It has been a bad week for Derek Hanekom with=20 opposition to his land reforms coming from several=20 fronts, writes Eddie Koch
LAND reform has come under siege from four fronts as=20 officials battling to reshape apartheid’s rural=20 geography were hit this week by the simultaneous=20 prospect of land invasions from labour tenants, civil=20 disobedience from Zulu loyalists, right-wing reaction=20 from white farmers and resistance to reform from army=20
Nelson Mandela was called in to help as Cabinet=20 fractured over the future of the army’s massive battle=20 school at Lohatla. Inkatha leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi=20 issued ominous grumbles about new laws that will limit=20 chiefs’ rights to control communal land. And a yawning=20 chasm opened between black labour tenants and white=20 farmers over a bill that will give thousands of black=20 farmers secure land rights.=20
This combination of problems, all of which came to a=20 head in the same week, have presented Land Affairs=20 Minister Hanekom and his officials with their biggest=20 headache since they launched a comprehensive programme=20 to implement the government’s promise to redistribute=20 30 percent of arable land and give the rural poor=20 rights to live on land without fear of arbitrary=20
His ministry has pressed through a gamut of laws and=20 bills to achieve this. Early in the year comprehensive=20 restitution measures were in place for communities=20 displaced under apartheid to reclaim title to their=20 land. A pilot land reform programme aimed at=20 redistributing land to poor constituencies is up and=20 running in all nine provinces.
Last month a draft law that will protect more than 250=20 000 labour tenants from arbitrary eviction and give=20 them the right to own land on white farms was=20 published. This week the Cabinet accepted a new trilogy=20 of bills that provide security to millions of residents=20 on land in the former homelands.=20
The laws make use of market-driven mechanisms and have=20 been carefully designed to avoid politically explosive=20 expropriations or utopian social engineering schemes,=20 which is why the ministry’s work teams have not run=20 into any serious seismic activity — until this week.
The first shudders came when Defence Minister Joe=20 Modise sent a memorandum to Cabinet saying the army did=20 not want to give back any part of the 135 000 hectare=20 battle school at Lohatla in the Northern Cape even=20 though three communities were removed from the area in=20 the apartheid era and have lodged formal claims for=20 their title to be restored.
Weekend media reports say Hanekom erupted when he heard=20 of the memo. A number of high-level meetings were=20 called this week to stave off a Cabinet rift, including=20 a face-to-face encounter between the two ministers. The=20 upshot is that Modise has been forced to withdraw his=20 memo and Mandela has agreed to intervene in the spat=20 over the battleground.
Cabinet on Wednesday accepted three new land reform=20 bills even though they had earlier been described by=20 Home Affairs Minister Mangosuthu Buthelezi as another=20 attempt by central government to undermine the powers=20 of traditional chiefs in KwaZulu/Natal.
The main law in the trilogy, the Interim Protection of=20 Informal Land Rights Bill, provides for a temporary=20 freeze on tenure patterns in the former homelands where=20 formal land-holding records are in a state of chaos and=20 do not reflect actual residential patterns. It gives=20 land officials a breathing period, until the end of=20 1996, to come up with a comprehensive programme for=20 solving this administrative nightmare in the old=20
Although the Bill does not change any land titles or=20 provide for expropriation, as claimed in press reports=20 last week, Buthelezi railed against the measures at an=20 Inkatha Freedom Party rally in KwaZulu/Natal last week=20 on grounds that it formed part of a concerted strategy=20 — along with the plan for central government to pay=20 traditional leaders’ salaries — to undermine the power=20 of chiefs to administer land in tribal areas.
The minister remained mum, by all accounts, when=20 Cabinet approved the bill on Wednesday but there is=20 little doubt that he will use it to send shudders=20 through the politically volatile province when the IFP=20 steps up opposition to Mandela’s plan to take over the=20 chiefs’ wage Bill.
The most unstable terrain exists, however, in parts of=20 KwaZulu/Natal and the Eastern Transvaal where labour=20 tenants and farmers have been waging a low-intensity=20 class struggle over rights to land. Flashpoints are the=20 Colenso/Weenen area and districts around Piet Retief.
In both regions, white farmers, fearful of claims from=20 people who have lived on the land for decades, have=20 been evicting scores of black families, impounding =20 their cattle and burning some of their homesteads.=20 Workers and farm tenants responded first by threatening=20 an armed invasion of white-owned land and then by=20 waging a massive labour strike this year. At different=20 stages of these ferocious conflicts, cattle were=20 hamstrung, fences ripped down and there have been=20 cases of farmers being assassinated.
The Land Reform (Labour Tenants) Bill was set up to=20 either give tenants secure title or enable them to buy=20 their own land from farmers. It also, however, lays=20 down procedures for landowners to evict tenants who=20 have broken contract with a farmer, and the measure won=20 some support from organised agriculture because it=20 promised to bring a measure of stability and order to a=20 region that has been fraught with conflict and=20
But now the Agricultural Employers Organisation (AEO),=20 which claims to represent 7 000 farmers, and three=20 major agricultural unions have called a summit in=20 Newcastle — heart of the quake around the=20 KwaZulu/Natal labour tenants problem — on July 4 to=20 mobilise resistance to the Bill.
Meanwhile, this week labour tenants issued a statement=20 through the National Land Committee warning that unless=20 the law was passed they would “embark on a programme of=20 mass action”. The tenants also said they were not=20 prepared to pay for land obtained from white farmers as=20 provided for in the bill.
“The bill comes at a critical time when there is=20 potential for increased conflict between white farmers=20 and labour tenants over land rights,” says an NLC=20
“Labour tenants have been indicating that they have no=20 money to pay for land, they feel they have paid for=20 land through generations of work without pay”
Hanekom acknowledged this week that he has found=20 himself “wedged between opposing forces” but was=20 stoical about the threats. “If nobody is 100 percent=20 happy then maybe I’m on the right route,” he told the=20 Mail & Guardian.=20
“You can either be totally mediocre and do nothing or=20 proceed with a certain degree of boldness, imagination=20 and creativity — in which case, some or other party=20 will object. If you please one party all of the time,=20 you’re doing something wrong.”
But indications are that the ground under his feet is=20 about to move.