ANC never thought whites would claim land – Front National

Minority-rights party Front National issued a statement on Tuesday morning in which it pointed to the ongoing failures of land reform in South Africa.

According to the party’s head of information Daniël Lötter, “only 2%” of the land has been redistributed to black people after 22 years of ANC rule, which the party describes as a “massive fiasco” considering that the ANC had promised supporters before it came to power that as much as 30% of the land would be redistributed by 2014.

The party then admits that “Front National cashed in on the structure of land claims … The ANC never thought that white people might decide to claim land as well. Front National’s claim on the land of the former Ohrigstad Republic in the Eastern Transvaal, Stellaland in the Western Transvaal, Skipskop on the Western Cape Coast and various other pieces of land in Natal and the Free State came as a huge surprise.”

The party added that due to the ANC allegedly losing support because of land reform failure “a certain group of ANC supporters became more militant about the matter arguing that land should simply be taken and that settlement can be negotiated later”.

They were possibly referring to the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal telling President Jacob Zuma this week that they wanted government to speedily expropriate land and do away with the willing-buyer willing seller principle. The ANC Youth League has also made a call for land expropriation without compensation, echoing the rhetoric of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF).

ANC KwaZulu-Natal chairperson Sihle Zikalala reportedly said it was intolerable for the land issue to be delayed further and that the ANC should discuss the matter at its policy conference.

Front National wrote, however, that “the same policy in Zimbabwe caused an economic crisis of epic proportions! Yet, the contentious Property Expropriation Bill is being rushed through Parliament as we speak. And this is nothing less than legalised theft of property.”

Lötter pointed out that part of the failure of reform was caused by “cases [that] drag on and on in court at a massive cost and eventually run into a dead end because there is simply not enough evidence for the claim to be settled”.

Lötter also mentioned a quote from a 2011 Daily Mail article in which Land Reform Minister Gugile Nkwinti reportedly said the primary problem with the sustained success of land reform was that new black owners simply sold land government had purchased on their behalf right back to the original white owner – often at a discount.

Nkwinti reportedly said at the time that “black farmers have resold nearly 30 per cent of the white farmland bought for them by the government”, which meant that “both farmers – black and white – are able to turn a profit from the government’s involvement”.

The white farmer makes money and keeps the land, while the black farmer makes some money in the short term (at taxpayers’ expense), while ending up with no land, primarily because government has paid more for the land than its market value, according to the Mail.

The claim of “2% redistribution” also comes from the Daily Mail article, which Front National incorrectly said was published “early this morning”.

Lötter added ruefully: “Personally, if I was a white farmer whose land has been purchased by government (co-incidentally in a majority of cases at quite a notch above the real market value) I would think twice before buying it back from the black farmer who received it from government. His cousin or uncle will just come back in a few days and claim it again, while political parties such as the ANC or the EFF pull out statistics about land ownership and shout: ‘Nothing is being settled, white people still own all the land!’

“There is no solution, therefore, no resolution to the question and an ever-escalating discomfort, conflict and incitement to violence and bloodshed because of the land issue. The only possible solution that I can think of is for government to sit down with white people, and other minorities, and discuss a fair and equal redistribution of land aiming at creating a structure of self-determination for all groups in the country. That means that nobody claims ownership of anybody else’s property outside of the area of self-government to which the group he belongs to is entitled.”

Front National is a political party formed in late 2013 that contested the 2014 national elections. It promotes secession and Afrikaner self-determination. It says it strikes no distinction between English-speaking whites and Afrikaners.