South African Farm Workers Threaten to Seize Whites’ Land
About 20 landless farm workers threatened on Wednesday to seize white-owned land if the agriculture and land affairs minister did not meet with them in coming days.
The men, who are among the 27% of black South African families living on land they neither rent nor own, said they were inspired by the recent illegal takeovers in neighboring Zimbabwe of hundreds of white-owned farms.
“We have to take action like Zimbabwe--we can’t survive to see our family fighting for land to live on,” said Thomas Dladla, one of the protesters from northeastern South Africa’s Mpumalanga Province.
The protesters carried sticks, a traditional shield and posters, one of which read in Zulu, “What is happening in Zimbabwe is going to happen in Mpumalanga.”
The men gathered outside a government building in Pretoria and demanded to see Agriculture and Land Affairs Minister Thoko Msane-Didiza. Her spokesman said she was unable to immediately meet with the protesters because she was in Cape Town. The protesters then demanded that she meet with them by Sunday.
Nearly 40,000 individual and community land claims have been filed with the government.
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