SPEECH BY THE MINISTER OF LAND AFFAIRS DEREK HANEKOM MP COMMUNITY BRIEFING SESSION NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON LAND POLICY 31 AUGUST 1995 ----------------------------------- It is a great pleasure for me to welcome you to this community briefing.
The purpose of this briefing to help community representatives to prepare for the National Conference on Land Policy which will start later today. This is therefore a very important meeting, for two reasons:
1. One of the main purposes of the conference is to discuss how land reform can be planned and implemented to help people who need land. You represent and speak for the people who need land. Your advice is therefore of the greatest importance.
2. The Government can not carry out land reform on its own. Community organisations are vital to land reform. Without you, real land reform is not possible. We see community organisations as vital partners in the process of land reform. I will say something more about that later.
Let me start by explaining the purpose of this conference.
We have now done a lot of work to formulate a new land policy for the country. The document which you have is a summary of the proposals which have come out of very thorough research and consultation. This conference will enable all of the organisations which have an interest in land reform to give us their views on this document.
After the conference, we will go back and prepare a revised policy, bearing in mind what we have heard at this conference. After further opportunities for comment and consultation, we will prepare a White Paper which will contain our final policy proposals. We will ask Parliament to approve the White Paper early next year.
This conference is therefore not a policy-making meeting. The purpose of the meeting is to present our current thoughts, and to ask for your advice and response. It is therefore a meeting at which I will be listening rather than speaking. It is a consultative conference.
The background to this meeting
It is now just over a year since we achieved political liberation in our country. We are now busy rebuilding our country after a long nightmare of conquest and apartheid. We now have to bring justice to our people. That task has to be shared by all of us.
We have already taken the first steps. The first steps have included creating new laws and institutions for land reform. For example:
1. The Restitution of Land Rights Act has been passed. The Restitution Commission has been established. The judges of the Land Claims Court have been appointed. Some communities have already returned to their land. The restitution process is finally getting moving.
2. We have proposed laws to give people secure rights to the land on which they live. Two Bills have been approved by Cabinet, and will be placed before Parliament.
(a) The Interim Protection of Informal Land Rights Bill will protect the millions of people who do not have secure rights to the land on which they live. Very often, people have been living on the land for a long time, but do not have proper legal recognition of their rights. They are very vulnerable. The Bill will protect them while-we are investigating long-term reform of land tenure systems. It will no longer be possible for anyone else to sell the land on which they are living without their consent, or to push them off the land for development, or to give the land to someone else.
(b) The aim of the Communal Property Associations Bill is to make it possible for people to own land communally, in a way which gives everyone fair access to the land. It will be illegal to discriminate against women. All members of the community will have a secure right to their land. And the committee which manages the land for the community will be accountable to all members of the community.
Those two Bills have already been approved by the Cabinet. They will now go to Parliament
3. The Cabinet has also approved the Land Reform (Labour Tenants) Bill. The aim of this Bill is to protect labour tenants against unfair eviction. It will also give labour tenants the right to become the owners of the land on which they are living, and the land which they are farming. The government will give subsidies to labour tenants to help them to buy the land. The Bill will end the unfair eviction of labour tenants from land which they have been using for generations.
We have also started pilot projects in all of the nine provinces. The pilot projects are doing practical land reform in those areas. They will give people in those areas access to the land. At the same time we will be able to learn from their experience, for future land reform activities.
Land reform is not limited to the restitution, the pilot projects or the new laws. In many parts of the country, people are claiming land. We are responding to those claims.
We are already learning important lessons from these actions. One of the most important lessons is the need for community organisation. Community organisation is essential for the community to express its need for land. The communities have to decide how they will manage the land: for example they must decide who should have the right to use the community's land, how the community should make decisions about the land, how the land will be allocated, and so on. Democracy is not an event which happens once every five years when people vote in elections. It has to become part of our way of life.
You are therefore one of the most important parts of land reform. We have to build up and transform the Department of Land Affairs so that it can help the communities who need land. We also have to help communities to organise themselves. The non-governmental organisations which help community organisations are very important in this. We will continue to encourage foreign donors to support non-governmental organisations. That is one of the best ways to promote land reform.
The political victory of democracy was the result of the joint efforts of millions of people. I salute every one of you for the part you played in resistance to apartheid, and in defeating racism. The brave resistance of so many people to forced removals was a very important part of the resistance to apartheid. Through this resistance, our people showed that they would never accept the evils of apartheid.
Now we have to transform this political victory into change on the ground. This too is going to be a long struggle. There are no quick and easy solutions. And just like the struggle against apartheid, it will need all of us to work together.
One of the themes of our new country is reconciliation. Our President has led the way. We have to build together. The government has made it clear that it is firmly committed to reconciliation. The government has also made it clear that justice is the only lasting basis for reconciliation. There can be no reconciliation without justice. There can never be real reconciliation as long as millions of our people remain without land, without water, without school without health. That is what reconstruction and development are about.
I do not want to talk now about the details of new land policy, I will say something about that when I open the Conference this afternoon. And I want to listen to what you have to say. But at this meeting I do want to say something about an issue which is very important to many community representatives. That is the limits on the restitution process.
Many people say that the restitution process is very limited. They say that most of the people who need land fall outside the restitution process. The reason for this is that restitution covers only people who lost their land after 1913, as a result of racially discriminatory laws. Many people lost land before 1913. And many people lost land through processes other than apartheid laws. Now they need land. And the restitution process will not help them.
All of this is true. The question is, what is the solution to this problem.
Some people say that the answer is to remove the limits on restitution. They say we mustd make restitution available to everyone who has lost land. There are many problems with this solution. I believe it will create more problems than it solves. Let me explain why I say that.
If we create unlimited restitution these are the problems we will create:
1. If everyone whose people ever lost land is able to claim it, there will be many cases where different people claim the same land. The people who were living there two hundred years ago will say they must have it. The people who conquered them will say that they must have it. And the people who lost it through apartheid forced removal will say that they must have it. If all of these people have the right to claim the same land, who should get the land? How will anyone decide who should get it? We will create conflict between different groups who need land, all of them saying that they have the right to claim the same land. it will lead to conflict amongst our people, and not to solutions.
2. The claims after 1913 are by people who make a simple claim: they say I, or my parents or grandparents lived on that piece of land. It was taken by forced removal. We want it back. In most of the earlier claims, people say my ethnic group lived in this area a long time ago. Now we want it back. But the members of that group are now spread all over the country. People will therefore be saying that they claim land because they are Xhosa, or Zulu, or South Sotho. In other words, there will be ethnic mobilisation to get land. People will organise and claim land on ethnic grounds. I am sure none of us would like to see this. It will divide our nation, and lead to conflict.
3. In restitution, the judges decide who should get what land. That is correct for restitution, but it is completely incorrect for general redistribution of land. Decisions on redistribution must be made on policy grounds by people who are politically accountable, and not by judges.
4. The land claims process is complicated, because it involves conflicting claims to the same land. That is why there is commission to investigate claim. Evidence has to be collected, and the case has to be taken to court. We don't need to go through those processes for broad redistribution actions. Redistribution can be much simpler, and much quicker.
5. If we try tod everything through restitution, the restitution process will collapse because of the huge number of claims. Then it will be able to assist anyone effectively.
We have always said that we must have restitution and redistribution. Restitution is for people who were the victims of forced removal from particular land. Redistribution is for everyone who needs land. The two must go hand-in-hand. It must be easy for people to see how that can claim land through redistribution. And redistribution process is quick and effective.
At this conference we will talk a lot about redistribution. We have some ideas about how to do it. We think that people who need land should be able to get a grant or a subsidy from the government. They will be able to use this money to get land. In other words, the people will be able to choose the land which they want, and to choose whether they want to buy the land individually, or as a community. The government will help to make the land available.
At this conference we want to discuss what is the best way to do this. For example how big should grant or subsidy be? Who should be the first people to get the grant or subsidy? We think it should be who have been denied access to land - especially the landless poor and women. How should the grant or subsidy be connected to the housing subsidy? We have to make sure that the money which is available from government is shared fairly among as many people as possible. These are all questions we will discuss at this conference.
We also need to talk about how to do this. What must the government do to make it possible to people to get land quickly? How can we help communities to organise themselves?
Conclusion
It took more than three hundred years to build apartheid. We should not expect that we can destroy what apartheid created, and build a just society, in a week or a month or a year. In that sense, it is necessary that we have some patience as we try to so things in a way which will provide lasting solutions - not quick and easy solutions which fall. We do not want land reform which leaves people in a worse situation. I appreciate the willingness which you have shown to give us a chance to put structures in place and get things moving. But all of us must almise you that I am as impatient as you are. Our people do not want to wait forever for land and justice. The need is now.
These are very exciting times. We are moving from resistance to transformation. We have the chance to change our country. The government is committed to doing this. But we can not do it by ourselves. How much we are able to achieve will depend partly on you. The government is ready and willing to do its share. We need you to help us, I know that you will do so. Together we will put an end to the poverty, landlessness and misery created by apartheid. Together we will build justice in our country.