SOUTH AFRICA
Rights and Wrongs
The chairman of South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) backed the party’s controversial plans to repossess land from white farmers and detailed how the scheme might work.
ANC Chairman Gwede Mantashe said white farmers who own more than 12,000 hectares of land (about 30,000 acres) should be forced to hand over land to the government without compensation. It would then be redistributed to black citizens, in recognition of the colonial appropriation of land and historical oppression of black people under Apartheid.
Speaking to South Africa’s News 24 website, Mantashe said a constitutional amendment will be needed to compel the white farmers to give up their land, according to the UK’s Express newspaper. Currently, black South Africans own about 4 percent of the country’s private land, according to government figures, while 72 percent of private land is owned by white people and 24 percent by other ethnic groups.
While some might see redistribution as correcting historical wrongs, it could prove problematic for the economy, however. In Zimbabwe, many argue that a similar program helped to virtually destroy the economy, a setback it has yet to recover from.
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