resurrected the ghost of Ian Smith, using the same “Law and Order (Maintenance) Act” logic to ensure that the only truth permitted is the one that arrives via the state’s approved frequency.​
The weaponization of the terms “unpatriotic” and “sellout” remains the most enduring legacy of the colonial era, and Charamba uses them with the same ruthless efficiency as his predecessors in the Rhodesian Ministry of Information.

In the 1970s, any black Zimbabwean who dared to suggest that the settler regime was unsustainable was branded a terrorist or a puppet of communist interests.

Today, under Charamba’s watch, any journalist who dares to report on the looting of gold, the mutilation of the constitution, or the collapsing healthcare system is branded a “Western-funded agent” or a “traitor to the revolution.”

The script has not been rewritten; it has simply been translated.

The tragedy of John Masuku’s career, in Charamba’s view, was that Masuku refused to remain a captive of this binary.

Masuku’s move toward independent media was an act of professional growth and democratic conscience—qualities that the regime views as “professional suicide.”

To the state, a “hero” is someone like Webster Shamu, who successfully transitioned from being a cog in the colonial machine to a praise-singer for the post-colonial autocracy.

In the ZANU-PF universe, “patriotism” is measured by the depth of one’s sycophancy, not the height of one’s integrity.​
This brings us to the vile reality of those serving at Pockets Hill today.

The ZBC remains a institution of “command journalism” where news bulletins are curated not for their accuracy, but for their alignment with the shifting winds of factional politics.

The reporters who inhabit that space are forced to perform the same “discreditable role” that Charamba accuses Masuku of playing, but they do so in a context where they can no longer claim the excuse of being under the thumb of a foreign settler.

They are being repressed by their own brothers.

The state broadcaster today is an instrument of psychological warfare against its own taxpayers, a station that treats half the population as enemies of the state and the other half as children to be fed a diet of manufactured successes.

When Charamba attacks Masuku for “sanitizing” opposition to land reform under the “guise of human rights,” he is effectively saying that human rights are a nuisance that must be swept under the rug of “national interest.”

It is a chilling admission that for this regime, the ends—the absolute retention of power—will always justify the most dishonest means.

Nothing has changed except the name and the complexion.

The ZBC’s current “24-hour news cycle” is a digitized version of the RBC’s wartime broadcasts, designed to keep a population in a state of permanent mobilization against imaginary enemies.

The masts that Charamba points to with such glee are monuments to a failed independence—a reminder that the people who fought for the right to speak did so only to ensure they were the only ones allowed to talk.

John Masuku’s legacy is a threat to Charamba because it reminds the public that a broadcaster can belong to the people, not the palace.

By trying to bury Masuku’s name under a heap of revisionist bile, Charamba has only succeeded in highlighting his own insecurity.

He is a man who knows that his “sovereignty” is built on a foundation of jammed signals and silenced critics.

He is the modern Harvey Ward, the black face of a colonial mindset, presiding over a broadcasting house that is still, forty-four years later, waiting for its first day of true independence.

The “knaves” are not those who died fighting for a free press; the knaves are those who live comfortably by strangling it, all while wearing the stolen robes of the revolution.

- Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. To directly receive his articles please join his WhatsApp Channel on: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaqprWCIyPtRnKpkHe08