Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
'scheduled' areas which where later designated 'homelands'. Three sets of legislations
provided the legal backing for the actions, namely:
• Native Land Act No. 27 of 1913;
•
the Development Trust and Land Act No. 18 of 1936; and
•
the Prevention of Illegal Squatting Act No. 52 of 1951.
hese actions went under diferent names as follows: the 'black spot removal , 'removal
of labour tenants , 'removals from mission stations , 'removals for the sake of forestry
requirements , and 'internal removals'. he new Constitution of South Africa that came
into force in 1996 provides in section 25, sub-section 7, that:
'a person or community dispossessed of property after 19 June 1913 as a result of
past racially discriminatory laws or practices is entitled, to the extent provided by
an Act of Parliament, either to restitution of that property or to equitable redress.'
Already foreseen during the process of negotiation for the establishment of a multi-racial
democratic system in the country, this provision arose from the Restitution of Land
Rights Act No. 22 of 1994. To drive the process, a body known as the Commission on the
Restitution of Land Rights was established and vested with the following tasks:
• To promote equity for persons or groups dispossessed by the policies of the past,
especially those who are as a result landless and can be classified as poor, including the
rural poor.
• To facilitate a developmental orientation to the solution of the problem by encouraging
the relevant stakeholders to organize in the framework of viable development initiatives.
• To implement the restitution process in a manner that would promote reconciliation
within the country.
• To contribute towards an equitable redistribution of land rights in the country.
In addition, a Land Claims Court was established to deal with ratifications or adjudication
in respect of claims.
As would be expected, this scheme made a slow initial start. Having gone into operation
in 1995 as in the case of the other components, only 41 claims had been decisively settled
by 1998, three years after. It was obvious that things were not going well. The next general
elections were coming in 1999 and President Nelson Mandela was soon leaving office as
he had pledged. At the same time, the disgruntlement of the NGO sector, including the
'landless' people's groups represented by the Landless People's Movement (LPM), provided
grounds for worry against the backdrop of the developing situation in Zimbabwe where the
land reform programme had clearly gone out of hand.
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