Posted on 09/22/2005 11:51:32 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
PRETORIA, South Africa - South Africa's government is for the first time moving to seize land from a white farmer, saying Thursday that negotiations to buy the property to hand over to black claimants were taking too long.
Blessing Mphela, a land restitution commissioner, said at a news conference that the seizure was a last resort, but he added that land transfers to redress the abuses of the apartheid era must speed up.
The government has repeatedly said it would rely on negotiated sales to shift agricultural land ownership rather than emulate Zimbabwe's seizures of white-owned farms, which many experts say contributed to the collapse of that country's economy.
But Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's policies have made him hugely popular among black South Africans as land transfers lag here — which the government blames on white farmers demanding overly high prices and dragging out sales.
When South Africa's democratic government came to power in 1994, some 87 percent of farm land was owned by whites, who account for just 10 percent of the population. Whites still own about 80 percent, according to some estimates.
Mphela is an official on the Commission on the Restitution of Land Rights, which was set up to return land that black and mixed-race families lost during white rule.
"In South Africa, where dispossession of African people was much more brutal and thorough than any other in the region, the fruits of liberation have yet to be tasted by the majority of the rural population," he said.
A spokesman for Mphela, Congress Mahlangu, told The Associated Press that the case announced Thursday is the first time the commission has resorted to expropriation.
Mphela, who is in charge of restitution cases in North West Province, said the government would issue an expropriation order for a 1,235-acre farm owned by Hannes Visser. The government offered $276,000, while Visser sought $473,000.
Visser told the South African Press Association he would challenge the order.
"I do not recognize the claim on my land and cannot be forced to sell at the government's price," he said.
Mahlangu said Visser would receive the expropriation order within a week. Mphela said Visser then would have a month to appeal to the minister of agriculture. If the minister upheld the order, Visser could appeal in the courts.
Visser said he made about $550,000 worth of improvements to the farm that his father bought in 1968. He said the government's offer was not enough for him to set up a business comparable to the farm.
Mphela said the farm was once part of four parcels owned by the Molamu family, which was forced to sell under the apartheid government's policy of systematically stripping blacks of land and moving them into townships and "homelands." Descendants of the Molamus filed a claim seeking restitution.
"Two-thirds of the country, including most of the best-quality land, remains in the hands of less than 60,000 people, who unfortunately in this case are white farmers, while 14 million blacks or Africans eke out a precarious existence in the former homelands and urban informal settlements," Mphela said.
fyi - ap followup to your thread of 9/18/05
S.Africa says constitution allows land expropriation ^
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1486949/posts
How long before starvation sets in?
Here we go, another nation swirling down the toilet of racial reparations.
Sounds like Communist propaganda to me. Robbing Hoods, Inc.
Communism...it's whats for dinner.
Oops, post 2 was for you, not tailgunner :)
Get out, Whitey, before it's too late.
I predict drought and famine in S. Africa within 2 years.
We are the world....we are the children...
Before you make any rash moves,black South Africans,talk to your brothers and sisters who are pouring into your country from Zimbabwe.
There has always been plenty of food to go around.
The political thugs who run each "country" use food distribution as a weapon, somewhat like the Soviet Union and China did in their heyday.
Taking away land from those who know how to farm it and giving it to unskilled squatters is the menu for disaster.
May South Africa continue to devolve into what we expect.
I volunteer to adopt a departing Afrikaner family before the coming pogrom.
"We will take things from you on behalf of the common good."
to quote Clevon Little in Blazing Saddles......".....where da white women at"
The whole Robin Hood story has been stolen by the Socialists. They claim that he stole from the rich and gave to the poor. However, even a quick glance at the story will show that he stole from the Government and the Tax Collector and gave to the taxpayers.
There won't be actual drought. Most "drought" is not cause by rain. It is what communist governments blame their lack of food supply on.
Those who refuse to learn from past mistakes are doomed to repeat them again. Such wisdom.... heed it folks.
If the above is true, I don't see anything wrong with this... (putting on my flame suit). :-)
For example: Say your city took your house under "eminent domain," paid a portion of its worth, and gave it to someone else. I think you'd be justified in fighting to get it back the same way - the gov't giving the new owner a portion of its worth to return to you.
It seems more related to eminent domain abuse in this particular case.
Ah yes, all they have to do is distribute whitey's land and wealth and everyone will live happily ever after. It worked so well in Zimbabwe.
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