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| Africa: Subsaharan |
| South Africa reveals plan to seize white farmers' land |
| 2005-08-04 |
| The great success story of post-apartheid SA goes on. By Basildon Peta in Johannesburg South Africa's 50,000 white farmers are threatened with forced land expropriation after a government land summit called for a "fast-track" programme of redistribution. The weekend summit was convened by the government to review the slow pace of land reform in South Africa. Significantly, it rejected the market-based willing buyer/willing seller policy as the basis on which redistribution must proceed. The South African government has set a target of voluntarily transferring 30 per cent of productive farmland from whites to previously disadvantaged blacks by 2014. But President Thabo Mbeki's government is worried the target will not be met, at the very slow rate at which white farmers are offering land for sale. It also claims farmers are asking for unjustifiably high prices. Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka told the summit the willing buyer/willing seller scheme, through which farmers voluntarily offer their properties to government at market prices, was a major drawback to land reform and said South Africa would embark on a "fast-track" programme to meet targets. She was backed by Agriculture and Land Affairs Minister Angela Thoko Didiza who said the government should strongly intervene to ensure expeditious redistribution. Details of the suggested "fast-track" are yet to be spelt out but the decision has been welcomed by campaigners for the landless poor. "We want this process to begin immediately," said Mangaliso Kubheka, national organiser for the Landless People's Movement. "We're waiting to see if the pledge will be implemented. The people have spoken. We need to see if the government will listen." But white farmers and the mainly white official opposition Democratic Alliance are angry over the spectre of forced expropriations, which have echoes of President Robert Mugabe's land reforms. They have dismissed the government's complaints as an "election strategy," ahead of local government elections later this year. The farmers and the opposition have instead blamed the slow pace of land reform on "gross inefficiency" in the Agriculture and Land Affairs Ministry. Prominent farmer Kraai Van Niekerk, a member of Agri SA, one of the biggest white agricultural unions, said he knew of many farmers who had approached the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Affairs with proposals to sell their properties for land reform but have not had an answer two or three years later. "Each time they seek clarification, they are shuffled from one bureaucrat to another ... Changing the rules is not the answer. It's the government's method of operation that is the biggest drawback," he said. Mr Van Niekerk warned that changing the rules would threaten South Africa's position as one of six countries in the world who are net exporters of food. The Democratic Alliance spokesman on agriculture Maans Nel said the government should stop covering its mistakes by trying to play the "helpless victim". If the government matched its commitment to land reform with the required budget and if it started implementing the legal measures at its disposal, the current situation would have looked dramatically different, he said. Ninety-nine per cent of blacks resettled were struggling because of lack of resources. Mr Nel said there was enough evidence to prove that the incompetence of many officials in Ms Didiza's department was the cause of delays to land reform. When apartheid ended and Nelson Mandela took over in 1994, 87 per cent of South Africa's agricultural land was owned by whites. About 3.1 million hectares of land have been transferred to poor blacks, less than 2 per cent of available agricultural land. Land reform is an emotive issue across southern Africa where the example of Zimbabwe looms large. South Africa's 50,000 white farmers are threatened with forced land expropriation after a government land summit called for a "fast-track" programme of redistribution. The weekend summit was convened by the government to review the slow pace of land reform in South Africa. Significantly, it rejected the market-based willing buyer/willing seller policy as the basis on which redistribution must proceed. The South African government has set a target of voluntarily transferring 30 per cent of productive farmland from whites to previously disadvantaged blacks by 2014. But President Thabo Mbeki's government is worried the target will not be met, at the very slow rate at which white farmers are offering land for sale. It also claims farmers are asking for unjustifiably high prices. Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka told the summit the willing buyer/willing seller scheme, through which farmers voluntarily offer their properties to government at market prices, was a major drawback to land reform and said South Africa would embark on a "fast-track" programme to meet targets. She was backed by Agriculture and Land Affairs Minister Angela Thoko Didiza who said the government should strongly intervene to ensure expeditious redistribution. Details of the suggested "fast-track" are yet to be spelt out but the decision has been welcomed by campaigners for the landless poor. "We want this process to begin immediately," said Mangaliso Kubheka, national organiser for the Landless People's Movement. "We're waiting to see if the pledge will be implemented. The people have spoken. We need to see if the government will listen." But white farmers and the mainly white official opposition Democratic Alliance are angry over the spectre of forced expropriations, which have echoes of President Robert Mugabe's land reforms. They have dismissed the government's complaints as an "election strategy," ahead of local government elections later this year. The farmers and the opposition have instead blamed the slow pace of land reform on "gross inefficiency" in the Agriculture and Land Affairs Ministry. Prominent farmer Kraai Van Niekerk, a member of Agri SA, one of the biggest white agricultural unions, said he knew of many farmers who had approached the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Affairs with proposals to sell their properties for land reform but have not had an answer two or three years later. "Each time they seek clarification, they are shuffled from one bureaucrat to another ... Changing the rules is not the answer. It's the government's method of operation that is the biggest drawback," he said. Mr Van Niekerk warned that changing the rules would threaten South Africa's position as one of six countries in the world who are net exporters of food. The Democratic Alliance spokesman on agriculture Maans Nel said the government should stop covering its mistakes by trying to play the "helpless victim". If the government matched its commitment to land reform with the required budget and if it started implementing the legal measures at its disposal, the current situation would have looked dramatically different, he said. Ninety-nine per cent of blacks resettled were struggling because of lack of resources. Mr Nel said there was enough evidence to prove that the incompetence of many officials in Ms Didiza's department was the cause of delays to land reform. When apartheid ended and Nelson Mandela took over in 1994, 87 per cent of South Africa's agricultural land was owned by whites. About 3.1 million hectares of land have been transferred to poor blacks, less than 2 per cent of available agricultural land. Land reform is an emotive issue across southern Africa where the example of Zimbabwe looms large. |
| Posted by:anonymous5089 |
| #21 Xbalanke, you've cited the best assessment of what to do with Africa that I've ever seen. I was just in SA last Christmas. It's a scary place, particularly after dark. And yes, there is a lot of white flight because countries like New Zealand and Australia (and even the US) WILL give white South Africans passports. JC Smuts said that the future of black South Africans was, for him, lost in a dark mist. That mist will actually be the blood of intertribal warfare as the whites leave and the Zulus and Xhosas fight it out to see who gets to rule over the ruins of what was once a First World society. I wonder if anyone in the West will take note when the black victor, whoever it is, exterminates the coloreds and the Indians? |
| Posted by: mac 2005-08-04 21:06 |
| #20 Call me a racist, but the more I see from Africa, the more I agree with Kim du Toit. |
| Posted by: Xbalanke 2005-08-04 15:15 |
| #19 The South African government has set a target of voluntarily transferring 30 per cent of productive farmland from whites to previously disadvantaged blacks by 2014. The question is, would those "disadvantaged blacks" be any better at farming the soil than the previous owners? We cant feed the entire world by ourselves, they better rethink this. We should not be expected to, especially if the receipients' plight comes as a result of their own governmental stupidity. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2005-08-04 13:28 |
| #18 Time for an "Organization of Food Exporting Countries". Cut off our oil? We'll cut off your food. See who lasts longer. |
| Posted by: Dishman 2005-08-04 12:36 |
| #17 Reality testing: 1) South African whites, particularly those of Afrikanner heritage, have nowhere to go. No other country will issue them a passport. 2) South African whites have a heritage in the land that goes back to the 1600's. 3) When CNN starts broadcasting images of starving South African children (99.9% of whom will be black), we'll donate food aid. Just try not to. 4) There are not enough white South Africans to set up a separate country in a portion of the land. That was considered a while back at the end of the apartheid era by some of the hardliners, as I understand, but was never a viable option. There will be no Neu Boer War. 5) As you may have noticed over the decades, white South Africans of Afrikanner heritage aren't exactly popular on the world scene. 6) And land reform IS needed. It doesn't go over well to say, "well the old rules gave us all the land, and it would be unfair to have new rules that take land away from us." That isn't going to sell to the 75% of South Africans who aren't white. I believe confiscation on the Zimbabwe model will lead to mass starvation. But the current system will lead to revolution and massacre. And I don't see anyone in South Africa wise enough to solve this without bloodshed. So basically, South Africa is screwed. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2005-08-04 11:11 |
| #16 C-Low: Repeat of the Boer wars, huh? |
| Posted by: mmurray821 2005-08-04 10:37 |
| #15 Cut off Food and Aid LOL we cant even stomach to do that to the Norks who have the money to feed thier people but Kim Ill thinks it more important to have a Nuke for the invasion coming from the evil people who feed his f*cking country. We need strong leaders Bush is to weak and the LLL's are just beyond weak. S. Africa thou I doubt the whites thier will just lay down. They are more in number and have seen what laying down gets you (example just north). They will fight and it will be bloody. If they win or not depends on the US and Europe. |
| Posted by: C-Low 2005-08-04 10:28 |
| #14 hell let the fuckers starve |
| Posted by: Thraing Hupoluper1864 2005-08-04 10:12 |
| #13 I have heard rumors for a year that the South Africans were thinking about doing this. It is getting to be dangerous to be white in South Africa. Time for them to move out and let that country sink into its own economic strife and civil war. I really think it is near time to write off the entire African continent. |
| Posted by: mmurray821 2005-08-04 10:03 |
| #12 RC, rjs: Good ideas, all! Would you like to come assist me in NYC? |
| Posted by: John Bolton 2005-08-04 09:56 |
| #11 We cant feed the entire world by ourselves, they better rethink this. Hmmm... perhaps it should be against US law to sell or give agricultural products to countries that confiscate land in this way. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2005-08-04 09:53 |
| #10 Hope someone has the good sense to hold this againt them when they come up in debt relief discussions. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2005-08-04 09:44 |
| #9 One five thousand acre farm makes more food than 500 ten acre farms. It doesnt take a genius to figure out that this is exactly what happened to Zimbob. Chavez is watching (and drooling) at the thought of doing this in Venez to rally public support for himself. We cant feed the entire world by ourselves, they better rethink this. |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2005-08-04 09:43 |
| #8 Saw this coming when Mugabe did the same thing and his African neighbors rallied around him checking the world opinion while their main source of food started becoming an food importer. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2005-08-04 09:43 |
| #7 IMHO, this is one of those "cut your losses and get out" situations. Any white farmers holding on are only fooling themselves. What little they can get for their land today will be more than they can get tomorrow. Life isn't fair and reality sux. Time to move on. |
| Posted by: 2b 2005-08-04 09:12 |
| #6 Next door they have the perfect example of "how not to do it" and yet they consider the same thing? It's not about doing it right, or even doing the right thing. It's about power. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2005-08-04 09:06 |
| #5 Looks like it is time for me to advise my cousins in South Africa to emigrate to Mexico... I'd hate to see them caught up in another Zimbabwe. |
| Posted by: DanNY 2005-08-04 09:05 |
| #4 But likes I said, makes sure they toss in a whitey to do all that plantin shit. Bob fuckup when he don't do that down here and my farm don't grow shit. |
| Posted by: Farmin B. Hard 2005-08-04 08:54 |
| #3 But we've got to develop AIDS drugs and give them to them for free. Sheesh. Sub-saharan Africa is going back to their glorious 15th century past in a hurry. |
| Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2005-08-04 08:50 |
| #2 WTF is it with these Africans? Next door they have the perfect example of "how not to do it" and yet they consider the same thing? I just don't understand such willful stupidity (Why are you hitting yourself in the head with a hammer? Well, my buddy did it and how he's a bloody pulp, so I thought I'd try it. Sheesh!) |
| Posted by: Spot 2005-08-04 08:39 |
| #1 Sell the kruegerands! Divest the stock! I ain't gonna play Sun City. |
| Posted by: eLarson 2005-08-04 08:39 |