South African Land Grabs Raise Specter of Famines

Hmmmmmmmmmmm...more food for thought.

I wonder if Mbeki got that bright idea from the muslims in Nigeria not giving the polio vaccine to Nigerians (esp. non-muslims).

Can't argue with a thing you wrote. You go girl! :-)

Noooooooooooooooooo...this is far older than that wee dust-up.

What old Thabo sounds most like, is the Nation of Islam nutters, on HIV/AIDS. His talks are almost word for word, old Louis Farrakhan rants.

I have no sympathy for the whites in South Africa. They should have gotten out while the going was good but they insist on remaining and maintaining their privilidged economic status. The hadnwriting has been on the wall for sometime now, they are marked for liquidation but refuse to believe it. I say let them rot. They remind me of the jews in germany who refused until the last to believe that their neighbors would kill them. All of these people are poor students of history and refuse to learn it's lessons. As for the rest of the illiterate morons who follow these inept African leaders, they deserve what they get as well. Let the whole place rot.

Mugabe is a 'staunch' Roman Catholic... this is news to me. I would want him to see the movie Passion, but I think it may only give him ideas. (I should feel shame for thinking that)

Mandella doesn't enter in; communism does. Confiscation & 'redistribution' is classic. So is class-division.

As to Mbeki:

1. Sees NOTHING be done about Zimbabwe...except the EU make 'exceptions' for Mugabe & family to travel to EU in violation of 'sanctions'.

2. Sees Commonwealth do NOTHING about Zimbabwe flouting Commonwealth 'values', other than 'study', etc.

3. Mbeki is an out & out racist.

4. Terrible internal problems, which can be demonized onto the despized, properous minority.

Somehow, sounds made to order for the begginings for instituting a People's Paradise. Never mind that many of those problems are of his own making.

Not all whites were as privileged as people think. My ex-man pal grew up dirt poor (as many afrikaners did in his day) and actually had government aid to go to school. A lot of the money privilege was in the english speaking community. A lot of the issues with apartheid could be laid at the feet of the government at the time who rather shut SA off from the rest of the world under some guise of 'protecting DRC morals'. The rank and file white, coloured and asians weren't as well off as people (esp. the liars in the ANC) made them out to be. My lekker boer had family in South Africa since the 1700s. If you had family in America for 300 years would it be that easy for you to leave? Probably not.

Oh crap........not again!

Look, you obviously know next to nothing about South Africa,or the people who live there, but have the temerity and gall to pontificate here, on what the whites ( why only the whites, when many, many, MANY more blacks have been and are being treated abominably by the ANC too ?)there should have done/should do.

Maintaining their " privileged economic status " ? Many white South Africans are poor or lower middle class.

So tell us, WHERE should ALL of the white South Africans have gone and when?

And when should " white " Americans leave...now, in then years, in 30, because there is a great deal of crime right here and and land grabs too, you know. ;^)

Pray he never sees the film.

BTW, land grabbing from the poor farmers. Heavy weights like Anglo American get to keep theirs.

Mandela IS a stinking Commie and not all that far removed from Mbeki, in his way of thinking; Mbeki is just a wee bit more obvious.

But yes, it IS the Communist mantras, which drive this behavior.

Kofi anyone?

Correct!

In 6 months we will be sending food to these morons and they will reject them at the port because they are genetically modified. Who needs enemies?

Mbeki did it first, and the Nigerians thought it was a wonderful idea I guess.

I guess :(

AfricaWatch:

-South Africa - The sellout of a nation--

-Cry, the Beloved Country--

-Robert Mugabe and the Struggle for Power--

-A Capsule History of Southern Africa--

-Rhetoric of blame is now a white lie--

-First it was Rhodesia then SA now America paying the price of silence--

-Pity About Africa...--

-Parallels between Apartheid SA and USA--

-Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight--

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It's difficult to say how this will play out. The constitution of SA was changed recently, and says that the Minister of Land Affairs can confiscate any land if deemed in the public interest, and compensate the owner whatever the government sees as a fair price. This amendment has a little history. The "willing seller-willing buyer" process did not work well, mainly because government appraisers of property value consistently undervalued farmland by as much as 50%, and farmers were then obviously not willing to sell. The high court in SA ruled against the goverment in a landmark case, and that prompted this amendment. Technically, it means the SA government can take land without compensating the owner, if it is deemed to be in the public interest. The landowner has no recourse to the government structures or legal structures now. In my opinion, this is an election year ploy that may go bad. I'm hesitant to dismiss it purely as scare tactics. Little known about SA is the way affirmative action and company ownership was forced on the SA population, and I have to draw this parallel. The ANC goverment passed a law that every company employing more than 100 people must have a workforce at every level, that at least reflected the make-up of the SA population, 80% black, 13% white etc, within 5 years. If companies did not comply, they were fined up to ZAR 5 million, enough to bankrupt many small companies. Two things happened, firstly unqualified blacks were put in positions to simply "window-dress", and secondly, companies had to fire whites to reduce the ratio. Also, companies who did not have at least 50% black ownership were excluded from government tenders. Against that background, my fear is that the ANC has the same agenda here, thinking that land ownership should reflect the make-up of the SA population, and they now have the power to just confiscate land to make this happen. Namibia has already publically announced they will do the same. While it may seem like a noble and fair idea, it just is not practical, and certainly not fair. And as we see from the goverment response, anyone who disagrees is a racist. The SA government owns stacks of land, former military test ranges etc, why do they not populate that first?

Namibia prepares to take white farmland

February 26 2004 at 06:53AM

By Tabby Moyo and Peter Fabricius

Windhoek - Namibia is about to start grabbing white farms to speed up redistribution of land to blacks.

Making the announcement on national television, Prime Minister Theo-Ben Gurirab said the decision had been forced upon the government by farmers who were unwilling to sell their land to the government for resettlement.

"The government has come to realise that the willing-seller, willing-buyer approach is cumbersome."

'More than 240 000 landless people are currently awaiting resettlement'
"As a result, it would not be able to keep up with the high public demand for land," Gurirab said.

The Namibia Agricultural Union said it would officially react to the government move only on Thursday.

The announcement, which came as Namibia prepares for elections, drew hushed responses on Wednesday night, although some Namibians seemed certain to draw comparisons with Zimbabwe's land-grab programme.

A European diplomat, who preferred not to be named, said: "Well, it's campaign time. What can I say? I don't think the white farmers should have anything to worry about... the government is under pressure for land."

At a congress held by the ruling Swapo party two years ago, President Sam Nujoma warned that the government could be forced to change its approach of obtaining farms for resettlement if farmers were unwilling to part with their land.

Gurirab said on Wednesday night: "The (willing seller) process has become slow because of arbitrarily inflated land prices and the availability of productive land. More than 240 000 landless people are currently awaiting resettlement."

"In this context, the cabinet has endorsed the recommendation by the Ministry of Lands, Resettlement and Rehabilitation to consider the other approach to land reform."

"That includes expropriating a selected number of farms for resettlement."

He also expressed anger at white farmers who were evicting their workers, leaving them with nowhere to go.

"The government has witnessed with dismay and outrage how farmworkers are left destitute and dumped with their families and belongings at the side of the road by their employers."

"In this process, the Labour Act is flouted and unrest has arisen in certain parts of our country," said Gurirab.

Last week, a farmer near Windhoek flouted a court order to re-instate six employees who were found to have been illegally dismissed from his farmlands.

Gurirab stressed that fair and reasonable compensation would be paid to the farmers whose farms were expropriated, as stipulated in the constitution.

"The government will ensure that land reform and expropriation of land in Namibia is done in accordance with the Namibian constitution and the relevant legislation," he said.

Since independence in 1990, more than 34 000 Namibians have been resettled on commercial farmland.

About 243 000 people still need to be resettled.

A total of 9,5-million hectares of land is required in the next five years, officials have said. - Independent Foreign Service