Posted on 09/27/2005 6:06:53 PM PDT by Flavius
WHITE South African farmers are watching with mounting unease as the Government finalises plans to take over a white-owned farm and hand the land to descendants of its original black owners.
The seizure, which follows the failure of talks lasting more than two years between the authorities and an Afrikaner family, will signal the end of the willing seller/willing buyer policy. Other white farmers fear that it could mark the start of a far more aggressive land redistribution programme.
Land ownership is a sensitive issue in a country that has been spared the violent seizures without compensation of neighbouring Zimbabwe, where more than 4,000 white-owned farms have been taken over since 2000. The Government has faced growing criticism of foot-dragging over the politically explosive issues and recently changed the law to allow expropriation to take place without court approval. Most of South Africa ’s 40 million people live in rural areas, and they are overwhelmingly black and poor.
Eleven years after the end of apartheid, the Government has transferred slightly more than 3 per cent of agricultural land previously reserved for whites to black owners. Another 27 per cent must follow to meet the official target of 30 per cent black ownership by 2014.
Thoko Didiza, the Land Affairs Minister, said at the weekend that she would submit plans to the Cabinet next month to make the pace of land reform ten times faster.
She said: “The quicker we deal with this land issue, the better for all of us. It creates an uncertainty, not just for South Africans, but for others who want to develop partnerships with us and who keep asking when this will end.” She added that the target was not negotiable and that “policy, not the deadline, will have to change”.
The compulsory purchase of Leeuwsprit Farm in Lichtenburg, about 160 miles west of Johannesburg, which reignited the debate, was approved by Blessing Mphela, the North West Land Claims Com- missioner. He said that it was the last option after negotiations with Frans Visser, 82, and his son, Hannes, 47, had failed.
The Government had offered 1.75 million rands (£154,000) but the Visser family was holding out for R3 million for two adjacent farms totalling 500 hectares (1,235 acres).
The Vissers, who bought the land from other Afrikaner farmers in 1968, maintain that they should also be compen- sated for improvements that they have made. They argue that the Government is offering them only the value of the land rather than the value of the entire venture.
The family has pledged to fight the order. Lizanne Burger, 51, Mr Visser’s daughter, said: “We have yet to receive the papers, but we have been told they are on the way.” Her brother, Hannes, said that he would appeal against the order and fight it in the courts. He said: “I do not recognise the claim and cannot be forced to sell at the Government’s price.” He added that he had invested R3.4 million in the cattle and sheep farm as recently as 1994-98, for which he should also be compensated.
Thousands of black families were forcibly removed from their land during white minority rule. Some sold under pressure, but title deeds show voluntary sales. Others were forced out of areas that were suddenly designated for whites only.
Mr Visser’s black neighbours successfully argued before the Land Commission that the land on which Leeuwsprit Farm is located had been taken from them against their will in 1939.
The Indians that I know and I am a part of one (Unlike Ward Churchhill I can prove it) are about as prepared to take back over what the White man took from us as the blacks were to take back over at the end of aparthied. The story of the statistics show that blacks as a whole are worse off now than they were before Mandela carried the day. Per capita income, trade deficits, genocides, tribal segragations and mass relocations were virtually unheard of before the end of aparthied now they are common to many if not all African nations.
sorry for the X2, I'd like to blame my 'puter but it would be a lie
dogs chasing cars
1939 isn't the 1800s. How old are you? If you're older, be thankful you weren't a black South African living on property that was later stolen by someone else. This 'blacks were better off with apartheid' stuff is nonsense. I guess it really pains freepers too much to get that forcing people off their property to give to someone else is wrong. Yet, when it's done here by our own government it's a great and awful crime and some are even ready to take up arms.
Why isnt it the same thing and why are you suprised?
Opps. Should have said not suprised.
If you can't understand why it was wrong for the apartheid gov ernment to shove people off their land then I'm not going to bother to explain. Perhaps you should read more about the lives of people affected by the laws that they passed instead of considering that it was just blacks in straw huts. It wasn't. I'm not surprised at the response because I know that some freepers already have a mindset about this and haven't thought about the people. Of course, it's never occured to you that this could have been YOU but for the grace of God.
Okay nevermind. You and khan can talk amongst yourselves how apartheid is better for black people. Bye.
you get the point...it's my day off from work and I'm finding time to relax. Yes there are people out there who work and aren't on welfare.
Hello cyborg :)
I don't know to much about this issue but I was wondering how apartheid would would be classified. It isn't communism, socialism, or even capitalism, is it?
I actually don't know. Some think it was capitalism but I don't, at least not like America.
We have in SA the case of individuals laying claim to specific parcels of land. That is entirely different from Indian nations laying a general claim to the right to roam about and play in, say, Kansas (a colossal waste of land, btw).
Maybe it was nothing more than a police state distributing socialism by race?
I'm reading about it at http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~cale/cs201/apartheid.hist.html
Thank you. It wasn't only about black people either. It was about moving indians, coloureds and whites off property they owned, esp. how it created areas like the Bo Kaap,etc.
I would say more police state than anything else, esp. in the cities and suburbs as opposed to way out in the bush. Gun grabbing and dictating people's choices of mate,etc. that's not capitalist to me.
Thank you for answering the question as to what the difference is. I am not positive but what I have read much of the land was purchased and much of it was unused and barren untill it was irrigated and dams were built, roads built, electricity brought it, ect, ect.
I am sure there are some people who may have had land stripped from them but I do not believe that was all that common. Therefore if one is to believe that this land should be taken from the people who have worked it and made it profitable for the last 100 to 200 years then they should support return of native american land.
I don't think we disagree on much of this. But if a black farmer had a going concern (finite patch of land that was his and that he farmed as best he could) taken from him, it should be returned.
If it is more like Kansas (or Israel for that matter), which lay unused until worked by settlers who made it what it is, then I wouldn't support a claim.
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