Snippets from South Africa, June 2005
The Land Grab Begins in South Africa: Legalised State Theft
Zimbabwe’s government used violence and brutality, and even murder, to force over 4000 white farmers to abandon their farms. The land invasions were completely illegal. In South Africa, the process is more subtle, but in the end the result will be the same. And what is even worse is that here it is legal! It is nothing less than State theft. In June 2005, SA’s Land Affairs and Agriculture Minister was set to approve SA’s very first expropriation order, using a new restitution law; and “it may spark fears that it could become the norm instead of the exception, as occurred in neighbouring Zimbabwe” (Source: AllAfrica.com). An amendment to the Restitution of Land Rights Act, passed in 2004, allows the minister to expropriate land under claim without a court order. As was to be expected, land activists (read: anti-white, racist Communist land-grabbers) welcomed the minister’s decision.
The farmer, F. Visser, farming in the North West province, wanted R6 million for his farm, but later lowered this to R3 million. However, a government-appointed valuer pegged the ceiling value of the farm at only R1.7 million. The farmer refused, and so expropriation was recommended by Gauteng and North West land claims chief Blessing Mphela. And note his ominous words: “There are still farmers who feel they can resist restitution, but they are not in the majority.” The message is clear: resist, and be punished. We will take your land one way or the other.
The restitution law applies only to land from which blacks were forcibly removed through apartheid policies after 1913. Well, at least this is as far as the law goes for the moment. As tragic as may have been the forced removals of some people from their land many decades ago, it is now history, and history is what it is. Two wrongs do not make a right. Taking the land away from another, who bought it, and who was often not even alive at the time it was taken away from earlier owners, is to commit the very same wrong all over again: to forcibly remove someone from his land. It achieves nothing, except to undo years of toil, and to perpetuate a cycle of resentment and bitterness.
The president of AgriSA said, “It sends the wrong message to the outside world for investment and property rights in SA.” This was denied by Mphela, who said, “Expropriation is not the main vehicle for land delivery [not yet, at any rate! – S.W.]. It is only done in extreme cases and having due regard for the rights of the owner.” Sure.
The president of the Transvaal Agricultural Union said the move signalled the beginning of State-sanctioned land grabs. “The only difference between SA and Zimbabwe,” he said, “is that the minister does it here through legislation.” He is right. In Zimbabwe it was illegal; here it is now legal. And because it is legal, the ANC will always be able to turn around and say to critics, “But it’s legal! We’re not acting illegally.” Yet that does not alter the fact that it is a shocking piece of legislation, that amounts to theft on the part of the State. And it is all being done (as in Zimbabwe) to force white farmers off their land, and to give that land to blacks. This will result, in time, in famine and starvation in South Africa, as it did in Zimbabwe. Black farmers lack the skill, the expertise, to run the vast, commercial South African farms on which millions of South Africans rely for their daily food. In addition, most black farmers practice subsistence farming, which is simply not sufficient to feed a nation of over 40 million people.
Black subsistence farmers on the outskirts of Johannesburg are actually blocking sewage pipes to irrigate their crops! They lift manhole covers, use rubble and boulders to block the pipes and divert raw sewage to their maize and vegetable crops. “We’re very worried,” said Johannesburg Water spokesman, Jameel Chand. “If that gets into a stream, you’re talking cholera. Even without that, with pools of raw sewage you end up with other diseases. We’re talking about whatever people flush down the toilet” (Source: Independent Online).
The shape of things to come?
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