Small farmers talk of land grab
SOUTH Africa's small-scale farmers have threatened Zimbabwe-style farm invasions if government does not give them land.
At a meeting in Cape Town on Sunday, the farmers hailed President Robert Mugabe for taking land by force from white commercial farmers.
They say the only way to "fast-track land redistribution" was to "take it by force from the whites".
The farmers were part of severalactivists, researchers, academics and policy-makers from across the country who were hosted by the Alternative Information and Development Centre and Trust for Community Outreach and Education.
"Land needs to be taken by force. There is no need for compensation. History tells us that the land belongs to our forefathers. There were no negotiations," said Sithembele Tempi, coordinator of the Ilizwi lamafama from Eastern Cape.
"The Constitution needs an overhaul. At this moment, the property clause is protecting white commercial farmers," Tempi said.
Mawubuye Land Rights Forum's Henry Michaels said the government was "afraid of white farmers".
He said small-scale farmers were "being sidelined all the time" as the authorities only supported white farmers through AgriSA.
"About 86percent of the land is in the hands of white farmers, we have less than five percent, and the government is afraid of taking back that land.
Independent researcher Stephen Greenberg said that though there was "a radical attempt to transform agrarian reform" in Zimbabwe, something positive had come out of it. "In Zimbabwe the air has cleared and something good has happened."
Greenberg said there were 1,39million small-scale farmers in SA who needed support to produce more.
Objectivist
Yep, the good thing that came out of the Zim saga is that politicians now sit with farms which they cannot farm and have to contract South African farmers to manage the properties they appropriated. Give it a few years and the managers will buy those farms again leaving Zim back on square one.Report Abuse