Topic: South Africa

Broadening the Discourse of “Negotiated Land Reform”: A Comparison Between Land Reform Projects in South Africa and Brazil
Isabella Kenfield, ICARRD
February 13, 2006 - Mainstream agrarian reform policymakers construct discourse of “negotiated land reform” to describe market-led agrarian reform (MLAR). This discourse constrains the terms of negotiation over land reform to a purely market-oriented lexicon. MLAR proponents believe the purpose of land reform is to boost agricultural efficiency in order to promote economic equity. Through MLAR’s adherence to the willing-seller, willing-buyer principle, the terms of negotiation over the mechanism for land reform are limited to private land transactions. MLAR’s reference point of the market for its definition of “negotiation” relegates the tactics practiced by rural social movements such as the Landless Workers Movement of Brazil (MST), in particular the occupation of unproductive land, as non-negotiated land reform. This paper will critique MLAR’s discourse of “negotiation” to highlight its limitations, and argues that the MST is creating and participating in a genuine negotiated agrarian reform. Through a comparison of research and experiences from agrarian reform projects in South Africa and Brazil, this paper will describe the negative impacts of MLAR’s limited scope of negotiation, and will highlight how the MST’s broadening of the terms of negotiation of agrarian reform, in relation to both purpose and mechanism, is resulting in successful land reform. This paper calls for an expanded margin of discourse of land reform negotiation in order to create successful agrarian reform policies, and social and economic justice for the rural poor.

Dragging SA’s Land Debate from the Neoliberal Quicksand
Patrick Bond, ZNet
September 05, 2005 - There are a great many surface-level political processes now unfolding in South Africa, reflecting underlying contradictions that are irreconcilable.

LPM 4 TO TESTIFY IN TRIAL OF ACCUSED TORTURE COP - 23 August, 2005
The Landless People's Movement Gauteng
August 23, 2005 - The trial of the SA Police Crime Intelligence Unit head accused of spearheading the midnight interrogation, assault, torture and attempted abduction of four LPM Gauteng activists detained on election day last year is expected to begin in earnest tomorrow in the Protea Magistrate's Court, Soweto.

Democracy and its Simulacra
Raj Patel, Centre for Civil Society
December 20, 2004 - Drawing on the experiences of peasant struggles and landless movements from three continents, Mr.Patel provides a sophisticated analysis of the democratization of an "agrarian revolution" emerging around the world. The author makes the case that democracy from below is the central vehicle in the struggle against World Bank rural development policy. In the words and actions of landless movement representatives and peasant organizations, who participated in the World Forum on Agrarian Reform this past December, he finds evidence that "democracy is powerful stuff".

Post-apartheid Development, Landlessness and the Reproduction of Exclusion in South Africa
Stephen Greenberg, Center for Civil Society
July 10, 2004 - In this 43 page report on development and landlessness in post-apartheid South Africa, Greenberg explores the emergence of the Landless People's Movment (LPM) in response to the market assisted land reform emphasis of the World Bank and the South African state. Greenberg writes, "the LPM is perhaps unique amongst the independent grassroot movements in that its active membership is found in both urban and rural parts of the country." The report explores the ways that both historical and structural contradictions have shaped the response of grassroots movements in the struggle over the scope and direction of South African development . . . . .Read More

Stop the Torture and End Detainment of LPM Activists
Sofia Monsalve Suárez, FIAN Internacional
May 07, 2004 - 62 members of the South African LPM have been arrested, harassed and even tortured on the past election day of 14 April. With the LPM's approval we have started a campaign letter to the President of South Africa demanding the immediate stop of repression and the implementation of a land and agrarian reform programme. . . .Take Action Now

LPM Activists Tortured and Detained
Anti-Privitisation Forum
April 29, 2004 - Anti-Privitisation Forum (APF) is Outraged at Reports of Physical and Psychological Abuse of Imprisoned LPM Members by the Police Crime Intelligence Unit. We demand the release, and drop of all charge against, the 62 Landless People's Movement (LPM) members arrested on election day. Millions of poor and landless South Africans continue to be denied real democracy, which can only be enjoyed on the basis of socio-economic equality and justice! . . . . . Take Action

LPM Members Arrested on Election Day
Landless People's Movement (LPM)
April 17, 2004 - Fifty-seven members of the Gauteng Landless People's Movement (LPM) have been arrested in Thembelihle, south of Johannesburg, for wanting to hold a peaceful protest as part of the national LPM's No Land, No Vote campaign. The LPM condemns the arrest of its core leadership and its other members under spurious charges and a violation of their fundamental civil and political rights.

LPM Condemns the Detention of APF Activists
Landless People's Movement
March 30, 2004 - The Landless People's Movement (LPM) is a grassroots organization that seeks access to land and resources for landless South Africans. The LPM also works to actively resist World Bank land privatization schemes. This press release condemns the violent arrest and apartheid-like detention of 52 Anti-Privatization Forum (APF) activists.

TAKE ACTION-Landless Youth Activists face Life Sentences Without Proper Defense
Landless People's Movement
January 31, 2004 - The Landless People's Movement (LPM)-An independent national movement of poor and landless people struggling for land reform - requests all social movement and civil society activists with regular incomes to assist us to ensure that seven of our strongest youth comrades will be able to pay for a decent legal defence in the upcoming Johannesburg High Court murder case against the LPM "Protea 7".

The Politics of Land Reform in Southern Africa
Edward Lehoff, Institute of Development Studies
January 27, 2004 - Across Southern Africa the legacy of settler colonialism lives on in a dualistic agricultural system that has been perpetuated first by deliberate state policies and, more recently, by the forces of free market capitalism. Small-scale farming, which provides a precarious living to million of poor rural households, remains severely neglected by policy makers in the region. Recent seizures of commercial farms and other land in Zimbabwe and increasing militancy among land activists in the region, suggests that a radical demand for land remains strong among much of the rural population. This paper explores the dynamics of land reform and land policy in Southern Africa with special consideration of the radical struggles for access to land and resources.

Monitoring Paper Part I: Land Occupation in South Africa
Mfaniseni Fana Sihlongonyane, National Land Committee (NLC)
November 20, 2003 - This paper discusses the state of land occupation, its social origins, composition and dynamics in South Africa. The focus is on the social, political and geographical issues that have influenced land occupation during the 2Oth Century while paying special attention to patterns of gender, political alliance and NGO linkage. Finally, the authors consider the varying impact of economic class and the material conditions that landless South Africans continue to face in the continuing struggle for land.

Monitoring Paper Part II- Land Occupation in South Africa
Mfaniseni Fana Sihlongonyane, National Land Committee (NLC)
November 20, 2003 - Part II of this paper concludes with a final evaluation of South African social, political and challenges of geography that have influenced land occupation over the decades. In closing, the author identifies key issues and lessons for the future.

Agrarian Change , Gender and Land Reform: A South African Case Study
Cherryl Walker, UNRISD
November 05, 2003 - A paper exploring the history of land reform in South Africa since its democratic transition in 1993/94 up until 2000. The report explores how parallel movements towards land reform and women's rights failed to create opportunities for realizing gender equity in the rural sector.

TAKE ACTION-South African Organizer Kubheka Harassed by Land Owner
The Landless People's Movement
October 09, 2003 - A call for public action to exonerate LPM National Organizer and land activist, Mangaliso Kubheka, from false charges made by a white farmer in South Africa

Crisis in South Africa Land Reform Movement
Landless People's Movement
July 18, 2003 - The Landless People's Movement (LPM) rejects and condemns the decision of the National Land Committees(NLC) Board to dismiss NLC Director Zakes Hlatshwayo, and demands that the Board immediately withdraws this decision and restores Hlatshwayo to his rightful place as the head of the NGO network that has previously supported our movement.

Stop Forced Removals & Evictions! Stop Privatisation!
People's Rights Campaign
March 26, 2003 - More than seven million poor and landless urban people living on the edges South African cities in informal settlements are threatened by apartheid-style forced removals carried out at gunpoint by private security companies on instructions from the elected government.

Benoni Ruling a Victory for South Africa's 26-million Landless People
Landless People's Movement
February 25, 2003 - The court's decision to refuse the State the right to appeal against an earlier ruling which said the State is responsible for providing 40,000 landless people with alternative land and housing confirms the LPM's position that it is primarily the duty of the State to ensure that the poor and landless gain access to land, housing and other basic needs.

Backgrounder-Land and Agrarian Reform in South Africa
Wellington D. Thwala, National Land Committee
January 21, 2003 - In South Africa, land is presently not only one of the most defining political and development issues, but also perhaps the most intractable. The continuing racial maldistribution of land will either be resolved through a fundamental restructuring of the government's land reform programme, or it will be resolved by a fundamental restructuring of property relations by the people themselves. Which direction the country follows depends to a large degree on the urgent and immediate responsiveness of the government to the needs and demands of the country's 19-million mostly poor, black and landless rural people.