Kimberley | Wednesday
A SOUTH African land rights group warned on Tuesday of ”inevitable” Zimbabwe-style land invasions, saying they were a justifiable means of speeding up restitution for those dispossessed by apartheid.
The warning from the National Land Committee (NLC), a body of organisations and individuals fighting for land rights, provoked an angry response from the government.
”In the context of the continued massive inequality in land access … and the political and economic powerlessness of the rural poor, this kind of action is inevitable and morally justifiable,” an NLC statement said Tuesday.
They also condemned the arrest of 19 people on Saturday, since released, for occupying part of a farm on Friday in the Kuruman area, about 600km southwest of Pretoria.
The committee supported ”the peaceful and legitimate re-occupation of land by the Groot Vlakfontein community”, which was forcibly removed from the farm in 1966.
The community lodged their land claim with the post-apartheid Commission for Restitution of Land Rights in 1996 and it has still not been resolved.
The statement was blasted by the agriculture and land affairs ministry.
”It is disappointing that they are influencing people to do things that can expose them to arrest and conviction on criminal charges,” said Moses Mushi, representative for Minister Thoko Didiza.
Mushi said the South African government, which has been struggling to cater for the demands of myriad groups disadvantaged by apartheid since the first democratic elections in 1994, would not allow pressure groups or communities to hold it hostage.
”Everybody is impatient. Everybody is equal. We will not let opportunistic communities jump the queue. We are going to do this (the land reform process) the right way.”
Two other NLC affiliates, the Mpumalanga Labour Tenants Committee and the Free State Farming Community, have also condemned the arrest of the land claimants.
President Thabo Mbeki’s government has stated that it will not tolerate any land invasions like those in neighbouring Zimbabwe — which have often been murderously violent since beginning early last year — and insisted the land reform process must proceed within a constitutional framework.
The government’s Land Claims Commission, criticised for its slow pace, has settled about 12_150 claims out of about 67_500 lodged involving more than 27_600 families and over 164_000 individual since 1998. – AFP
FEATURES:
PAC leader warns of land grab in SA June 25, 2001
Dunns feel they’ve been ‘done’ again March 2, 2001
Land commissioner’s response a ‘parody of argument’ December 14, 2000
Land reform for the poorest October 19, 2000
Farmland expropriation threat denounced October 23, 2000
Creating the black commercial farmer September 26, 2000
State owns 20% of SA land – Didiza August 2, 2000
A beginner’s guide to land matters May 8, 2000
Landless threaten boycotts, invasions May 5, 2000
Threat of Zim-style invasions in E Cape April 28, 2000
Could South Africa be next? April 19, 2000
‘Give us the land or we’ll take it’ April 14, 2000