WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2003-01-11 Posted By: Jan
From the News Archives of: WWW.AfricanCrisis.Org
Date & Time Posted: 1/11/2003 8:58:31 PM
SA Minister hails Mugabe Land Grab
[Note. I have been saying this for a long time. Now you see it happening. Jan]
South African labour minister, Membathisi Mdladlana, said in Zimbabwe on Friday that this country had a lot to learn from President Robert Mugabe’s programme of land reform.
The political opposition in South Africa has denounced his remarks as “chilling”.
Mdladlana said during a tour of farms that it was “important that black people should also own land that they till, and know how to produce food and be self-sufficient and sustainable”.
The South African Press Association (Sapa) also quoted him as saying that South Africa had a lot to learn about land reform from its neighbour.
His comments were trumpeted by Zimbabwe’s state press as strongly supportive of Mugabe’s land seizures, which are widely seen as the primary cause of the country’s current famine.
An estimated eight million of Zimbabwe’s 13 million people are threatened with starvation, according to the UN and other international bodies.
The black farmers being resettled by Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party have not been given title to the land, which remains in the hands of the state.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) opposition said Mdladlana’s “support for Zanu-PF’s land redistribution programme is chilling”.
Its land affairs representative, Andries Botha, said: “President Mugabe and Zanu-PF’s violent and unconstitutional ‘redistribution at all costs’ programme has resulted in the complete collapse of Zimbabwe’s agrarian-dominated economy.
“This hardly sounds like the example South Africa should be following.”
The editor of the newspaper Zimbabwe Independent, Iden Wetherell, said: “The South African labour minister allowed himself to be led around by Zimbabwean officials.”
“They took him to a few showcase schemes purporting to prove that the land redistribution programme has been a success… when it is patently clear that the systematic destruction of Zimbabwe’s agricultural sector has been catastrophic.”
Since South Africa’s transition to democracy in 1994, the ANC government has pursued a cautious land reform programme.
President Thabo Mbeki has said that land invasions will never take place.
Even so, Mr Mdladlana’s words will exacerbate the fear that some in the South African government sympathise with Zanu-PF.
South Africa is tackling land reform in two ways: it is assessing claims from people who say they were unfairly forced off their land under apartheid and it is distributing state and other land to formerly disadvantaged communities.
The government’s land programme got off to a slow start, and only 7% of land earmarked for redistribution has been transferred. The process has accelerated in the past three years, however.
Last year the director general of the government’s department of land affairs, Gilingwe Mayende, told a newspaper that white farmers supported land reform and were voluntarily offering land for redistribution to landless black people.
South Africa would not follow Zimbabwe’s example, he added. The support of landowners would help the government to redistribute 30% of agricultural land to landless communities by 2015.
Carl Opperman of Agri Wes-Cape, a farmers’ organisation, said he was surprised by Mdladlana’s remarks.
Farmers in the Cape had drawn up extensive plans for reform, given them to the government, and were now waiting for a response.
“We are waiting for government to put money into land reform,” he said. – Guardian Unlimited (194)Â Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001
From: Harare
Date: 11 January 2003 07:07
Source: Daily Mail & Guardian
URL: http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=9988&t=…br>