Posted on 08/13/2006 7:52:24 PM PDT by Marius3188
The South African government has told white farmers that they risk losing their farms if they fail to agree a selling price within six months.
The Agriculture and Land Affairs Minister, Lulu Xingwana, said the deadline was necessary to speed up the transfer of farms to black people who were forcibly removed from their land under apartheid.
The transfers are part of a government programme to get 30% of farmland in black hands by 2014.
Land reform is one of the most emotive and politically charged issues in South Africa.
And returning land seized from black farmers during apartheid was of the key promises made by the African National Congress when it came to power in 1994.
Slow progress
More than 10 years on, only 4% of land has been transferred and the government is under fire for going too slowly.
The problem, ministers say, is that it is taking too long to negotiate with white farmers over the price of land.
Now, for the first time, the government has set a time limit on talks - it will negotiate for six months and no more. After that, land could be expropriated.
The challenge for the ruling ANC is to keep the promises it has made while avoiding the violence that has surrounded land reform in neighbouring Zimbabwe - where it helped bring about the collapse of the country's highly profitable agricultural sector.
Difficult task
But it is a hugely complex process.
One problem is sorting out competing claims over the same piece of land.
Families removed from farms generations ago often do not have documents. Family trees have to be constructed to see who is entitled to a share.
And if black farmers are allocated land, but not given enough capital to develop it, then agricultural production could fall.
But whatever the short-term costs, advocates of land reform say the longer-term risks of political instability are much higher if the issue is not tackled faster.
Already, grievances over land have led to violence in some areas.
I am one of the evil right-wing labelers.
Tisk-tisk then...
:)
Sell said. Worth a bump, and worth repeating.
"I hope that our otherwise compassionate and giving community will think twice, thrice, four times before giving any charitable contributions to help the future starving children of South Africa."
I don't donate. I make little enough as it is. I don't think the hippies will think at all though.
Xingwana really came up with a Lulu this time!
Black South Africans will be singing a "Cry Thy Beloved Country " very soon. This once great nation in Dark Africa will be converted to a Zimbabwean paradise before the populace knows it.
Time for liberal America to pat itself on the back for helping to reduce this once highly productive nation to a scrap heap by goading for "sanctions."
A fairly recent poll of South Africans indicated that a majority would return to the rule by the previous minority government.
This declining country now boasts of statistics like: every 10 minutes a child under 10 is being raped.
Which groups are they mentioning, here? Is it the blacks that don't have the documents, the whites? The Africans? The Dutch? The British? Do these documents actually mean anything after all of this time?
The fact that the land issue hasn't been resolved in ten years makes me believe that those in power NEVER want it to be resolved. They need it as a political tool.
Is the pendulum going to keep swinging back and forth... help the black South Africans... help the white South Africans, all with years of decay and death in between?
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