2005-12-01,+SACP+statement+on+DA+approach+to+land+reform


 * Wednesday, 30 November 2005**

= SACP Statement on the DA’s approach to land and agrarian reform =

The SACP is not surprised at the statement issued by the Democratic Alliance on its land policy on Tuesday 29 November 2005. This statement reveals the extent to which the DA is hopelessly out of touch with the realities facing the overwhelming majority of our people. Attempts by the DA to protect the ‘willing buyer, willing seller’ principle as a basis for land reform is further indication of the extent to which this party remains the best defender of the economic interests of some of the most backward and racist sectors of this class.

In the SACP’s campaign for acceleration of land and agrarian transformation, our people living on farms have told us many disturbing stories about the collusion between the DA structures and some of the most reactionary elements within the white farming communities of our country. Our people have told us the extent to which the DA has been silent on the many violent abuses of black farmworkers in many white-owned farms. The DA has never raised its voice about the unabated continuation of the brutal and inhumane evictions of black farmworkers. The latest estimations on farm evictions is that since 1994 about a million mainly black farmworkers have been evicted from farms.

Whilst claiming to be the champion of the ‘rule of law’, the DA has been silent on failure by the justice system to prosecute perpetrators of violence against many black farmworkers. In a number of instances, like in Utrecht in KwaZulu-Natal actively DA structures have been actively colluding with attempts to avoid the prosecution of perpetrators of violent acts against black farmworkers. The DA has been silent on the many light sentences given to some of the worst white perpetrators of violence against black people on farm. We are yet to hear the DA clearly on the throwing of Nelson Chisale into a lion’s den near Hoedspruit. All this goes to show that the DA is an organization bent on defending the historical injustice of land dispossession in our country.

The DA remains behind times, like all political dinosaurs. The National Land Summit held in July 2005, representing all the key stakeholders in land and agrarian spheres, especially organizations representing the overwhelming majority of the landless, rejected the ‘willing seller, willing buyer’ principle, and asked government to come up with an alternative approach. The SACP strongly supports this view, because market based reform has failed dismally in our country, and we are going to do all we can to mobilise our people for an alternative land and agrarian reform strategy, which must include expropriation and other methods to accelerate transformation on this front.

We reject with the contempt it deserves the DA’s assertion that land expropriation will destabilise the agricultural sector. This is one of the most important tools to redress past imbalances and build an agricultural sector and land regime that will benefit the landless poor, as part of fighting poverty.

We call upon government to ignore the calls by this political dinosaur and apartheid relic, and instead move with speed in implementing the resolutions of the National Land Summit. As the SACP we will do all we can to support government’s efforts to drive a new land and agrarian programme based on the resolutions of the National Land Summit.

Issued by: SACP

CONTACT: Kaizer Mohau Media Liaison Officer South African Communist Party (SACP) Tel: 011 339 3621/2 Fax: 011 339 4244/6880 Mobile: 076 573 7764 Email: Kaizer@sacp.org.za Website: www.sacp.org.za