Landless urged to disrupt WSSD
2002-07-23 15:53
Pretoria - Disgruntled members of the landless community should organise themselves and disrupt the forthcoming World Summit on Sustainable Development, Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) general secretary Thami ka Plaatjie said on Tuesday.
"The summit, to be held in Johannesburg, provides an opportunity
for victims of land removals, landless and unemployed people to
take their gripes with our government to the international
community," he said in Pretoria.
"We should seize this opportunity not because we intend being
chaotic, but to highlight the ANC's failure to deliver its land reform promises."
Ka Plaatjie was speaking at a march where over 50 people
protested outside the Land Affairs Department demanding ownership
to Sydney-On-Vaal and Vaalbos farms near Kimberley.
The demonstrators, the Batho-Pele Empowerment Group, claimed
they were forcefully removed from the land during the apartheid
era.
The marchers presented a memorandum, addressed to Agriculture
and Land Affairs Minister Thoko Didiza, to Land claims commissioner Wallace Mgoqi.
In the document the group demanded, among others, possession of
the land, the mineral rights, the discontinuation of mining
activities in the area, and the financial records of the companies mining on the land.
- SAPA