South Africa to Seize Land from White Owners

[left-of-center2012]

The South African government has begun the controversial process of seizing land from white farmers in cases where negotiations to purchase the plots have fallen through. Two game farms in the country's Limpopo province will be the first ones taken under the order after their owners declined to sell for a government offer that was a tenth of the asking price.

While South African authorities say they still intend to pay Johan Steenkamp and Arnold Cloete, the owners of the land, the equivalent of $1.37 million, the men had priced the land at $13.7 million.

Per News.com.au, the farmers' landholding company, Akkerland Boerdery, was sent a letter in April regarding an audit of the land that would be conducted by the government. Akkerland Boerdery reportedly received an injunction to prevent their eviction, however the country's Department of Rural Development and Land Affairs has opposed the injunction.

Should the seizures go through, it would reportedly be the first case of the government refusing to pay market value. Under existing laws, such a seizure is allowed only if it's in the public interest. Since the end of apartheid, the government has only redistributed land to black South Africans only from willing white sellers.

http://www.newser.com/story/263577/south-africa-begins-process-of-seizing-white-owned-land.html

[malaise]

1. The land was stolen

Ask the Native Americans or the Aborigines and the other folks across the planet.

[nycbos]

2. This isn't about justice.

This is about the government lining there pockets. From what I read the ANC seems to read Boss Tweeds manual on graft.

[malaise]

6. I don't hear anyone in South Africa screaming about US politicians stealing at home

I am stating a fact - the land was stolen.

[nycbos]

8. Look at the CPI

Compare SA to the USA.


https://www.transparency.org/news/feature/corruption_perceptions_index_2017

Also read this article

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/16/world/africa/south-africa-corruption-jacob-zuma-african-national-congress.html



If memory serves the ANC government charged striking mine workers under an apartheid era law a few years ago.


They can use the brutal legacy of apartheid to get people to support polices that won't benefit them for the same reason poor white people in the USA vote for tea baggers. Poor and uneducated people are easy to manipulate.

[EX500rider]

9. Some of the land was stolen..

.....some was empty, the Portuguese brought small pox to the tribes around 1500, by the time the Dutch founded Cape Town in 1652 the native nomadic pastoral Khoikhoi tribes were decimated in number. The Dutch did buy some land from them. The native population was so small the Dutch imported slaves from Indonesia and Madagascar.

[Nonhlanhla]

7. Not that simple

The current owners did not necessarily steal it, and may have put significant money into developing the land. Fair compensation from government coffers is better justice - a lot of the government's money comes from white tax payers anyway, so in a sense it would mean that the white community as a whole is paying for the land to be redistributed to new black owners. Which is more fair, since it was that community as a whole who benefited from apartheid. To punish a handful of individuals for the sins of the past is neither just nor economically sound.

Moreover, the ANC is corrupt. Zuma stole billions from the tax payers, and that money has left the country, and yet he walks around free. The government is also sitting on at least 4,000 farms that they have already bought and have not distributed. So this is looking suspiciously like a land grab for the fat cats in the name of racial justice. Which will just create more injustice, and likely economic ruin like in Zimbabwe.

[Throck]

11. Tell everyone to get the hell out of Manhattan.

[angstlessk]

3. How much did the whites pay the blacks for their land?

[DFW]

4. I wonder why now?

I assume it isn't because the authorities were impressed with the beneficial result this tactic had in Zimbabwe.

[roamer65]

5. Zimbabwe 2.0

[NickB79]

10. So, seize game farms full of wildlife and turn them into corn fields?

Bravo. We don't need all those antelopes, zebras, buffalo, leopards, lions, and giraffes getting in the way of progress anyway.