-Caveat Lector- Remember the white farmers who were slaughtered in Zimbawee - and then consider the UN wants to disarm the USA...... Wonder if this band of wanderers will somehow make it to our shores? Wonder how many are afflicted with AIDS - and oh so toilet conscience? Imagine all those people wandering about with no bathroom facilities and wonder from where disease originates. Back in 1839 in Columbus, Ohio - chlorea hit - Indians and settlers used to live side by side peacefully in those days and of course, outdoor facilities no doubt were polluting the water. So the first sewage plant was built. Wonder why Africa is so poor his land of diamonds, rubies, and gold and uranium - where you find gold you always find uranium - why are the people so poor - so now will they kill the last of the white farmers and die as Clinton would say - murder themselves? Will Africa also offer Right of Return - for at lest our Indians are still here, aren't they. Deposed, yes - but after all they too were emmigrants but failed to establish courts of law other than war tribunals to decide land disputes? So as is written in this maudlin story we see the "fruits of black liberation" - did anybody every think of building high rise apartments wth some of that UN money or Aid we shell out - but then as of late our poor get crumbs from Henry's table? 9 million kids go to bed hungry at night in this land of Clinton and Plenty)......... Try to imagine our suburbs without guns? See why some even want to be like Israelis packing Uzis - for how long would there be a state of Israel without their guns - we in the USA wawnt this same right - for our African neighbors seem to be having migration problems? Saba Welcome, saba22 Sign Up for Newsletters | Log Out Go to Advanced Search July 12, 2001 South Africa Confronts Landless Poor, and a Court Sends Them Packing By RACHEL L. SWARNS Joao Silva for The New York Times Two of the illegal land occupiers in Bredell taking apart their shelter. The Pretoria High Court has ruled that the people must vacate the land. East of Johannesburg, in Bredell, Freda Masemola and her son Kagiso are among several thousand occupiers of land who are facing eviction. JOHANNESBURG, July 11 — The invaders came to the wasteland by the hundreds two weeks ago, dragging splintering planks, rusting metal sheets and wilting squares of cardboard. They ignored the power cables humming dangerously overhead and the brackish stream, green and undrinkable, the only source of water on Elandsfontein Farm No. 412. Some hung curtains in their hastily built shacks. Others rolled out rugs on the rocky red soil. Here, in the ragged stretch of land owned by government agencies and a private farmer, the poor believed they were finally tasting the fruits of black liberation. "With all the space here, you can make a toilet," said Mebrone Ndlovu, 17, dusty and desperate as he hacked the tall grass this week, his eyes shining hopefully as he surveyed the sprouting shantytown. "You can make it so everyone has a toilet." [What about obviouis land pollution and disease of property so conaminated - saba note] This week, South Africa won a court order allowing it to forcibly evict the intruders, who were lured here from an overcrowded township by opposition party politicians promising plots of land for only $3. Today, some squatters began pulling down their shacks, while others vowed to fight the police, who plan to level the illegal settlement on Thursday. South Africa, which has anxiously watched land invasions roil neighboring Zimbabwe, is now confronting its own landless citizens at the edge of its biggest city. Demanding their due, the impoverished intruders, encamped just a short drive from the nation's largest airport, have sent alarms sounding across a region still striving to make good on its promises to improve the lot of ordinary blacks. [a lot of ordinary blacks - well they said that, not me.....see Cincinnati, Ohio =- Saba Note] Officials say they have drawn a clear line: the new South Africa will provide land to its poor, but it will not tolerate the kind of illegal farm occupations that have been supported by Zimbabwe's government. Still, the standoff has highlighted a degree of land hunger that had simmered largely unnoticed here. The invasion on the outskirts of Johannesburg is only one of several occupations to wash quietly over South Africa and Namibia, two stable countries haunted by the legacy of colonial land seizures and what many blacks here describe as the unfinished business of liberation. The frustration of the landless reflects the difficulties faced by the two governments in meeting the needs of people desperate for land and housing. Twenty-one years after the first black leader in the region swept to power with promises of returning land to the dispossessed, the black majorities in Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa have control of the ballot box, but not the soil. Legal efforts to redistribute land from the tiny white minority, which have been supported by Western donors, have foundered for lack of resources, bureaucratic delays and mismanagement. And frustration over the slow pace of change has led to farm invasions, which began under white rule and have continued sporadically under the black governments. In January, a Namibian judge ordered the eviction of 500 squatters who had invaded a government- owned farm. In April, a trade union leader warned that Namibia faced the prospect of Zimbabwe-style occupations if more was not done. In South Africa, the most recent invasions have taken place in rural sections of the Northern Cape and Kwa-Zulu Natal in South Africa. Neither country has experienced invasions on the scale of those in Zimbabwe, where more than 1,000 private, white-owned farms were occupied over the past year with the support of the government in an effort to curry favor with rural voters. Namibian and South African officials, on the other hand, have repeatedly made it clear that such occupations are illegal and that invaders will be prosecuted. "It's a low-level, steady process which started long before 1994," Geoffrey Budlender, who ran South Africa's Land Affairs Department until two years ago, said of the farm invasions here. "It's not new at all," said Mr. Budlender, a lawyer who advocates for the rights of the landless. "What is new is the fact that it's actively supported by a political party." The Pan-Africanist Congress, a tiny opposition party with little following, capitalized on this land hunger two weeks ago when it set up booths and began collecting money at the Elandsfontein farm near a suburb known as Bredell. The squatters say they were given land in exchange for their money. The officials say the money, which is now unaccounted for, was meant for legal assistance and water. What is clear is that the Pan-Africanist Congress's offer drew the poor by the hundreds. The takers were the most vulnerable: single mothers, maids, vegetable hawkers and the jobless. The party has been sharply criticized by government officials, academics and editorial page editors for taking advantage of the poor. But the party clearly won the hearts of the people in the sagging shacks on the Elandsfontein farm for dealing with an issue that many felt had been neglected by the governing African National Congress. South Africa's first black president, Nelson Mandela, was elected in part on the promise that his African National Congress government would redistribute 30 percent of the nation's land to blacks. Since then, however, the government has managed to transfer only about 2 percent of the land into black hands. Officials estimate that some 72 percent of the land is still owned by whites. "The truth is this: there is a sentiment out there that the process is slow," Gilingwe Mayende, the director general of the land affairs department in South Africa, acknowledged in a radio interview this week. His department, he said, was already taking action. "We are in fact working to ensure that our systems improve so that the process of delivery can be accelerated," Mr. Mayende said. The department, which has repeatedly failed to spend the money in its budget, has already streamlined the processing of restitution claims for those people who were personally forced off land during white rule. The government now hopes to redistribute some 1,655,000 acres this year. But such news was of little comfort to the squatters at the Elandsfontein Farm this week. The police swept through the settlement, bullhorns blaring and white trucks rolling, as they told the anxious crowds to move out by Thursday. "The court of law ruled," the officer announced. "Those of you who want to stay and see what will happen, it is up to you. Those of you who don't want to fight, go where you were." The crowd grumbled. One man shouted, "Move where?" Others chanted, "We won't go!" Another clutched a foreign visitor's arm and pleaded, "Sister, can you tell me, will I get my $3 back?" Today, Rosina Mashele, 26, tried to envision where she and her two children would go. She watched her neighbors tear down the flimsy walls, the wooden planks, the corrugated metal, and shook her head. "There is no plan," Ms. Mashele said helplessly, keeping her eye on a baby curled in a cardboard box instead of a crib. "The plan was to stay here." One family, after all, had carefully painted the number 462 on the door of a shack. Another had looped a chain and padlock on the flimsy door, to make sure precious belongings stayed safe. But by Thursday, the police said, they will all be gone, the shacks dismantled or demolished, and the people scattered across the city. Andile Mngxitama, an advocate for the landless, said he hoped the government would respond to the demands of the squatters here. The eviction alone, he said, would not prevent future invasions. "The government will win now," said Mr. Mngxitama, the land rights coordinator of the National Land Committee, which supports land reform. " They will have a big removal thing. But it will only postpone the problem because someone somewhere else is desperate." So goodbye Pretoria - at least we got to flee to the suburbs. Saba Home | Back to International | Search | HelpBack to Top List your real estate property on NYTimes.com Post a Job on NYTimes.com Click Here to Receive 50% Off Home Delivery of The New York Times Newspaper. Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company | Privacy Information <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html <A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html";>Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/";>ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
