In The Shadow Of Zimbabwe

The BBC has reported that South Africa is begining to liberate land from Afrikaners to return to blacks.

It appears that for the past 11 years the Government of South Africa has been trying to repatriate 1/3 of white "owned" land back into black hands but have only managed to transfer 4%. In this particular case we find that the value of the land to be in dispute:

Quote:
Mr Visser has the 500-hectare (1,250-acre) cattle and crop farm in Lichtenburg in North West province.

His family bought it in 1968, but a black family has lodged a claim to the property dating back to the 1940s.

Over the past two-and-a-half years, Mr Visser and the Land Claims Commission have been trying to negotiate, but failed to agree on the value of the property.

The government had offered to buy the farm for $275,000 but Mr Visser says it is worth almost twice as much.

Mr Visser now has 21 days to respond to the notice of expropriation.

In my opinion Mr. Visser should consider himself fortunate to be receiving any "compensation" for "his" land.

Having said that, having seen what a mess land transference can become, a -la-Zimbabwe, I hope that Mbeki and the ANC are very carefull in this plan. They need to make sure that land is given to persons qualified to continue the farming done there. I agree that the governemnt is right to use "eminent domain" on these lands, but they should be carefull to not scare off expertise that will be needed for at least a generation. I cannot stress it enough, that this land issue should not become cronyism.

links:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4340396.stm