PAC Admits Farm attacks are political & warns of land invasion

Original Post Date: 2001-09-06 Time: 23:50:36  Posted By: Jan

Today a press conferrence held by the PAC was aired on local TV but some key
comments have been selectively ignored by the press in their reports.
These are reports taken from the South African Broadcasting Corp.
(www.sabcnews.com)they range from the 21/08/2001 – 06/09/2001, all related to
the PAC. Today (6/09/2001) the pac held a press conferrence in which one of
their senior members admitted that the farm murders in south Africa
was politically motivated and in his words “acts of revenge”

---

21/08/2001
The Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) has distanced itself from statements made
by one of its senior officials that it supported Zimbabwe’s land reform and
criticised those who opposed it as negating the interests of Africans.

This follows a report by the BBC’s Monitoring Africa saying that Thami ka
Plaatjie, the PAC secretary general, had said the African National Congress
(ANC) should move with speed to address the land question in South Africa.

While Plaatjie could not be reached by telephone in Zimbabwe, he was reported
as having told journalists in the Zimbabwean capital of Harare that the
problem of land in South Africa would, when it exploded, be of enormous
proportions and the consequences would be too ghastly to contemplate. He also
allegedly said the ANC should stop forging alliances with racist parties,
which dictated what it did in Parliament.

BBC also reported that ka Plaatje said people like Tony Leon, the leader of
the official opposition Democratic Alliance, knew nothing about African life
as “they” came from a class which owned property.

PAC comments see rand plummeting to record lows. Analysts are attributing the
rand’s plummet to new lows to reported statements suggesting Zimbabwe-style
land invasions could happen in South Africa.

The rand hit new record lows against the dollar, pound and the euro today.
Barnard Jacobs Mellet analyst Andile Mazwai said reported comments Plaatjie
could have been behind this.

While Stanley Mogoba, leader of the PAC, could not be reached for comment,
Patricia de Lille, the party’s chief whip, said: “It needs to be said that he
(ka Plaatjie) is not there in his official capacity for the PAC. The PAC did
not pay for him to go there (Zimbabwe). He went there on behalf of Vista
University.”

De Lille said she had spoken to the party leader who said he had been
informed that ka Plaatjie was going to Zimbabwe to do research on
reparations. When he returned he would be expected to give “feedback” to the
party’s national executive meeting in Johannesburg this weekend, she said. –
Sapa-INet-Bridge

---

23/08/2001

Thami ka Plaatjie, the PAC secretary-general, in his capacity as
chairperson of the SA Reparations Movement, is digging his heels in over
comments he made recently that Zimbabwean style land grabs could happen in
South Africa. This came after Tito Mboweni, Reserve Bank governor and a host
of economists partly blamed ka Plaatjie for the current depreciation of the
rand.

Ka Plaatjie accuses government of giving the international community the
wrong impression that all was well in the country. He says the opposite is
true, and that the country’s economic fundamentals are not in place. He
insists that land invasions have been going on for some time in the country.

Ka Plaatjie believes he is being made a scapegoat for what he calls, “the
ills of South Africa.” He warns government that the need for land will
increase. He says blacks are currently demanding land for housing, and they
will demand land for agricultural purposes in the future.

---

6/09/2001
Stanley Magoba, Pand Africanist Congress (PAC) President, has called on
government to urgently convene a land summit for all stakeholders in the land
reform process.

He has warned that although the PAC would not resume an armed struggle,
frustrated people could take up arms unless land reform moves ahead more
speedily.

The PAC says some people who were evicted from a farm near Paarl, in the
Cape, have approached the party for weapons. However, Magoba turned down the
request.

“The desperation of the people seem to be leading us here… eventually… to
a worse than Zimbabwe situation”, said Magoba.

Magoba has thus called on the government to urgently set up a land summit to
be attended by all stakeholders. The PAC also said political motives were
behind attacks on farms.

---

The Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) appears to have laid down one of the last
weapons in its fight to be a national political force – militant rhetoric.

At a press conference in Parliament today, Dr Stanley Mogoba, PAC president,
quickly shot down any suggestion that the organisation may return to armed
struggle to fight for “land for the landless” people of South Africa. While
his response to the suggestion was only expected common sense, the speed with
which Mogoba squashed the idea was surprising from an organisation who
militant rhetoric has often been its only mark on South African politics.

The conference was called to highlight the dangerous living conditions of 89
people evicted from a farm in Paarl, outside Cape Town. Enoch Zulu, a
commander of the Azanian People’s Liberation Army (Apla) – the former armed
wing of the PAC – and a member of the organisation’s national executive
committee, visited the evicted people, who are living on the side of a road,
yesterday. He reported that some of the had asked him if they could get
weapons. “I said no,” he states emphatically.

“If the land issue becomes bigger, pressure might come from the people to
resume the armed struggle. We’re saying it might be a last-minute desperate
measure from the people, not from the PAC leadership,” Mogoba emphasises.

Renewed call for a land summit underlining the PAC’s commitment to dealing
with South Africa’s land crises in a reasonable way, Mogoba again called for
a land summit, which would include government, political parties, churches,
mines and other businesses that owned land and community organisations. The
summit would have to come-up with a “responsible and pro-active” way to deal
with the redistribution of land in South Africa. “If you leave it to the
people, you’re going to get to
a Zimbabwe situation,” Mogoba warns.

Dr Motsoko Pheko, PAC deputy president, says the organisation has already
written to the South African Council of Churches (SACC) asking them to
convene the summit. The summit should be seen to be neutral, he explains. “If
the PAC called it we would be seen to be making political capital,” he adds.

He makes it clear that the PAC did not intend to blame the present government
for the land crises. “They inherited it,” he explains. However, Pheko makes
it clear the government had a responsibility to move quickly to solve the
growing problem.

His remarks and tone seem to highlight the PAC leadership’s attempts to
tackle the land crises with political maturity and diplomacy.

More PAC verbal shots to come. However, Xolela Mangcu, the director of the
Steve Biko Foundation, is not convinced we have heard the last verbal shots
from the PAC. “The rhetoric reflects the factions in the organisation and
their changing tactics, depending on their situation” he observes. He points
out that former PAC deputy general-secretary, Wonder Masombuka, and the
organisation’s general-secretary, Thami ka Plaatjie, are much more likely to
use militant rhetoric and be “in your face”. The organisation’s Members of
Parliament (MPs), like Patricia de Lille and Stanley Mogoba, its president,
“are subject to a different protocol in government” and are less likely to
use militant rhetoric.

He does not think a change in rhetoric would have too much of an impact on
the organisation’s popular support. “They need to define an agenda, but I
hope they do not only depend on the dramatic stuff for support,” says
Mangcu.

Professor Sipho Seepe, a political commentator, feels the move away from talk
of armed struggle is inevitable – and necessary. “We are in a democracy and
the use of force cannot be politically or morally justified. People would not
support it, except for those few who are very misguided and want to erode our
democracy,” he says.

However, he thinks that the PAC should keep up its “aggressive” political
rhetoric. “It is something the organisation could rely on in the light of the
government’s arrogantly ignoring the interests of the people, who are saying
we need to put pressure on the state.”

As an example, Seepe points out that government started fast tracking its
land reform programme once highly publicised land invasions threatened to
take hold in South Africa.

xxxxx Sign Up