A Look At The History of Land Reformation in Africa and What it Has Yielded...

in #life6 years ago (edited)

Currently South Africa is standing on the verge of possible land expropriation without compensation in order to further reimburse people with an economical disposition, and despite the fact that the people who are claiming the land are not the indigenous people of South-Africa, they still claim these lands that they insist the government blatantly steal from current owners on their behalf, as their heritage right.

Many of you might be hearing about this recently, but the truth is that land reformation in South Africa is hardly a new thing, land reformation has been an ongoing concern since 1994, and with the majority of land that has been bought back by government until recently as "forceful sales" now standing in complete and utter ruin, the government wants to carry on this process and even take it one step further by doing this without any compensation towards the current owners.

Sadly I fear that this would just lead to history repeating itself, and a great example of this would be Zimbabwe or as it was once called "Rhodesia"

1980 was the start of land reformation in Zimbabwe this was when the Lancaster House Agreement was signed. The Lancaster House Agreement was aimed at redistributing white owned land to black people in an attempt at economical equality and altering the ethnic balance of people who owned land - irrelevant of the land having been rightfully purchased by their current owners.

However, at that stage white farmers were accountable for over 40% of the countries exports despite the fact that they were heavily outnumbered by the African people that was living in the country, they also provided jobs and livelihood for a great deal of the African people.

The Lancaster House Agreement that was initially aimed at redistribution of land while not damaging the white farmers' vital contribution to Zimbabwe's economy (And this is almost word for word what South African government is currently claiming that their ideal is) allowed the Zimbabwean authorities to start with land reformation in the 1980's and as long as the land was bought and sold on a willing basis the British government would finance half the cost of buying back the land.

Sadly the manipulation, rape murder and torture of white farmers became a very realistic part of ensuring that the farmers "willingly" sell their land to the said Zimbabwean authorities, and after land was reformed, once productive farming lands were lead to ruin due to mismanagement, such as over grazing and neglect, and slowly this once prolifically abundant agricultural country started regressing; almost a mirror image of what has been happening in South Africa since 1994.

It was not until the late 1990's when available funding from the British that Prime Minister Tony Blair terminated this arrangement, and the Zimbabwean government decided to take land redistribution into their own hands this time by taking white owned land by force without compensation just like the South African Government currently intends on doing now. At this point in time these actions were not only vulgarly violent and inhumane, it was also in direct conflict with the SADC (Southern African Development Community) who supported compensation for acquiring land during this time.

In Zimbabwe these actions led to the murdering, raping and torturing of countless white farmers, as well as the collapse the countries economy and domestic banks due to unsettled bonds on agricultural properties that were taken by force, and by 2013 it was clear that the true intent was never equal distribution to begin with as every white-owned farm in Zimbabwe had been either expropriated or confirmed for future redistribution, and it leaves me to wonder what the true intent of the South African government is at this point especially when our current political leaders are constantly publicly calling out for the killing of white farmers.

Due to the famine and economic collapse of this once flourishing country now known as Zimbabwe they relied on the aid of the United States for their survival, and this aid was only withdrawn in July 2018 not because the country has managed to reestablish themselves - but due to misappropriation of funds. You can read more about this $250m annual aid by the USAID, and its retraction here

Is this not the same direction that South Africa is currently heading in?

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I live in town, but fear for those farmers out on the farms. I feel that all that is left for us to do is pray for these dark evil forces to be stopped in their tracks. The only way for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. God save SA!!!!

Resteeming, because people need to know.

Thank you so much, this is a topic that definitely needs more exposure