Ben Cousins
SECOND LOOK
Zimbabwean-style land invasions are likely in South Africa in the future unless politicians begin to deal decisively with the highly emotive issue of unequal and racially skewed land distribution.
This is a real prospect, despite the great differences between the political economies of the two countries. As in Zimbabwe, local invasions would probably be organised by populist politicians.
Of course, the current invasions in Zimbabwe by so-called “war veterans” are not really about land reform. They are motivated primarily by Robert Mugabe’s and Zanu-PF’s fears that they will lose the coming election. The invasions send a clear message to Zimbabwe’s electorate: the rule of law will be no deterrent to Zanu-PF’s ambitions to remain in power.
They also derive from Mugabe’s attempts to create scapegoats for the grinding poverty now suffered by most Zimbabweans. Blaming the tiny but still relatively well- off white minority helps to shift attention away from deep-seated corruption and government mismanagement of the economy, which has included blatant cronyism in land resettlement in the 1990s.
These strategems may yet backfire. Cynicism about who really benefits from land reform is widespread. Nevertheless, it is clear that the “land card” is an extremely powerful one. It is striking that commentators of all political persuasion in Zimbabwe agree that the land question is far from resolved. It is a potent symbol of transformation – or the lack of it.
The higher levels of urbanisation and industrialisation in South Africa, the relatively small direct contribution agriculture makes to the economy, and the lower political profile of land reform mean local land invasions appear unlikely. Moreover, the prospect of politically inspired land invasions organised by the African National Congress and supported by the head of state is surely even less probable.
Yet, like Zimbabwe, South Africa has a history of state-supported or state-led dispossession of indigenous people for the benefit of white settlers. Peasant farming here was also deliberately undermined by policies aimed at developing white agriculture. The majority of the rural population was restricted to “native reserves”, which provided a source of cheap migrant labour for white-owned farms, mines and industries. Population growth on a restricted land base, with legislative damage to peasant farming, led to rising levels of poverty and malnutrition.
It is thus not surprising that in both Zimbabwe and South Africa the liberation movements articulated demands for the restoration of stolen lands – although rural struggles took different forms in the two countries. In South Africa communities organised themselves to resist forced removals with assistance from NGOs, but had little direct support from the exiled political parties. In Zimbabwe rural communities played host to guerrilla fighters. A discourse of “land rights for the people” emerged in both struggles and radical policies for land reform were formulated. Ambitious targets for redistributive reforms were announced soon after Zanu-PF and the ANC swept to power.
The policy frameworks in the two countries display some important differences. South Africa has a constitutionally mandated land restitution programme – Zimbabwe does not – and the market is supposed to play a key role in a demand-led programme of land acquisition, in contrast to state-driven resettlement in Zimbabwe.
In both countries, the early stages of these programmes targeted the ultra-poor and landless. Both programmes suffer from inadequate funding, are burdened by time- consuming bureaucratic procedures and have lagged behind over-ambitious implementation schedules. These problems have given rise to inappropriately negative judgments on land reform, which in turn have resulted in the reorientation of policy towards “emergent commercial farmers”.
In Zimbabwe in the late 1980s and 1990s a myth was promoted that land reform beneficiaries were the least productive farmers. Selection criteria gave preference to “experienced farmers”, and a large number of farms were allocated to black commercial farmers. Some of the beneficiaries were cabinet ministers, senior government officials and wealthy businessmen.
South Africa’s land redistribution policy is now following this trend. Following an internal review of the Department of Land Affairs’ programme, the minister, Thoko Didiza, has announced a new programme aimed at creating a class of 70 000 black commercial farmers over 15 years. Additional land for the rural poor is seen as supporting “subsistence agriculture”, and small-scale production is seen as inherently limi-ting. Inherited professional prejudice and lobbying by commercial farmers has led officials to underestimate the real economic value of land-based livelihoods in communal areas.
Recent research estimates that these contribute a gross aggregate value of R13,3-billion a year, or 2,5% of Gross Domestic Product. Enhancing this through infrastructural development and more effective support services, in combination with increased and more secure access to land, would attack rural poverty very directly – and more effectively than job creation on the farms of emerging commercial farmers.
Didiza’s top officials argue that the two approaches are complementary. But no review of the hopelessly inadequate support services for small-scale agricultural projects in the former homelands has been carried out. Most tellingly, no additional funds have been made available. It is clear that the existing redistribution budget line (already over-committed and set to decline over the next three years) will have to be diverted to fund grants to emerging commercial farmers.
The Department of Land Affairs receives 0,4% of the national budget, and about half of this is for land acquisition – a clear indication of the low political priority accorded land reform. Under this regime it is unlikely that land redistribution will make much impact over the next 10 years.
Will quicker processing of land claims make a difference? Unlikely. The cost of resolving 13 000 rural land claims is estimated at anything between R26-billion and R70-billion. If the equivalent of the entire restitution budget for 2002/3, amounting to R287-million, was used each year for rural claims alone, resolution would take 90 years at minimum. Moreover, the number of people likely to benefit from restitution will never constitute more than a small proportion of the rural poor who desire access to more land.
As important is the wider economic context. The economy has grown but lost formal-sector jobs, and improvements in some rural services have not been accompanied by significant economic development. The poorest households are in some ways worse off than before. Worse, job losses in mining and other sectors have seen the return of significant numbers of men.
Resultant desperation probably explains increased stock theft from commercial farms. Poach grazing by communal livestock herds has long bedevilled relationships across the boundary fences. Farm murders have aroused fears that the rule of law in rural areas is under increasing stress.
Land invasions fuelled by desperation have been a feature of urban areas in South Africa over the past decade. They have not occurred on a large scale in rural areas to date, but some have taken place in the Queenstown district, in Dwesa-Cwebe and Mkambati on the Wild Coast, and in the Mudimbo corridor alongside the Limpopo river. They are currently threatened in Wakkerstroom and in the southern Cape. Most of these cases involve restitution claims.
The government’s commitment to protecting property rights (a key concern of foreign investors) means that Mbeki is unlikely to follow Mugabe’s lead and provide support for invasions. In addition, the ANC appears to be attempting to secure its rural support base not through populist rhetoric around land reform, but through cultivating a rural patronage system based on the chiefs (in the former homelands) and on emerging black commercial farmers (on privately owned land). Land invasions are therefore likely to be met with a firm and unsympathetic response from the state.
Yet, there are a number of reasons to suggest that populist politicians and parties of the type led by Bantu Holomisa could begin to receive significant levels of support over the next decade. “Jobless growth”, rising poverty and inequality are more likely in South Africa than are East Asian miracles. Black empowerment which benefits only a small elite will be an easy target for critics. The deepest poverty will still be found in densely settled rural areas – and populists could well build a significant support base there.
Rural development and land reform need greatly expanded levels of funding if they are to make a difference to life in rural areas, and the government has accorded these low priority to date. The current emphasis on promoting black commercial farming and the diversion of scarce resources to this new programme will only exacerbate the delays in addressing the land needs of the rural poor, who constitute more than one-third of South Africa’s population.
Are we condemned to rural poverty and the probability of land invasions here – or can we recognise the wake-up call Zimbabwe represents for us in South Africa?
Ben Cousins heads the Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies at the University of the Western Cape
April
Link to the day
28 20 14 07
28