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Mail & Guardian

Land Dispossession

latest news & developments
Revolution: Three decades into democracy, South Africa remains trapped between constitutional freedom and the unresolved realities of land dispossession, inequality and economic exclusion. Photo: JMK
AUTSHUMAO

It is time for the Second Republic

Our private and political lives are always punctuated by upheavals and storms. These moments signal the direction we should take. The unfolding political and economic crisis in…

  • Muzi Sikhakhane
8 min read
Unresolved: Spokes Sithole, who was born in the same year as Nelson Mandela, 1918, is one of the original claimants in the R1 billion Mala Mala land claim. He died at 108. Photos. Lucas Ledwaba
COMMISSION FOR RESTITUTION OF LAND RIGHTS

Fruit of freedom withers under broken land deal

The death of Spokes Sithole at 108 exposes the broken promise of one of South Africa’s largest land restitution settlements, where freedom and land ownership have not translated…

  • Lucas Ledwaba
7 min read
why-it-doesnt-make-sense-that-all-informal-mining-is-deemed-illegal. Image: Supplied
APARTHEID

Criminal syndicates, as well as individuals, part of illegal gold mining on the West Rand

Castigating, rather than encouraging, business leaders when they advocate for harsh interventions sets us all back

  • James Gordon
5 min read
Scene of daily life in a Bantustan, or Homeland, near Johannesburg in South Africa, in February 1963. The bantustans or homelands were African reserves allocated to the country’s different black ethnic groups, established in 1951 by the “Bantu Authorities Act” introduced by the government of Daniel Francois Malan as part of the policy of apartheid. These homelands were independent states to which each African was assigned by the government according to the record of origin, losing his citizenship in South Africa and any right of involvement with the South African Parliament which held complete hegemony over the homelands. (Photo by EPU/AFP)
AFRICAN NATIONAL CONGRESS

Tembeka Ngcukaitobi: The ANC’s inertia on land could be the betrayal of its founding principles

The party’s founders focused it’s mission on the problem of the day – land – which remains a central issue. Yet, since 1994, the ANC has been hesitant and timid in resolving the…

  • Tembeka Ngcukaitobi
15 min read
Shut out: Some small-scale farmers, such as Johannes Ntuli, have not received a cent from government despite policies that are meant to uplift them and their agribusinesses. (Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)
AFRICAN LAND OWNERSHIP

Lindiwe Sisulu: Whose law is it anyway?

We must overhaul a justice system that does not work for Africa and Africans. Immediate land reform is crucial now

  • Lindiwe Sisulu
8 min read