Land grabs planned for polls
2003-10-09 21:51
Cape Town - Landless people in South Africa did not want to follow the Zimbabwean route, but government is forcing them in that direction, Mangaliso Khubeko of the Landless People's Movement (LPM) said.
Khubeka said at the publication of a report on the evaluation of land and agricultural reform that there would be large-scale land seizures in South African during next year's election.
"We will go to farms, not to the ballot boxes," he said.
"We say: No land, no vote! We will not support our government again. We voted for them in the previous election because land would have been reformed. But after ten years, nothing has come of those promises.
"Next year, we will make sure that landless people get property. We will rather be killed than mislead. The government rather listens to rich white farmers than to give attention to our case."
The LPM is a known supporter of president Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.
Sipho Khumalo of the union for labourers in agriculture, plantations and related industries (Apawu), said government "should revise its land policy soon or there would be a revolution. We cannot wait patiently indefinitely. Government does not support the poor."
Professor Ben Cousins of the Programme for Land and Agricultural Studies at the University of Cape Town, which conducted the study, said land policy could be changed after the election as there was a lot of pressure for this to happen at grassroots level.
"Land reform is unhealthy and at a cross roads."
The report found that land reform was progressing too slowly and only a tenth of the expected land has been reformed.
However, two thirds of the more than 63 400 land claims have been concluded.