land grab – praag.org

ANC has different approach to colonialism, says Mantashe

The African National Congress does not have the same attitude towards whites as Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF, secretary general Gwede Mantashe says.

“When it comes to our attitudes we theorise colonialisation differently to Zanu-PF,” Mantashe told New24.

“That is why the ANC government will not use this approach of if a white man owns a farm it is revolutionary to kick that white farmer out and occupy it…”

This comes after Mugabe, who was in a two-day state visit in South Africa this week, refused to speak to journalists when he saw a “white face”.

Mugabe was in Soweto on Thursday visiting the Hector Pieterson Memorial.

Meanwhile the IFP in KwaMashu has called for aid after a mob “of thousands” overran police on Sunday night.

Foreign-owned shops in the township were looted and torched as locals attempted to drive out immigrants from other African states.

Inkatha Freedom Party spokesperson Mdu Nkosi said police officers were overwhelmed by the advancing mob on Sunday.

“The councillor from A Section and the men’s hostel informed me that last night [Sunday] he had done his best to try and appease the mob that had gathered but he was powerless. There were thousands of them and they even overran the police,” he told News24.

Another expensive black farming project tanks

President Jacob Zuma handed over 85 new tractors to the Masibuyele Emasimini project in Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal in June 2010 to encourage small-scale farming.

The The R500-million for the project is wasted it seems. The project was intended to help “emerging black farmers” but is on the brink of collapse with only six of 32 tractors allocated to the DrJS Moroka municipality still running.

The government has meanwhile proposed that commercial farmers give half of their farm land to black workers.

The rest are idle because of lack of maintenance, timeslive reported.

Tractor drivers in Machiding, who battle to get diesel fuel and broken tractors repaired, went on strike early this month because, they say, they have not been paid.

In Mmametlhake and Marapyane, more than 30 farmers missed planting 65ha of sunflower seeds this season because 17 of the tractors allocated to their area were either broken or did not have fuel.

The African Farmers’ Association of SA said a total of 185000ha of once-productive, redistributed land in KwaZulu-Natal was standing idle as farmers waited to benefit from the project.

Emerging farmer Abios Maloka said 25ha of maize went to waste last season because the fields had not been ploughed in time .

“Instead of assisting farmers, [the programme] brought devastation and hopelessness. Before, we would plan in advance to get the fields ploughed but we were given a false sense of hope. Now we are sitting with heaps of fertiliser and seed that has not been used.”

Job Mthombeni, president of the African Farmers’ Association of SA in Mpumalanga, said the association had told the government of its concerns.

He said at first the project ran efficiently, with the shortage of tractors being the only shortcoming.

Oligarchs, seed companies benefit from land redistribution

The federal government has admitted that national and international companies in Ukraine benefit from EU subsidies and loans. Fertile lands in Ukraine are being transferred to Ukrainian oligarchs and international seed companies, and in return the Kiev government receives international loans.

The inquiry of the parliamentary group of the Left Party, submitted on January 19, 2015, criticizes the ‘land grabbing’, i.e. the ‘landgrab by states and major national and international companies’ in Ukraine.

Concerned citizens are outraged over a planned redistribution of land:

‘In the shadow of the Ukrainian crisis we can observe an alarming transfer of land to Ukrainian oligarchs, but also Western publicly owned agricultural companies and non-Western states. In the past Ukraine was considered a breadbasket of the Soviet Union and thanks to the considerable amount of black earth is known to be particularly fruitful and productive. With 32 million hectares of crop land Ukraine has twice as much crop area as Germany. Ukrainian and foreign agroholdings already control about half of the Ukrainian agricultural land, which is about 17 million hectares. The lessors generate low income due to the low rent payments and are sometimes even paid in kind’.

Seed producers have a strong interest in Ukrainian lands:

‘Ukraine is one of the auspicious growth markets for seed producers Monsanto and DuPont. It is feared that Monsanto exercises great pressure on the authorities in Ukraine to force through its demands for development of production of biotechnology and genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Last year Monsanto invested 140 million to increase the capability for future production’.

German companies also benefit from the ‘land grabbing’:

‘One of the German companies that profit from land grabbing in Eastern Europe, is AGRARIUS AG, founded in 2007 with headquartered in Bad Homburg, which offers ‘investment in farmland’ and services related to the purchase of land. In Hamburg German agricultural CEE GmbH lures with returns of 100 percent in the ‘most interesting agricultural market in the world’, and KTG Agrar SE, also based in Hamburg, advertises organic products because they promise a much higher profit margin’.

International and national companies receive financial, developmental and EU subsidies. In the past ten years agricultural corporations have been increasingly cultivating rapeseed in Ukraine. This is connected with the increased needs of the EU for biofuels. About 90 percent of rape is exported to the EU and processed there. The federal government reported as part of the inquiry that the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) had awarded 2,014 loans to a total of 131 Ukrainian and 55 international agroholdings.

To the question of whether the agricultural concerns DuPont and Monsanto would receive KfW loans for its operations in Ukraine, the federal government was not willing to give a clear answer.

It is stated in the response:

‘The publication of information on granting of credit by the KfW bank group affects trade and business secrets of the concerned companies. The public response to the question of whether and to what extent a company finances its business activities and by which type of loan is generally suitable to give competitors information not only about the financial resources of a company, but also about its strategy and positioning in the market’.

Source: German Economic News

Britain’s shameful part in Mugabe’s tyranny

I can’t imagine that anyone in his right mind would actually want to go to the 91st birthday party of Robert Gabriel Mugabe which takes place this Saturday.

It promises to be an event of truly spectacular moral ugliness. While his people are starving, the ancient despot will convoke 20,000 cronies at a kind of golf club-cum-safari lodge near the Victoria Falls. In scenes reminiscent of the more disgusting and luxurious behaviour of the emperor Commodus, he will cause various exotic beasts to be slaughtered for the feast.

Five impalas will be roasted, two sables, two buffaloes – and then, to the ululations of his drunken Zanu-PF supporters, there will be a series of culinary climaxes, each more revolting than the last. A local farmer has procured two elephants, and after these rare and majestic creatures have been butchered for the delectation of the semi-deified Mugabe, there will be one more type of meat to come – an animal that you might think was semi-sacred, whose killing should be taboo, a creature that people would never normally dream of eating. Yes, a lion, the king of the animal kingdom, will lay down its life before the meat-maddened mob and have the honour of surrendering its mortal flesh to the palsied gullet of the man who still calls himself the “Hitler of Africa”.

And then, at last, the cake will appear, predicted to weigh 200lb, and in the most depraved and demoralising vignette of all, this crowd of brainwashed Zimbabweans will sweetly sing Happy Birthday to the man who has impoverished their country. This birthday party is predicted to cost $1 million at a time when Zimbabweans are living on 35 cents a day. Teachers across the country have been forced to contribute $10 each to put on the show.

The whole exercise is utterly nauseating – and my only question, as I say, is who on earth would want to be there?

Who is going to be toasting Mugabe in champagne and Tusker lager? Who is going to feature in the photo spread in the Zimbabwean equivalent of Hello! or OK!? I doubt that Britain will be represented at all – but by rights there is one man who damn well should be there, one man who should be down on the dance floor with Mugabe’s buxom assistants, and flashing his familiar glistering smile at the gathering.

If there were any justice in the world, that man would break off from giving advice to sundry other dubious regimes and help old Bob with the job of blowing out his candles. And that man, naturally, is Tony Blair.

Zimbabwe is now the second poorest nation on earth – beaten only by Congo for overall grimness. The people are so badly malnourished that one in three children is physically stunted, according to the UN. If you go there you see the ravages of HIV, the emaciated figures standing listlessly on street corners. Companies are constantly going to the wall.

But it is vital to recognise that Zimbabwe was not always like this, and did not have to be like this. This Mugabe tyranny is no accident – and Britain played a shameful part in the disaster. Readers will remember the 1979 Lancaster House Agreement, by which Margaret Thatcher granted independence to Rhodesia. At that time the country was a breadbasket, a flourishing agricultural producer, with about 6,000 commercial farmers. The only trouble with those farmers was that the most successful of them were white – and Mugabe’s long reign has been characterised by one overwhelming objective: to exterminate the last vestiges of white power, whether political or economic.

As he has said: “The white man is here as a second citizen. The only man you can trust is a dead white man.” So it was crucial that the Lancaster House Agreement protected the interests of these white farmers. They could, of course, be bought out, but their land could not be simply seized. There had to be a “willing buyer, willing seller”. The British government agreed to fund the arrangement, compensating the former colonial farmers for land that they gave up. Under that arrangement the white farmers were able to survive – more or less; Zimbabwe remained economically viable – more or less.

And then in 1997, along came Tony Blair and New Labour, and in a fit of avowed anti-colonialist fervour they unilaterally scrapped the arrangement. The overseas development minister, Clare Short, made it clear that neither she nor Blair gave a stuff about the former colonial farmers. As she put it at the time: “I should make it clear that we do not accept that Britain has a special responsibility to meet the costs of land purchase in Zimbabwe. We are a new government from diverse backgrounds, without links to former colonial interests. My own origins are Irish and, as you know, we were colonised not colonisers.”

It was that betrayal of Lancaster House that gave Mugabe his pretext to launch his pogroms against the whites. I remember going to a place called Mazowe, not far from Harare, where Mugabe now has one of his vast personal ranches. I met an old ex-Rhodesian couple whose family came from near London, whose kitchen dresser bore the medals their relatives had won fighting for this country. I remember them physically trembling with fear of the Zanu-PF thugs who were waiting at the gate to their farm; and it wasn’t long before they were gone – driven out by sheer intimidation. They died not long afterwards.

The Labour government enlisted this country in all sorts of wars around the world, some more disastrous than others. British soldiers went to fight and die in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in the Balkans. Here we had people with close relatives in our own country – yes, our own kith and kin – and we did absolutely nothing. We turned our backs on the very people who were actually indispensable to the economic well-being of Zimbabwe, and Labour essentially allowed Mugabe to launch a racist tyranny.

The two criminals, Blair and Bob enjoying a moment together

It was Labour’s betrayal of the Lancaster House Agreement – driven by political correctness and cowardice – that gave Mugabe the pretext for the despotic confiscations by which he has rewarded his supporters. And that is why Blair should be there: to mark Labour’s special contribution to the tyrant’s longevity in office.

Boris Johnson is the Lord Mayor of London and a former journalist. This article is from the Telegraph newspaper.

Zim’s white farmers face new land grabs

Most of Zimbabwe’s white farmers were stripped of their land in often violent evictions that started in 2000. Now the remaining white farmers are on edge because of threats of new evictions linked to the country’s long-running political turmoil.

Mandi Chimene, a newly appointed provincial governor for Manicaland province, said at a rally this past weekend that she had evicted white farmers from 12 farms in the Headlands district alone, claiming they were being protected by the former vice president’s faction. Joice Mujuru was ousted from the ruling party congress in December after falling out of favor with the president and his wife.

Another newly appointed governor, Joe Biggie Matiza of Mashonaland East province, said he will take similar action by the end of this month.

However, human rights advocate and political analyst Gabriel Shumba said that linking the evictions to the Mujuru faction “is just political expediency by those seeking to evict them.” Shumba said, “White farmers are caught up because they are in possession of an asset that is in demand.”

The Commercial Farmers Union, which represents mostly white farmers in Zimbabwe, has sought a meeting with the lands minister over the evictions, said spokesman Hendricks Olivier. “The eviction of both black and white farmers is not good for the sector,” Olivier told The Associated Press. “We need a clear policy.”

Douglas Mombeshora, the lands minister, recently said black farmers can enter into joint venture with partners of other races. But vice president Emmerson Mnangagwa later delivered a conflicting message, warning of more evictions of white farmers. President Robert Mugabe has often spoken against joint farming partnerships between blacks and whites.

There are fewer than 300 white farmers out of the original total of 4,500, according to the Commercial Farmers Union. The land eviction program that targeted white farmers starting in 2000 was defended by Mugabe as necessary to correct land imbalances dating from the era of white rule, though the upheaval was blamed for mismanagement of Zimbabwe’s once rich agricultural economy.

Source: AP

EFF targets mining magnates

Closing the EFF’s national people’s assembly in Bloemfontein yesterday, party president Julius Malema called on members to “block mines” in which magnate Patrice Motsepe (African Rainbow Minerals), Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa ( Lonmin) and National Assembly Speaker Baleka Mbete (Gold Fields) had interests.

Malema described the proposed mass action as a protest against the way in which black economic empowerment benefited only a few wealthy, politically connected individuals instead of communities.

“We target these companies not because of the perceived ANC sympathies of the beneficiaries but because the money should be put to use to empower communities, and these people are the faces of the few who have become rich rather than creating community trusts,” he said.

Malema said yesterday the EFF intended always to act “within the law and the constitution. We are a disciplined organisation.”

He said land grabs were necessary to prevent the “land issue from leading to the civil strife it has caused in the rest of Africa”.

Police recently removed land invaders organised by the EFF from an area near Nelmapius in Pretoria. The squatters christened the area Malemaville.

But political analyst Ralph Mathekga said the EFF was being “disingenuous”.

“The biggest contradiction with the EFF is that you have a party that agrees to be in parliament and therefore agrees to be bound by the [legal] processes of that institution but chooses to use extra-legal means to achieve its objectives. It is disingenuous,” he said.

“[Malema’s] words would carry weight, perhaps, if they had refused to take part in elections and chosen to go outside the parliamentary process, but they have chosen not to do so. I think they are concerned about being seen to be swallowed up by parliamentary processes. No one is stopping them abdicating their positions in parliament.”

With only 25 seats in parliament, the EFF has so far failed to influence policy positions. It has instead resorted to showmanship, best characterised by the August 21 “pay back the money” chanting.

Political analyst JP Landman said the EFF’s utterances were good for democracy.

“What it has done is force people to take a stand. Since the EFF has come to parliament, the ANC has come out saying it is committed to land reform.”

The ANC, Landman said, was committed to land reform within the context of Section 25 of the constitution, which stipulated that property may be expropriated only by law, with payment of compensation.

Source: timeslive

EFF land grab kicks off in Pretoria

The Economic Freedom Fighters’ land-grab policy kicked off in Pretoria yesterday when local party leaders led an invasion of council-owned land earmarked for low-cost housing.

The executive committee of the party’s Nellmapius ward 86 delivered local people to “Malemaville” but the exercise ended in blood and broken bones when Tshwane metro police fired rubber bullets.

About 3000 people had queued in the rain to get their names on the EFF’s list of people to be given land along the N4 highway.

More than 100 portions were allocated on Sunday and about 1200 people were on the list by yesterday afternoon.

According to timeslive Willy Kubayi, 31, who queued for a piece of land, “paid a heavy price when his upper lip was torn after he was shot in the face at close range by the police as he ran for cover”.

The stampeding crowd trampled a woman in her forties and she broke a leg.

After the shooting people blockaded the road with tyres and rocks.

Tshwane metro police’s Isaac Mahamba could not confirm the number of people injured.

“We cannot allow people to occupy land illegally. We are monitoring the situation to make sure no land invasion occurs,” he said.

EFF branch chairman Vusi Msiza planned the takeover and named the land after party leader Julius Malema.

“People have nowhere to stay but there is plenty of empty land. We are implementing the EFF policy of expropriation of land and we will fight to stay on that land,” he said.

Msiza said he had told the party’s Tshwane regional chairman and Gauteng legislature chief whip Benjamin Disolwana about his branch’s “programme of action”.

An ANC member who travelled from Kwaggafontein, in Mpumalanga, to claim land, said she supported EFF policies.

“EFF policies are best for the poor and I like that they are not cowards – they stand up for what they believe in,” she said, asking not to be named.

Next year, says the local EFF branch, it will implement the party policy of free education – pupils will not pay school fees.

Steve Msiza said local EFF supporters wanted their branch of the party to be the first to implement the party’s policies and other branches should follow suit.

He said the EFF would use force if necessary to collect report cards from schools at the end of this year if they are being withheld for non-payment of school fees.

“We are the first to implement the expropriation of land without compensation, and free education; other branches will follow. These are the policies of the party. We do not need the national leadership to tell us to start implementing,” he said.

EFF land and education policies call for the transfer of land ownership to the state and free education up to undergraduate level.

Neither Malema nor EFF spokesman Mbuyiseni Ndlozi could be reached for comment.

Tshwane University of Technology political analyst Levy Ndou said yesterday that a party could implement policies only if it were in power and had consulted the citizenry.

“What they are doing is illegal and politically wrong. Only a party in government can implement policies. We need to educate our people that they can participate in policy making but cannot implement it,” he said.

Local ANC councillor Precious Marole said the EFF was taking people for “a ride”, creating drama to attract attention.

“The EFF is misbehaving. They will never occupy that land.

“They made people queue in the rain for nothing. I am going to call a community meeting to make that clear,” Marole said.

He said the land was sold to the council by a farmer and that about 60 families already lived there.

They had worked for the farmer and stayed on the land when he left.

Communists play cat and mouse with South African farmers

Hundreds of South Africa’s commercial farmers have now gone home after TAU SA’s yearly congress in Pretoria. In the north of the country they wait for the summer rain: their soil is prepared, the seeds are planted and the days grow hotter. Eyes look skyward for the first signs: they wait for the whip of the pre-storm wind, for that scent of moisture, for the quick darkening of the sky. Fifty three million South Africans depend on the country’s commercial farmers for their daily bread.

In his keynote Congress speech, TAU SA president Louis Meintjes covered many points – government propaganda on how “the whites” stole black land; farmworkers’ “rights” (but nothing about the rights of those who created the farms); how the country is run from Luthuli House, making the claim that SA is a democracy something of a farce. Then there’s the ubiquitous Freedom Charter, trotted out at every turn by the ANC, an outdated manifesto, written by white communists (notably Rusty Berstein), whose so-called principles are today only supported by countries like North Korea.

Then there’s the government’s 50/50 plan – the “sharing” of private farms with the workers which has elicited guffaws around the world and caused many potential investors to run for the hills. TAU SA says this latest caprice is a bridge too far. It is patently unacceptable, for many reasons but not least that it will cause hardship and hunger.

Then followed the president’s key question: where will it stop? Each demand’s acquiescence is followed by another demand. Despite reams being written about the empirical impracticality of the ANC’s farm policies, it is clear the government takes no notice. Willy nilly it surges ahead with plans and notions and white papers and green papers, each more ludicrous than the last. Communism’s DNA is well entrenched at Luthuli House, despite its spectacular failures in the twentieth century.

It should be therefore no surprise that the government proffered this policy during pre-1994 negotiations for the transfer of power in South Africa. It is a pity that many who negotiated with the ANC did not take cognizance of communism’s awful legacy.

Book

In his book How Communists Negotiate by American Admiral C. Turner Joy (MacMillan & Co, NY 1955), this Commander in Chief (UN Command) of Naval Forces in the Far East and American representative at the South Korean Armistice Conference at the end of the Korean War set out how the North Korean communists meticulously planned to get as much as they could without giving away anything to the other side. Virtually all of the processes he outlined regarding the negotiation process there were repeated by the ANC pre-1994.

His chapters include “Setting the stage”: Turner says the communists carefully consider the physical circumstances of the negotiating venue. (Remember the luxury game farms and the joint fishing trips of the Codesa protagonists. Then there were the well-dressed ANC big wigs in West Africa sporting English tweeds, briar pipes and a good British accent).

Chapter Two of Turner’s book – “The Delegation” – outlines how the very best intellectual minds and people of good appearance headed the communist teams at Korea. In pre-1994 SA, no rabble nor any toyi toyi-ing mobs were anywhere near the discussion venues. Chapter Three discusses the “Loaded Agenda” – “the Korean communists sought an agenda composed of conclusions favorable to their basic objectives, with some allowances for compromises if it suited them”, wrote Turner.

(It is rumoured that the Mozambican president Samora Machel told Nelson Mandela not to frighten SA’s whites because he would need them during the transition period so that the country wouldn’t disintegrate, as did Mozambique after independence. This practical approach to preserve the functional status quo during the early period after 1994 was sold as forgiveness and reconciliation on the ANC’s part, while in reality it was a calculated policy to preserve stability.)

Chapter Four – “Incidents” – refers to the communist policy of creating violent clashes and disturbances during the negotiation process in order to unnerve the other side who long for peace and want to hurry up the peace process to avoid further violence. (Nelson Mandela refused to renounce violence as a condition for his release. In fact after his release in 1990, violence increased exponentially until power was transferred in 1994.)

The Veto

The chapter on “The Veto” illustrates a Machiavellian method used to increase the chances of compromise from the other side. The stubborn recalcitrance of the North Korean side was designed to irritate the Americans into accepting some points in order to move ahead as they were tired of the delaying tactics.

Turner’s assessment of how the communists decide what is the truth and what is not is contained in the fascinating chapter “Truth and Consequence”. He says “the distortion of truth as practiced by the communists is a science”. (Remember Bishop Tutu’s assertion that there were “four kinds of truth” in his Truth and Reconciliation Commission summing up! Then we have the current “truth” about land theft, and a new “truth” about South Africa’s history, designed to engender a feeling of guilt among whites. This is entirely misplaced: without white settlement of Southern Africa, there would have been no present-day South Africa.

Whites found people who had no written language, who created no infrastructure and whose lives were beleaguered by battles with other tribes. They had no land titles and lived in primitive dwellings surrounded by sparse agriculture. Why the guilt among whites?)

Inches and Miles

The chapter most apt in relation to the TAU SA president’s speech is entitled “Inches and Miles”. Here Turner puts the case of “give an inch and they’ll take a mile“ so succinctly. He says:

“Communists regard any concession made by their opponents as a sign of weakness. Many Westerners entertain the notion that to accept some part of a communist negotiating proposal will encourage the communists to respond in kind.

“On the contrary such action is likely to induce an even more adamant attitude on their part. If Western negotiators agree to a communist proposal without insisting on an equal concession on another point, the communists conclude that their opponents are in a weak position and then they demand more.”

Thus the “fundamental techniques” to which Turner refers as part and parcel of communists’ negotiating processes are being used in South Africa 60 years after this Korean episode.

Anybody who cared to read a South African Communist Party directive on Reform and Revolution which was circulating in the mid-eighties would have seen that the doctrine was as sacred then as it was from the early days of communism. In para 13.2.3, it says “at the same time we must not mechanically dig in our heels against any future possibility to negotiate or compromise with other forces. We must remember that virtually all revolutionary struggles in the post-war period (Algeria, Vietnam, Angola, Mozambique) reached their final climax at the negotiating table.”

The TAU SA president asks: Do we know what we are supporting? Where will it stop? My personal opinion is that it is irresponsible to support any policy unless you know where it will end and what will be the final goals. He asks the ANC government: what is your end goal and when will you stop?

Herein lies the rub. Give and give and more will be asked of you until there is nothing more to give. Feed the crocodile and it will turn around and devour you. The ANC government cannot be allowed to usurp the commercial farming sector. It is to no one’s advantage. Indeed, it is a catastrophe waiting in the wings.

The folly of ‘land reform’

Despite the wholesale attack on agriculture and white farmers in South Africa threatening food security, The Times (Johannesburg) believes “land reform” or land grab is a worthy goal, seemingly blind to what a much milder form of the same policy has achieved in Zimbabwe.

Some 70% of farms in Gauteng are either standing idle or are being used as weekend party destinations for the wealthy black elite who use taxpayers’ money to buy up agricultural land.

This is no tiny matter, as the unfolding and alarming situation is strangely not reflected in the analysis, policies and goals of the main “representative” political parties.

After 20 years of democracy and never-ending Anglo-American attemps to stir racial animosity through their myriad of foreign-funded NGO’s – most advocating land grab – blacks are quitting rural areas in droves for the lure of city life.

Established commercial farmers are under pressure, often being forced to contend with deadly political slogans, drought, high input costs, competition from cheap imports and an unsympathetic government who simply ignore the scourge of farm murders. There were about 66 000 commercial farms in this country in 1994; today the number has dwindled to 44 000.

Thousands of white crosses dot the countryside, where farmers have had their weapons confiscated to face a low-intensity war waged against them.

Yet the role of farmers in ensuring our food security and providing employment cannot be overstated.

This year’s bumper maize crop, for example, is causing the price of the staple to drop, putting downward pressure on food prices against the backdrop of inflationary pressure, a weakening currency and a struggling economy.

Despite the abject failure of instilling land-grab fever, The Times chillingly argues that “it goes without saying that the land redistribution process needs to be ramped up”.

How? By arming not only small groups of terrorists against farmers but also whole brigades who will complete a Pol Pot-style ethnic cleansing or genocide?

The editorial continues unashamedly that “reforms to deal with the deep inequalities that persist in our rural areas need to be urgently effected”.

Really? When most inhabitants don’t care for farming and are actually abandoning land, what inequalities might those be?

Clearly cheap slogans and “representativity” have already lost much of their value in the face of reality.

“Land reform” – which envisages the expropriation of half of all commercial farmland without compensation on behalf of farmworkers – is not only unworkable and will destroy what is left of agriculture and food security. It is also deadly.

It would make far more sense to abandon this folly and to stop dreaming up grand imperial schemes to steal agricultural land and engineer famines. Stalinist planning really does not have the same allure any more, despite American attempts to restore the Cold War.

The Anglo-American NGO’s and their paid flunkeys need to pack their bags and leave.

Another black farm found in a state of serious neglect

While the ANC regime is pursuing a policy of “land restitution”, black farmers seem to have little interest in the ideological project

Another farm, owned by the state, has been found outside Hartbeesfontein in the North West in a state of serious neglect.

While the ANC regime is pursuing a policy of “land restitution”, black farmers seem to have little interest in the ideological project.

A white councillor in the Matlosana municipality, has had to provide food and water for three pigs through holes in a wall, after the pigs had been without food and water for some time.

“Another two pigs in the pen were already dead and were being eaten by the surviving pigs,” the statement said.

“The agricultural unit of the National SPCA was informed of the situation and removed the pigs after obtaining a court order.”

The farm is under the management of the Matlosana municipality and used for “local economic development projects”. Millions of rands have been spent on the farm but every project has failed.

The farm, Moria, was across from another farm, used as a provincial agriculture project, where the SPCA had to previously euthanize 28 stud cattle, and where recently a further two were found to be in a “shocking” state of malnutrition.

On July 6, The Sunday Independent reported that pigs were found starving and eating one another on the farm Modderfontein, near Potchefstroom, owned by Thandi Modise, who is National Council of Provinces chairwoman and a former North West premier.

Police and SPCA officials found dead and dying animals, including pigs, sheep, geese, goats and ducks. Many had to be put down.

It appeared the animals had been without water and food for around two weeks. There were no farmworkers on the property, no electricity, and the water pumps were broken.

ANC’s plan to make white owners hand their land over to workers

Since 1994 white farmers have been murdered in alarming numbers.

Rural Development and Land Reform Minister Gugile Nkwinti wants white commercial farmers to hand over half their farms to black farmworkers.

Nkwinti said in an interview this week that stakeholders in commercial agriculture, including farmers, trade unions, farmworkers and the agricultural business sector, have until April next year to react to his proposals.

The commercial farmers retain 50% of the farm;
The labourers on the land assume ownership of the remaining 50%, proportional to their contribution to the development of the land based on the number of years they had worked on the land;
The government pays for the 50% to be shared by the labourers, but the money will not go to the farmer. It will go to an investment and development fund to be jointly owned by the parties constituting the new ownership regime. The investment and development fund will be used for reinvestment in the farm, skills improvement and to pay out those who want to opt out of the arrangement;
Current tenancy protection remains and it will be balanced by a regime of duties and responsibilities that worker-dwellers must comply with if they want to stay on the farm;
Of the 50% to be shared by labourers, all labourers with a history of between 10 and 25 consecutive years of disciplined service will share 10%, those with 25 to 50 years’ consecutive service will share 25%, those with more than 50 years’ consecutive service will share 50% and 15% will be available for household subsistence farming; and
Land rights management committees, consisting of local people, will be established to solve local disputes.

Nkwinti said he had come up with the proposal because the previous system had “many deficiencies”.

Land reform has been brought into sharp focus by the decline of agriculture in neighbouring Zimbabwe, where many white commercial farmers have been violently evicted and their property rights trampled by the state.

Some 90% of farms redistributed to South Africa’s black population from white farmers are not productive.

Since 1994 white farmers have been murdered in alarming numbers.

About 50 people on average are murdered in South-Africa per day, of which at least 20 are white(95+ % black on white murder rate), although whites make up only 9% (4 500 000) of the demographics in South-Africa.

Land invasion south of Johannesburg

Residents from the Lawley informal settlement have invaded land along the Lawley Road, south of Johannesburg.

The residents formed small groups on the land while community members addressed them amid heavy police presence.

According to Thabangu Masukela, a member of the community at the informal settlement, residents went to “claim” the land after Deputy Chief Whip of the Council, Justice Ngalonkulu told the leaders of the community: “This Lawley should be your new home.”

Masukela also said that they wanted to “protect” their land from residents of Lawley 2, another informal settlement who were also invading land.

The land that residents are claiming belongs to Frederick Joseph and Millas Jane Merry.

“The government has not spoken to us about these land claims,” Christian Merry, one of the sons of Frederick Joseph and Millas Jane told Radio Islam.

“Last year we saw an article in a local newspaper about our land going to be used for low cost housing. My parents consulted a lawyer to engage the government, and to date we have heard nothing,” he said.

Meanwhile residents maintain they are not going back on their action of not “claiming” the land. “The government has spoken to us about the land,” said one resident.

“Negotiate while we are staying there,” said another.

Ismail Vadi, the ANC MEC for Roads and Transport told Radio Islam, that the MMC for Housing Dan Mbovu was aware of the land invasion that was taking place and summoned the police to the site.

Despite the residents claim that the land invasion was peaceful, Lawley Road was strewn with rocks and rubbish.

There was also police presence in the area with one officer saying that they were waiting for the ANC local ward councilor Janice Ndarala to address the residents.

Deputy Chief Whip of the council, Justice Ngalonkulu was unavailable for comment.

The deputy chief whip of the ANC in the City of Johannesburg, Ngalonkulu, is facing allegations of having an inappropriate relationship with Zero Defect Trading, a contractor that is involved in the R170 million Alexandra smart metre project.

Sunday World has established that Ngalonkulu now cruises around in a convertible BMW 335i.

Source: Radio Islam

Blade says Nkandla is white people’s lies

Blade telling Nkwinti to take white farms, not mines

Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande and member of the SACP has described what is being written about President Jacob Zuma and his Nkandla residence as “white people’s lies”.

He has been the General Secretary of the South African Communist Party since 1998.

Nzimande was speaking at an event to honour President Zuma held at the University of Zululand, at KwaDlangezwa.

Nzimande has heaped praise on President Zuma, saying it is appropriate to honour him for his contribution to peace in KwaZulu-Natal and education in the country.

He’s dismissed as “lies perpetuated by white people” reports about Nkandla and Zuma.

In 2007 Malawian businessman Charles Modise claimed he made a R500,000 donation to the South African Communist Party in 2002.

He claimed he gave the money, packed in black plastic bags, to Willy Madisha, who in turn swore he transported the money in the boot of his car to SACP general secretary Nzimande. However, Nzimande denied ever receiving the money, also calling the allegations “lies perpetuated by white people”.

Despite being a Communist, Mzimande is against the nationalisation of mines, strangely stating that it is not “inherently progressive” as it depended on which class interests were being advanced.

Nzimande supports the accelerated transfer of white-owned land to blacks however and warned earlier that South Africa would become like Zimbabwe if whites continue to own land.

Nzimande said the people needed to know why banks were still financing farmers using the “same [free market] methods used during apartheid”.

“One of the biggest obstacles facing land reform is the willing buyer-willing seller principal,” he said.

He said with that principle, it was those who already owned the land—and not the landless—who benefited.

Malema openly sings banned anti-Afrikaner song

Hundreds of Economic Freedom Fighters braved the scorching sun for the launch of their party at the Nkaneng informal settlement in Marikana, North West on Sunday.

Members dressed in red berets and T-shirts sat on top of a hill while others sat on the grey clay soil around the stage.

Speaking at the launch, EFF leader Julius Malema said a giant had been born.

“A different baby is born today, a giant… A child that walks immediately. The baby that fights for your living wage. You must be afraid of that child.”

He said the EFF was a home for orphans.

“This is the home for the hopeless,” he said to the applause of the crowd.

He said the EFF was not afraid of confronting white bosses for not paying workers and abusing them.

“You must fight these abuses whether Julius Malema is there or not… You must be a Malema at your workplace.”

He said the police should take off their uniform when instructed to kill innocent people.

“Give them their uniforms and weapons. Tell them you do not want a salary with blood on it.” He was referring to the shooting of 34 mineworkers in Marikana in August last year.

Malema called on teachers to teach pupils first and go on a strike after school.

“When you strike after school the children will join you,” he said.

He told the crowd that the land of South Africa belonged to the landless.

“This is your land. You (the landless) do not have to pay for the land. It has been already paid by the sweat of your fathers.”

He said white South Africans were still refusing to hand over the land they had “inherited through theft”.

“Till today they (whites) are not ashamed of killing our people. They want us to kneel before them.

“We are not going to do that. We are not going to beg for the land. Bring back the land.”

He told the crowd to vote for a real president and not a dancer.

“Refuse to vote for a singer and dancer. We want a thinker to drive the policy of our country.

“We do not want an old man who dances like a teenager. Everytime he dances older people look down with shame,” he said.

The crowd responded by waving their hand in a circle, indicating need for a change.

“We must restore the image of South Africa.”

Malema apologised to South Africans for having Jacob Zuma as president.

“I apologise for giving you a mediocre non-thinker and non-reader.

“We must vote for statesmen, we must vote for the restoration of the image of South Africa.”

Malema vowed to make the Gupta family pay for embarrassing the country, including with their controversial landing of a plane at the Waterkloof Air Force Base.

He said the day EFF took power they would “be punished” for all their “wrongs”.

He concluded his speech by singing the controversial “Shoot the boer” song.

The crowd shouted “Juju! Juju!” after he had spoken. – Sowetan