'Most land still white-owned'

2005-07-27 14:42

Johannesburg - Landless people should hold their own summit as the government's land policy will never resolve South Africa's land problems, Pan Africanist Congress president Motsoko Pheko on Wednesday.

This comes as a five-day land summit opened at the Nasrec centre in Johannesburg which will look at progress made in land reform and ways to speed up the process.

Pheko said recent mass demonstrations against lack of poor housing, land eviction, unemployment, poverty and corruption among councillors illustrated the "terrible conditions the African majority live in after eleven years of 'democracy'".

He said the land question was betrayed in the Freedom Charter which legitimised the land dispossession of Africans in South Africa.

Africans living in abject poverty

"The present land reform policy of this government can only perpetuate land dispossession and landlessness of the African people," he said.

According to Pheko 62 000 white farmers controlled 80% of prime farmland.

"It is a shame that in a country four times the size of Britain and Northern Ireland, 10 million of the African people live in shacks throughout this country and 75% of them live in abject poverty and are evicted everyday.

"The shacks often burn, killing many people. The matchbox size 'houses' which are built for Africans only are evidence that Africans are still treated as inferior and third class citizens just as under apartheid and colonialism. No non-Africans live in these so-called 'houses'," said Pheko.

"Sham liberation"

Calling land the basis for nationhood, he said without land and resources Africans had a "sham liberation".

Referring to the Freedom Charter as the "Freedom Cheater", Pheko said South Africa did not belong to all who lived in it and poverty was the "mother of all revolutions".

"The principle of willing seller, willing buyer will not solve the land question in South Africa. Land seized through colonialism must be expropriated and compensation paid for improvements on the land. Land claims must be land for land," he said.

The land summit will open with an address by Land Affairs Minister Thoko Didiza. Deputy president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka will address the summit after Didiza.

Later on Wednesday various groups such as AgriSA, Business Unity SA and the SA Chamber of Business will present reports on land and agrarian reform.

- SAPA