South Africa’s legislature has passed a motion allowing the seizure of land from White South Africans without any compensation.
The Daily Mail reports that a 2017 audit found 72 percent of farmland is owned by minority White people, down only slightly from 83 percent during Apartheid. With an majority of 241 votes to 83 votes, the South African Parliament voted to amend a legislative bill that allows the dispossession of land from White people without any compensation.
The redistribution of land in South Africa has brought a lot of tension between South Africans with some believing that the motion is a violation of the agreements made at the end of Apartheid and others saying that they’re taking what what was forcefully stripped from their hands decades ago during Apartheid.
A similar situation occurred in the neighbouring country Zimbabwe, who also had a land redistribution in 1980. Although some redistributing of land occured, the action also brought violence and lots of land being neglected.
South Africa’s new president, Cyril Ramaphosa, factored into this policy, encouraging Black South Africans to reclaim land that was stolen from them generations ago.
The land claim filed in 1996 was finalized in 2007 but no effective action has been taken until recently.
No specific date had been made to when the land repossessing will happen but recently elected president Ramaphosa has promised to speed the process after his inauguration two weeks ago.
