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“Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don’t”: The Implications of Expropriation in South Africa’s Land Reform Policy

Martin R. Rupiya*

Introduction

Following a post-ten years land policy review, completed in 2004, that showed dismal performance of attaining only 4.2% of the 30% land transfers mooted in 1995, the South African government has, for the first time, deployed the expropriation tool, seizing the 500 hectare farm of Mr. Visser from Lichtenberg, in the North Western province. AgriSA (Organised Agriculture South Africa represents over 70 000 commercial farmers) immediately warned ‘upsetting food security and likely shortages.’ This alarmist position by AgriSA has also been supported by what has been described as the radical white farmers splinter group, the Transvaal Agricultural Union (TAU). Meanwhile, the SA Communist Party, the Landless Peoples Movement and others groups have applauded the government move. This has placed the government in the invidious situation of “damned if you do and damned if you don't.”

The South African Constitution “justifies expropriation (as opposed to market-related) compensation for public purposes or in the public interest which specifically includes land reform.” The order to force the white farmer to sell his farm to government at a prescribed price of Rand 276, 000 (approximately US$45 000) instead of the more than double ‘the market price’ that the owner is asking for, was issued after more than two years of negotiations by the Land Claims Commission that culminated in a deadlock on the price. By issuing the seizure order, the state has crossed the Rubicon, signalling its intentions to effect accelerated and meaningful land reform. On the one hand, the message is that the time has come to exercise compelling legislation, as part of a mix of tools that still includes the market based willing-seller-willing buyer mechanism. However, on the other hand, the state needs to lower expectations that it is not beginning wholesale, compulsory and uncompensated land reform that has been the case elsewhere. A further factor that makes the expropriation a watershed event is the current perception of South Africa in the region, on the African continent and further a field, within the international community, especially the Washington based Bretton Woods and international financial institutions. A perception characterised by a working constitutional democracy that has the best potential for success on the African continent so far. Yet with no progress being made in effecting meaningful land reform, the tranquil situation is likely to become destabilized. As a result, these perceptions, complexities and relationships form a major explanation of why the South African government has hitherto been reluctant to venture into seizures, preferring to give the “market based, willing-seller-willing-buyer” model the opportunity to deliver by 2015. It is intended for settlement of the African majority, 30% of approximately 57, 980 commercial farms, equating to 80% of the country’s available agricultural land that has been in white hands since independence in 1994. According to Edward Lahiff, “at the current pace, it will take 150 years to complete” the stated objective in the land policy documents. Meanwhile, the white population constitutes a mere 20% of the country’s population.

The October 2005 change in land reform policy witnessed in South Africa is not unique, as a similar development was also noted following independence in Zimbabwe and Namibia after ten years. However, what is significant is the scale of the problem in South Africa, nearly 60,000 white commercial farmers, dwarfing the problem of white landowners and acreages combined, in both Zimbabwe and Namibia. For instance, in Zimbabwe, where the land reform has dominated international headlines, white farmers involved only numbered 6,000 while in Namibia the figure has been just below 4,000. The second factor of concern is the level of the South African economy in Southern Africa if destabilised. This has extensive and deep linkages whose impact is obvious for all to see. The continued intransigence of farm owners to release meaningful tracts of land, in the face of examples in the region, does not bode well for the future. Thirdly, it is also true that after examining the lack of progress after ten years, the African National Congress (ANC) has come under increasing pressure from its own constituencies and its respected peers. Scathing criticism of the country’s adopted method of market based land reform has come in the form of increased land invasions and violence around the farms by the landless; explicit threats to boycott elections amidst withdrawal of political support for the ruling party-the very lifeblood of its existence by grassroots organizations operating at the local level; pressure by extensions, exerted through the media, focussing on similar events in neighbouring Zimbabwe and Namibia, amongst other reasons. The result of this obvious ‘failure by government to deliver’ has not only created frustration amongst officials but it has also whipped up emotions amongst the landless and their supporters. Meanwhile, events in the Southern African region have also provided food for thought on how to go about intervening and executing summary expropriation in situations, such as the one in South Africa, where intransigent landowners are clearly not prepared to cooperate for equitable distribution to succeed.

One of the clearest signals that the state was going to adopt a more radical approach to land was its public support of a meeting organized by the majority of landless and marginalized groups, dubbed “The Land Summit,” during September 2005. The hosting of the meeting appeared to enjoy the support of government, judging by the close relationship shown between the organizers and the Minister of Land Affairs and later the willingness of the President to attend.

On the second day of the meeting, South African President, Thabo Mbeki, attended the meeting where he freely engaged with the participants, taking questions from the floor. In the debate that ensued, he was asked whether there were similarities of the expropriation route that South Africa may adopt and recent events in Zimbabwe? The posing of this question to Mbeki was significant as the impression created over the Zimbabwe land invasions has been that he is fully in support of that process. Mbeki’s reply to the question was startling. Not only did he confirm the perception that he supported Zimbabwe’s land reform programme but, he also revealed yet another dimension that has, so far, not been in the public domain. This was the fact that Zimbabwe delayed its land reform expropriation after the first ten years of independence when it was constitutionally mandated in order to facilitate the independence of South Africa. In April 1990, Zimbabwe’s Lancaster House Constitution’s restrictions on land reform lapsed, allowing the government to change the Constitution and expropriate land if they so desired. However, at precisely this time, political negotiations in South Africa had reached a delicate stage, following the release of Nelson Mandela from prison in February 1990. Sentiments within the ANC and throughout Africa were that, any precipitous action by Zimbabwe would jeopardise the delicate phase of negotiations in Pretoria. According to Mbeki, it was then decided to dispatch the then Commonwealth Secretary-General, the Nigerian Chief Emeka Anyaoku, to visit Harare and make suitable presentations to Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe, “not to frighten the apartheid regime in Pretoria. Harare was urged to only embark upon land reform when the African National Congress was in power.”

Measured against the above context, Zimbabwe’s radical land reform policy launched in 2000, almost six years after South Africa’s independence, in the view of Mbeki, was understandable and justified. These comments also provide pointers towards Pretoria’s own rationale in embracing expropriation, a decade after testing the now discredited W-S-W-B mechanism. Following this extensive debate and presentation of papers in the meeting, at its conclusion the meeting adopted a resolution calling for land expropriation and acceleration of land reform in favour of disadvantaged groups.

This paper argues that effecting land reform in South Africa in the shortest possible time available is crucial for future national, political and social cohesion as well as for influencing broader Southern African regional stability. To this end, research supports the adoption of the added tool of expropriation, given the lack of progress over the last ten years, acting as a weapon only of last resort in complimenting the existing willing-seller-willing-buyer mechanism. Both these tools are provided for in the constitution. However, the paper recognizes and raises awareness of the dangers that lie ahead. On the one hand, government, coming from a position of seeming failure of its land policy, may fall into the trap of adopting expropriation as the primary weapon of choice. This is likely to have disastrous results and should be avoided. Meanwhile, and on the other hand, the deliberate demonizing of this new tool by those from the landowning class, cleverly designed to delay the hand of the state and, in fact, maintain the existing status quo, should be reconsidered. This naïve posture, as results elsewhere have shown, further radicalizes the state and its supporters, leading to wholesale expropriation. It must be obvious to all that the continued ownership of 80% of South Africa’s best agricultural lands by 20% of its population, a group that acquired the lands through force, harsh measures by the state and a privileged racial environment since 1913, is not only unsustainable but does not create a conducive environment for peaceful development. If the initiative for structured land reform is allowed to slip from government control, a worst-case scenario may result in the situation, deteriorating to levels of confrontation at the grassroots and unstructured invasions and dispossessions of viable farming enterprises in future. There is therefore an urgent need for compromise from both sides in order to maintain balance and moderation while responding in a credible manner to the situation of the landless and previously disadvantaged community that now has the ability to wield and use their vote.

The paper is arranged in three sections, beginning with examination of the colonial experience that has led to almost exclusive white ownership of the farms. This is followed by analysis of the land policy of 1995 and its aspirations, and a brief evaluation of its success or failure. The final section will deal with expropriation and its implications, and is followed by concluding remarks

A History of Dispossession: The Natives Land Act, 1913 and the Native Trust Land Act of 1936

How did white South Africans end up owning 80% of the best agricultural land by 1994 when the majority rule government led by the African National Congress (ANC) was elected? Stated differently, what mechanisms were employed to dispossess the African majority of land and deliver the same to the less than 20% of the population?

The cornerstone of land, property and rights dispossession in colonial South Africa was contained in a series of legal provisions whose main thrust was to “squeeze indigenous peoples into townships, homelands and marginal tracts” since 1913. The instruments included the following: the Natives Land Act of June 1913; the Native Trust and Land Act of 1936; the 1950 Group Areas Act; Resettlement of Blacks Act, 1954; and the 1966 Community Development Act. The second feature of the process was the consistent, ruthless, and unerring implementation of the provisions of the above by successive apartheid governments until 1994. For instance, in the generations between 1960 and 1980, over 3.5 million of Africans still remaining in the proscribed areas were moved to Bantustans by force, using armed police and military units. The above pieces of legislation created conditions of access, ownership and privilege based on race, favouring white folk, while providing the framework to relocate over millions Africans into Bantustans. Sixteen million Africans in total were moved between 1913 and 1960. The result was that by 1994, 80% of the 87% of Agricultural land reserved by the state had been subdivided in generous hacterage of 57,980 commercial farms among white hands. At the same time, 16 million Africans were confined to rural Bantustans and another 3.5 million were swirling as squatters around the urban areas on lands constituting less than 13%. The 1950 Group Areas Act, for instance, resulted in the forced removal of 130,000 families from 73,000 properties, ending up in the already crowded Bantustans.

What has not been apparent in the current debate is also the supportive structure that was created by apartheid regimes around the exclusive transfer of the commodity - land. Without understanding this comprehensive structure, current efforts at undertaking land reform would only scratch the surface. This includes a banking system that is prepared to consider land as collateral and work in line with state aspirations. The fact that the state also provided cheap labour through passing and enforcing compelling legislation designed to bring young African males into the labour pool was yet another important dimension of the supporting structures that emerged during this early period. This synergy soon created major financial stability upon which different sectors such as beef, poultry, wheat and other grains, and fruit and wines became established industries, operating in conditions of monopoly and has become household enterprises today. Many of the early ‘markets’ and contracts generating the required demand were also supplies to government institutions and other related bodies that ensured almost a no-fail entrepreneurial undertaking. In order to ensure almost fail-safe entities, government also provided extensive extension workers, research, vaccines and other related support.

The impact of generations of land dispossession since 1913 is glaringly evident. According to the Department of Land Affairs (DLA), the first major area of impact was the de-skilling of previously capable black agriculturalists. These people were not only made to lose the ability to produce food and associated skills such as seed selection, weather interpretation and related creative, survival and coping skills, but were also turned into workers and consumers for the new white commercial farmers. In the view of the current government, the broader “challenge for land reform includes re-skilling the black majority.” The next in the extensive impact chain was that millions of blacks were turned into workers, and through legislation and taxation were required to seek paid employment on the farms, mostly as casual/seasonal labourers. To date, white farms employ over 800,000 farm workers, apart from an estimated six million farm dwellers/dependents who are “amongst the poorest and most vulnerable in capitalist South Africa. Having provided the enabling legislation for land dispossession, from 1913 onwards, successive governments also facilitated and nurtured the establishment of a land bank, providing loans that were guaranteed by government against land that had become a commodity and could be traded within the restrictive provisions of the legislation. According to Solomon Plaatje, “Black South Africans suddenly woke up as pariahs in their own land on 20 June 1913.” Governments also facilitated the creation of Agricultural Cooperatives, and industries and farm based factories in areas such as cotton ginning, tobacco, sugar, fruit, poultry and beef abattoirs and wines. In this respect, once a guaranteed demand for goods and services in a particular sector/industry was established, given the monopoly environment and cheap labour, it was assured to succeed. Furthermore, government established and again nurtured the development of Marketing Boards for each of the lines of production, such as dairy, beef, cotton, poultry, fruit, wines and other commodities. All of them survived on government contracts in order to establish themselves.

After independence in 1996, the new government passed the Marketing & Agricultural Products Act, the main import of which was to open up the monopoly structure to market forces and allow access by previously disadvantaged blacks; those running the quasi state marketing boards simply resigned and recreated themselves in the private sector to continue doing exactly what they had been doing under successive apartheid regimes. Many of these are now represented within the existing AgriSA, a seemingly private and white commercial farmers’ enterprise that, in reality, represents the residual influence of the colonial heritage in South Africa. This has now been pitted against moves by the new government to de-regulate the industry; and if results of the last ten years are anything to go by, the new structure has been effective in maintaining a status quo.

South African farms are considered ‘generous’ as they are, on average, larger than similar commercial properties elsewhere. While the SA farm averages 988 hacters or 2,470 acres, those in the United States and Canada are no more than 161 hectares or a mere 16.29%, on average. Meanwhile, African farmers were ‘confined’ to an average of a single hectare each.

The framework around which South Africa’s land policy has been constructed is complex, and is not entirely revealed in the texts. This is because the levels of income disparities and the legacy of apartheid are huge and unlikely to be reversed in the next generation, but will need a few more decades thereafter to register a meaningful result. According to Wilson and Ramphele: “[While] South Africa produces 60% of Africa’s electricity, 60% of its nationals, 80% of whom are black – do not have access to basic services.State cannot undermine the commercial agriculture sector with 40% unemployment”.

Firstly, the state seeks to acknowledge the ‘release of the 16 million African majority,’ hitherto banished to the Bantustans, to feel free to return to the urban areas if they so wish without disrupting the fledgling liberal economic activity that is in place. Secondly, the policy seeks to provide impetus for development in the rural areas in which millions were forced to eke out an existence, deprived of their livestock, over the last 100 years. Thirdly, the land reform policy also attempts to create a black land owning/commercial farming middle class. Fourthly, the new government aims to gradually restructure the benefits accruing from the mining sector as a dimension of land reform within the macro-economic framework. Finally, the pronounced policy objectives announced in 1995 in the white paper include the following:

a) Create conditions of social stability;

b) Provide for food security;

c) Poverty reduction of the rural community; and

d) Act as engine of growth.

In more concrete terms, the land policy seeks to acquire 30% - or 22 million hectares - of the 80% of farmland – representing 85 million hacters - held by white farmers who constitute 20% of the population by 2014. The policy detail is divided into three dimensions of :

Restitution – through Restitution of Land Rights Act, 22 of 1994 as amended, designed to provide restitution to claims lodged of those dispossessed. Claims received had to be submitted before the cut-off date of 31 December 1998. Before this date, 68 878 claims were lodged, later increasing to 80 000 when the period of lodging was extended. As we write, over 65 00 claims have so far been settled, confirming the conviction that restitution is the easier dimension of the land policy. The restitution process has since been characterised by cash payments – averaging R15 000 (US$2 500) or offers of accommodation in urban areas as compensation and some land acquired and restored to the original owners. Between 1995 and 1999, over 60,000 households benefited from the programme with 1, 006, 135 hectares of land acquired at an average R41 000 per ha. This represented 0.81% as a proportion of white farmland.

Redistribution – seeks to acquire 30% of the 80% of land/farms owned by 20% of white farmers over the next 15 years, until 2014. The categories targeted for land redistribution include peasants, landless farm workers and new farmers. After ten years little progress had been made with only 4.2% of land sought acquired in different areas of the countries that make it difficult for the state to provide economically viable support to beneficiaries such as roads, granaries, extension services and schools.

Tenure Form – is designed to facilitate the re-skilling of rural farm tenants by creating a supportive structure, including land tenure, for them to become productive and remain in place. This demands more extensive resources and commitment in order to reinvigorate the areas psychologically associated with poverty, immense suffering and left largely fallow as a result of the impact of millions of peoples during the colonial era. These areas cannot now be simply abandoned.

Evaluation of the 1995 Land Reform Policy as amended after ten years, at the stage when only one third of the period set is remaining, revealed the following: that progress had been achieved in both Land Restitution and tenure; however, there was little progress made in redistribution.By 2004, only 3% had been acquired, leaving the challenge of completing the remaining 23 million by 2014. Factors responsible included the unworkable nature of the W-S-W-B mechanism that had seen land prices soaring, whittling away the 0.5% annual budgetary support provided – the land available on the market was also beyond the ordinary black and previously disadvantaged person to purchase; the lack of capacity amongst government to demarcate, identify beneficiaries, negotiate required land and redistribute, and a perceived lack of political commitment by the state.

The recommendations to overcome the obvious failure of the 1995 land policy were:

a) Do away with the WSWBS;

b) Legislate or place a severe tax system on land prices;

c) Insert a clause in the Constitution to protect land invaders who were now forced to take action following intransigence by landowners;

d) Create a new mechanism to support post-settlement beneficiaries who were clearly unable to survive on their own in the new environment where there were no ready markets for produce, minimal extension services support on the farms and where they existed, who were now located in the private sector; the attitude of ‘unreconstructed’ banks; the transformation of communally acquired land that lost its title deed and collateral ability with the banks the minute the tracts were transferred.

e) Continued budgetary constraints; “the 2003/04 and 2004/05 was R1.9 billion or US$253 million, slightly more than the usual 0.5% but still less than 0.1% of required amounts”.

In all the above recommendations, it was evident that alarm bells were ringing, moving the process towards compulsory expropriation. Part of the call for more radical land reform, as has been pointed above, emerged at the four-day Land Summit where placards were carried with such messages as “sellers want to exploit us”, and calling for the elimination of the WSWB. A similar message has also become a familiar refrain amongst membership of a new appropriately named coalition, the Alliance for Land and Agrarian Reform Movements (ALARM) NGOs. The emergence of these organizations and the message they are propagating demonstrates at least two aspects, that of disillusionment with the current pace of land reform and the radicalization of important sections of the landless against those still managing the policy, the state and the landowning class.

The sword of expropriation has been unsheathed from its scabbard in the evolution of SA’s Land Policy. Its implications are enormous for the triangular sides of the black majority and government on the one side, and the land holding white farmers and the international community, especially the financial institutions, on the other side to begin to appreciate why it has become necessary, nay imperative, to have in the mix of instruments the tool of expropriation? It is worth while to see some of the main reasons that have motivated the adoption of this new tool before we examine its implications amongst the tripartite groups of the international community, land holding white farmers and their supporters, along with the South African government and the constituency targeted to benefit in the land reform process.

The first reason is that, the majority transactions to ‘communal ownership beneficiaries’ become “unbankable” the moment this process is completed. This has resulted in a number of beneficiaries struggling to establish themselves who were spurned by the ‘unreconstructed financial/banking system’ in the country, and many forced to abandon the pieces of land and return to the towns. For example, a community, in Limpopo province, the Bakgaga Bammapa claimed previous ownership of an area covering 500 farms measuring over 30 000 hacters. When 225 farms were gazetted for redistribution, the farms immediately became unbankable, as a community, instead of individual farmers, now owned them. This moved the Land Affairs Minister, Ms Thoko Didiza in her Budget Speech to parliament in 2004 to cite it as a major weakness and call for the establishment of a post-settlement support framework. Following these observations within government, a Comprehensive Agricultural Support Programme (CAP) has been established but this came long after a number of resettled farmers had abandoned their lands. The impact of CAP is therefore something new, which still has to evolve. Put differently, the adverse post-transfer environment has still not been fully addressed, leaving newly resettled beneficiaries at the mercy of private enterprises whose ideology is not conforming with that of the underlying reasons in SA’s Land Policy. Given such contradictions, the net result of the post-settlement development negates any statistical achievements that have so far been cited as a success. Meanwhile, as we saw in the historical period of forced dispossession, the land bank providing cheap and long-term loans and credit, including livestock, marketing boards concerned with aspects of specialisation and dominance of sectors, dedicated government extensions services and the creation of monopoly markets acted as important pillars to underpin the success of colonial land reform.

These facets are no longer in place for the new farmer whose relationship with the Land Policy begins and ends with the allocation of ‘communal entitlement’ of acquired land. The second reason is that land prices based on WSWB have simply escalated to a level that has left government unable to foot the bill. It is a fact that government is the only one in the market for purchasing land and, it is assumed, prepared for anything in order to secure a sale. As the Department of Land Affairs survey discovered, “only a tiny minority of black people can afford land on the fee market”. Consequently, market pricing based on the seller is pegged on the more expensive side. Because of other pressing commitments, budgetary allocations to land reform have consistently stood at 0.5% of the national budget, seen as more than 30 times below what is needed every year. The August 2004 evaluation of what had been achieved over the last ten years confirmed the fact that the mechanism of WSWB would be unable to deliver on expected objectives. However, to those of us conversant with similar case studies elsewhere, this was not surprising. WSWB as a tool has never transferred significant amounts of land from owners to those without anywhere else in the world. The third is that, tracts of land offered are in different locations, making it impossible for the state to provide much-needed infrastructure or expertise and services related to agricultural production and the consolidation of the new farmers on the lands. As the PLAAS presentation to the South African Parliament, Portfolio Committee on Agriculture and Land Affairs intimated:

…there was need to adopt the non-market (expropriation) approach as provided for in the Constitution for a variety of reasons that include: WSWB precludes the systematic and planned implementation of supporting infrastructure [given that the lands acquired are scattered.] This also dissipates efforts that are available to provide support as these impact in a piecemeal and finally, as the state is ‘known’ to be in the market for purchasing land, “prices” have been abused by landowners in a bid to obtain exorbitant profits. It is therefore recommended that expropriation be considered, where negotiations do not yield a result.

Successful resettlement is predicted on the availability of tracts of land that is then linked to the economy through roads, dams, markets, silos, livestock in order to a) achieve economies of scale in funding new projects, and b) ensure that farmers resettled remain on the land as productive and viable units. Finally, lying at the heart of the political objectives of the liberation struggle is the question of righting the wrongs of apartheid. One of these is correcting the land ownership imbalance, addressing the status quo and responding to the landless as one of the key mandates of new government. The electorate who have provided the ruling party with a commanding majority in parliament expect delivery.

For the international community, it is important to understand the universal rationale of land reform and the need to rely upon constitutionally guaranteed expropriation. No meaningful land reform has taken place anywhere in the world through the sole mechanism of the WSWB. One example of using a mix of tools that includes expropriation in a progressive manner is the Brazilian model, in which unused land was expropriated and then subdivided into family owned units. In the post-settlement era, land and production costs are financed by subsidised loans. Such a system runs parallel to the WSWB system. Targeted and limited expropriation is therefore complimentary and does not replace the WSWB method which is the preferred tool as long as it delivers significant quantities of land to landless and hungry populations in a timely manner.

In 2003, the United Nations, the Southern African Regional Poverty Reduction Network, and the Food & Agriculture Organisation office from Harare, prompted motivated for an ‘informal Group of Experts’ to constitute a 14 member think-tank charged with providing new thinking on land reform in Southern Africa”. Membership included World Bank officials who decried the slow pace of progress in SA’s Land reform.

In the final analysis, land invasions by landless people after decades of protracted and piecemeal attempts have become the norm. In a bid to avoid this potentially destructive situation, the resort to expropriation, employed as part of the market oriented WSWB mechanism has provided breathing space for the latter while delivering meaningful tracts of land to hungry people and succeeding to close the gap between inherited disproportionate land holdings. This development has also made an impact on diffusing existing social and political tensions.

The problem of land reform in South Africa mainly emanates from the fundamental lack of ‘shared vision’ between the state and white farmers in the country. While the state, mandated by the majority of African voters, seeks to effect equitable redistribution without upsetting the liberal economy, the land owning class appears determined to use every scrap of reason and argument to maintain the status quo. It is against this background that the Visser saga over the last two years has culminated in the state’s relying upon the expropriation tool to effect and accelerate redistribution of land. The paltry 4.2% of land transferred over the last decade against the 30% objective must also serve as a warning sign to both the state and the commercial landowners who, at the moment, have the opportunity to ‘manage’ the process in a structured manner. Meanwhile, based on increasing poverty and pressure in the former Bantustans and examples of successful land invasions in neighbouring Zimbabwe, the landless in South Africa may wrest the initiative from the current hosts and, in the process, irreparably damage the liberal economy that is sensitive to Bretton Woods sentiments. We can only end this discussion by quoting from Wellington Twala who argues that:

…for the sake of long-term stability, it is better for ….South Africa, with the highest income disparity in the world, to face the pain of radical redistribution of assets through land reform now, than to face the long-term instability which emanates from delaying the resolution of the land question

While available research clearly shows the inequalities of progress on land reform in South Africa, the media appears complicit with the landowners, not seeking to highlight the dangers of inaction and frustration brought about by the deliberate and determined stifling of any meaningful land transfers. Instead, the media appears to have now re-awakened, prepared to yet again highlight the misconstrued import of land expropriation without fully exploring the immediate danger of chaotic invasions by the landless peoples. At this stage, South Africa is delicately poised, and so is the state: to either undertake credible land reform and be damned or allow the current status quo to continue and still be damned.

1 Ben Cousins, Agrarian Reform of the “Two Economies”: Transforming South Africa’s countryside, Programme for Land & Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), School of Government, University of Western Cape, 2005), p, 4

2 Yolandi Groenewald, ‘Reform not only white farmers’ job,’ in Mail & Guardian, 14 to 20, 2005, p. 16.

3 Land Reform after Ten Years of Democracy – 80% of Agricultural land in white hands. Accessed at http://www.polity.org.za/components on 30 September 2005.

4 “Seizure Order on SA White Farm,” BBC News, 13 October 2005.

5 IRIN Web Special on land reform in Southern Africa, citing comments made by a 14 member think-tank organised by the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation, Zimbabwe and the Southern African Regional Poverty Network.

6 “Seizure Order on SA White Farm,” BBC News 13 October 2005.

7 Land reform in South Africa: An overview, with particular reference to Protected Areas, (PLAAS), p. 10.

8 Question apparently posed by Prof Sam Moyo of the African Land and Agrarian Studies Institute, an NGO based in Harare. President T. Mbeki’s position towards Harare during the current crisis is given context by this public admission.

9 Alistair Bradstock, Key Experiences of Land Reform in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa, Policy & Research Series, Farm Africa, January 2005, pp. 4-5.

10 Coralie Bryant, Property Rights for the Rural Poor: The Challenge of Landlessness. In Journal of International Affairs, Fall 1998, Vol 52, I(i), p. 181; See also “Agricultural Sector – Western Cap major job provider,” in African News Service, 17 August 2004.

11 Draft Land Policy 1994-96, later adopted as Land Administrative Act, No. 2 of 1995.

12 A rejoinder by Commissioner of Lands, Thomas (Tozi) Gwanya, Land Reform in South Africa: Response to Centre for Development & Enterprise Report by Anne Bernstein, Land Reform in South Africa: A 21^st Century Perspective.” Researched for the Department for International Development, UK, 08 June 2005.

13 PLAAS Presentation to the Portfolio Committee on Agriculture and Land Affairs, Department of School of Government, University of the Western Cape, 18 October 2004.

14 “Winning Back Their Land.” In The Economist, US, 24 June 1995.

15 See Land Issues Scoping Study: Communal Land Tenure Areas – Key Issues. Report by the Department for International Development, UK, p. 3, 4 and 8.

16 Winning Back Their Land, The Economist, United States, 24 June 1995.

17 SA Two-Worlds –“World in one country,” in Journal of Social Justice, Winter, 1996, Vol.23, No.4, (a), p. 125.

18 Coralie Bryant, “Property Rights for the Rural Poor: The Challenges of Landlessness”, in Journal of International Affairs, Fall 1998, Vol. 52 (i) p. 5.

19 Ad Hoc Expert Group Meeting, Land Tenure Systems & Sustainable Development in Southern Africa, UN Economic Commission for Africa – Southern Africa Office, ECA/SA/EGM. Land/2003/3, 3 November 2003, p. 14.

20 See Delia Robertson, SA Set for First Expropriation of Farm Land, Voice of America News, 23 September 2005.

21 African News Service, 4 July 2005. Land Affairs Minister, Ms Thoko Didiza’s Budget Speech to parliament.

22 Comment by on of the 14 member informal think-tank, William Bryce, referring to the unreconstructed power centres such as banks that are not prepared to lend to emergent black farmers.

23 The Macroeconomic Room Within Which Land Reform will Take Place in SA. February 1996; See also Ben Cousins, Agrarian Reform & the “two economies”: Transforming SA’s countryside, p. 4.

24 Presentation made on 18 October 2004.

25 Comments by World Bank economist, Rogier van Den Brink during the 4 Day Land Summit held in Johannesburg during September 2005.

26 Members included World Bank officials, Oxfam UK, SA independent and government land experts.

27 Land Reform –“No Shared Vision Between Government & Farmers,” in African News Service, 21 February 2003.

28 Wellington Didbhuku Thwala, National Land Committee NGO.

AgriSA Agriculture South Africa

ANC African National Congress

AZAPO Azanian African Peoples’ Organisation

DfID Department for International Development

FAO Food & Agricultural Organisation

FAWU National African Farmers Union

IMF International Monetary Fund

LPM Landless People’s Movement

NAFU National African Farmers Union

PLAAS Programme on Land Affairs

DLA Department of Land Affairs

CRLR Commission on the Restitution of Land Rights

SALRRRT South Africa Land Reform Restitution Redistribution and Tenure

TAU Transvaal Agricultural Union

WB World Bank

WSWB Willing-Seller-Willing-Buyer

* Senior Researcher, Institute for Security Studies, Pretoria, South Africa

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