ALARM+press+statement+-+01+April+2006

Alliance of Land and Agrarian Reform Movements (ALARM)
c/o Trust for Community Outreach and Education Tel – 021 685 3033, Fax – 021 685 3087 Cell – 083 651 0271, Email – mazibuko@union.org.za**
 * Interim Steering Committee


 * 01 April 2006**

=ALARM PRESS STATEMENT AND OPEN LETTER - CALL FOR MORATORIUM ON EVICTIONS AND EXPROPRIATION OF FARMS EVICTING WORKERS AND DWELLERS=


 * This press statement serves as an open letter to:
 * President Thabo Mbeki
 * Minister of Land Affairs, Thoko Didiza
 * Premier Ebrahim Rasool
 * MEC for Agriculture Cobus Dowry
 * and Mayor of the Cape Winelands District Municipality**

The case of the threatened evictions of 80 families in the fertile Jonkershoek Valley in Stellenbosch reaffirms the need for government to immediately put into effect a moratorium on all farm evictions. There are, according to Stats SA, approximately 950,000 farm workers and 2.9 million black residents on farms. These are the people who work the land toiling in extremely exploitative conditions. Farm workers and dwellers have not benefited from land reform, instead they continue to be evicted from farms. A report presented to parliament in September 2005 by the Nkuzi Development Association ([|www.nkuzi.org.za]) stated that close to a million farm workers and dwellers were evicted from South African farms in the last 11 years in terms of the provisions of the Extension of Security of Tenure Act (ESTA). These evictions are a result of extreme power imbalances between the most vulnerable within our society and land owners. Farm workers and dwellers are being removed from the land and end up in crowded ‘homelands’ and growing informal settlements. This is a continuation of apartheid-era style land dispossession and clearing of “black spots” leaving behind white-only residential areas.

Jonkershoek farm owners are using ESTA provisions to systematically remove black workers and their families from farm land manifestly illustrating ESTA’s inability to protect and advance the tenure security of farm workers and dwellers. The affected land includes 11 private farms and some state land. The Alliance of Land and Agrarian Reform Movements fully agrees with the Jonkershoek Crisis Committee that these evictions are racist, an attack on the dignity of poor people and a serious setback for women and children. ALARM views these evictions as undermining the very goal of land redistribution. With the current ESTA which facilitates evictions, there is no way that the target of redistributing 30% of agricultural land.

Legal or not, the implications of the Jonkershoek evictions will be far-reaching. It will result in the creation of a lily-white valley of rich land owners, with an army of casual black workers without job or tenure security, commuting in on a daily basis to produce more of this wealth. By marching and resisting these evictions, these communities are calling on government to address their immediate situation and secure their tenure security and livelihoods in the land they currently occupy.

ALARM supports the call by the Jonkershoek Crisis Committee for a political solution to this evictions crisis. We call on all the relevant government decision-makers: President Thabo Mbeki, Premier Ebrahim Rasool, Minister Thoko Didiza, MEC Cobus Dowry, Mayor of the Cape Winelands District Municipality to take urgent action to find the required political solution to meet the demands and needs of the Jonkershoek farm workers and dwellers.

ALARM calls on Minister Thoko Didiza to start expropriation proceedings against all the private farms in the Jonkershoek Valley which are intending to evict the affected farm dwellers and workers. These farms must be handed over to democratic collectives of producers made up of the affected farm dwellers and workers. Such an expropriation will give meaning to the government’s goal of ensuring tenure security for farm workers and redistribution of land. ALARM also calls on the Minister to immediately stop the evictions process in the 2 state-owned farms which are threatening evictions in Jonkershoek.

In addition, ALARM specifically calls on Minister Didiza, to meet the following demands by the end of April 2006:

1. The implementation of a proactive programme to provide long term tenure security to farm dwellers in homes of their own with access to land for their own production as part of integrated local development plans; 2. The acquisition of appropriate land, including expropriation where necessary, for the creation of sustainable settlements for farm dwellers within commercial farming areas –as stated above, Minister Didiza must immediately start expropriation proceedings against all the private farms in the Jonkershoek Valley which are intending to evict the affected farm dwellers and workers; 3. The creation of a dedicated budget line within the DLA budget for the defence of existing tenure rights of farm dwellers and the implementation of the programme to provide long term tenure security; 4. The giving of preference to the interests and tenure rights of farm workers and dwellers when a farm is up for sale; 5. Single tenure legislation which does not facilitate and regulate evictions as ESTA does, but outlaws evictions and legally secures tenure rights of farm dwellers. In addition, this new legislation must create a class of long term non-evictable occupiers, create a direct legal route for farm dwellers to have their tenure security confirmed, and an end to the discrimination against women that positions them as minors whose land rights are dependent on a male household head. 6. Separate protection of labour rights of farm workers from the tenure rights of farm dwellers in order to ensure that the tenure rights of farm workers are not undermined when their employment is over; 7. A moratorium on all evictions from farms, rural and urban areas until there is a single legislation on tenure and the effective enforcement of tenure and labour laws by all government departments involved including the police; 8. Effective enforcement of labour laws for farm workers including far more information dissemination work with farm workers and increased inspections;

All these 8 demands were submitted to the Minister by ALARM, farm workers and dwellers, trade unions and land rights organisations at the National Land and Agrarian Reform Summit held in July last year. Yet, none of the demands have been met. We are extremely disappointed by this failure to address conditions and interests of farm workers and dwellers. We urge the Minister to use the Jonkershoek case as a moment to address this manifest failure.

Today’s march and submission of the above demands is only a start of a much-needed ongoing programme of mass mobilisation against evictions and in support of the key demand for a moratorium on evictions until there is a new law which outlaws evictions.


 * CONTACT:**
 * Mercia Andrews – 083 368 3429 and Mazibuko K. Jara - 083 6510 271**