Juju: force whites to give back your land

EFF leader Julius Malema has called on black South Africans to take back their land.

Cape Town – Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema is calling on South Africans to unite and fight for an amendment to the constitution to allow expropriation of land without compensation.

“Dutch gangsters came here and took our land by force. The constitution must be changed,” Malema said yesterday in a debate in parliament.

Earlier this month, President Jacob Zuma sent the Expropriation Bill back to the National Assembly for review after MPs approved it 10 months ago.

Malema added: “We remain a conquered nation… [by] the white supremacy. For as long as land is not returned into the hands of the people… those who are oppressing us have not lost anything.

“There is no white person who will understand that clarion call because they don’t know the pain of being landless.

“People of South Africa: where you see beautiful land, take it because it belongs to you.”

He also urged the ANC to come on board, offering the EFF’s backing with no strings attached in a vote for a constitutional amendment.

“[But] if you vote against this, it will be a waste of time; we are already taking the land,” Malema said.

The ANC didn’t take the offer, arguing that it was unconstitutional and that the process of land restitution was going ahead.

“We totally reject the EFF motion. Expropriation without compensation is unconstitutional,” said ANC MP Phumuzile Ngwenya-Mabila.

Freedom Front Plus MP Pieter Groenewald was also not happy.

“Please stop blaming the white people for everything that goes wrong,’ he said. “It is the incompetencies of the governing party that cannot ensure that there is not enough land or land exprioripation.

“The rightful owners are those… who worked for it, paid for it and they do not apologise for that,” Groenewald said.

The United Democratic Movement backed the EFF. “This is our land … you made us not exist,” said MP Mncedisi Filtane.

President of the African Christian Democratic Party Kenneth Meshoe called for a cautious approach. “It will open the floodgates for land invasion,” he said.

We remain a conquered nation … For as long as land is not returned into the hands of the people those who are oppressing us have not lost anything.

EFF leader