Land expropriation without compensation: who will suffer most

In the lead-up to the 2019 General Election President Cyril Ramaphosa is often shown on TV uttering rather enigmatic sound bites about “land expropriation without compensation”. Occasionally he elaborates on this to say that it will be done in such a way that it will not harm the economy.

There has been debate about this for the last couple of years, with the ANC saying that it intends to alter the clause in the constitution that protects property rights, to enable the confiscation of land without compensation. And so this has become a sound bite. President Cyril Ramaphosa has also been in photo-ops, giving out title deeds to people and telling them that these are important documents, without mentioning that his party is planning change the constitution to enable them to be rendered valueless.

Racist groups like Afriforum fill in the blanks for the President’s enigmatic soundbites, by saying that the government intends to take land from white farmers. President Ramaphosa doesn’t have to say anything like or about that, because Afriforum will say it for him, and thus help to secure votes for the ANC from people who might otherwise vote for the EFF and BLF, who have promised to nationalise all land.

The Afriforum campaign has succeeded in spreading disinformation all over the world. Almost every day on the Question-and-Answer web site Quora I see questions like:

• What is your opinion on South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s push for land distribution from white farmers?
• Why is it that no one is talking about the white farmers losing their lives and land in South Africa?
• Why is President Cyril Ramaphosa proposing the expropriation of white farmers‘ lands without compensation?

I have never heard President Cyril Ramaphosa mention “white farmers” in talking about land expropriation without compensation. He doesn’t have to. AfriForum has done it for him. And AfriForum and similar groups have managed to create the kind of impression overseas that is shown in the above questions.

But to see the real threat of land expropriation without compensation, one must listen, not to President Cyril Ramaphosa, but to Gwede Mantashe, the Minister of Mineral Resources. He has been pushing for expropriation of land from black farmers, for the purpose of mining. And by using the land for mining, such expropriation, of course, will not “harm the economy”.

The first to suffer, and those likely to suffer the most, will be people like those mentioned in a report by Human Rights Watch, the Centre for Environmental Rights (CER), groundWork, and Earthjustice. See here: Mining activists in SA face death threats, intimidation and harassment – report | Saturday Star:

The 74-page report, compiled by Human Rights Watch, the Centre for Environmental Rights (CER), groundWork, and Earthjustice, describes a system designed to “deter and penalise” mining opponents.

The authors conducted interviews with more than 100 activists, community leaders, environmental groups, lawyers representing activists, police and municipal officials, describing the targeting of community rights defenders in KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, Northwest, and Eastern Cape between 2013 and 2018.

They report intimidation, violence, damage to property, the use of excessive force during peaceful protests, and arbitrary arrest for their activities in highlighting the negative impacts of mining projects on their communities.

“The attacks and harassment have created an atmosphere of fear for community members who mobilise to raise concerns about damage to their livelihoods from the serious environmental and health risks of mining and coal-fired power plants,” write the authors.

“Women often play a leading role in voicing these concerns, making them potential targets for harassment and attacks.”

But municipalities often impose barriers to protest on organisers that have no legal basis while government officials have failed to adequately investigate allegations of abuse.

These protests have been going on for some time, but I have never seen questions on Quora about them, and racist groups like AfriForum are only concerned about white farmers, not black ones.

In the media “farm murders” refers only to white farmers, mostly killed by armed robbers, not black farmers murdered by people acting on behalf of mining companies, or who think they can make more money themselves if the mining companies take over the land.

Last year we learned how the High Court rules in favour of Xolobeni community in historic mining rights case | News | National | M&G: “The Amadiba Crisis Committee launched a court battle against the department of mineral resources and Australian company Transworld Energy and Mineral Resources (TEM) over mining rights earlier this year.”

But if the constitution is changed to allow expropriation without compensation, would the High Court have any jurisdiction in such matters? Ramaphosa makes enigmatic pronouncements, AfriForum produces a convenient smakescreen, and in the murk Mantashe and the mining companies are going around dispossessing black farmers. And people on web sites like Quora are asking if “the West” will allow white farmers from South Africa in as refugees, because they assume, and have been led to believe, that white farmers have all already been kicked off the land.