Zuma echoes words of Plaatje: our land was stolen

PRESIDENT Jacob Zuma has attributed the current source of South Africa’s problems of poverty, inequality and unemployment to “stolen land”.

This was perhaps one of the strongest statements to come from the president on the land question ahead of the ANC statement he is set to deliver today.

Zuma quoted the ANC’s first secretary Sol Plaatje to em- phasise the nature of the dispossession of land from blacks, saying that: “When we slept we had land and when we woke up we had nothing, we were worse than slaves.”

The president was addressing traditional leaders at the cutting of the ANC birthday cake at the Rustenburg civic centre yesterday.

He said that Plaatje’s statement had not been analysed sufficiently.

“My problem is the source of poverty, inequality, unem- ployment is land, which was taken, not bought, stolen but the government of the people has to buy it back as if it was sold,” he said.

“It was never sold, it was taken, stolen…

“You need instruments to solve that problem of poverty. We are just scratching the surface with that issue.”

Zuma said the ANC’s policies were about changing the quality of life of people. But he said not enough has been done to unpack that to the people as to what is meant by this in simple language and not in philosophical speak.

“What do we mean when we talk about changing the quality of life? So that people understand what we mean when we talk about changing the quality of their lives,” he said,

Land distribution remains one of the core issues that the ruling party has struggled with since coming to power in 1994.

The type of language used by Zuma yesterday to describe black people being dispos- sessed of their land has in recent times actually come from opposition parties and the leftleaning formation in the tripartite alliance.

Along with challenges facing the economy and the local government elections, Zuma is expected to touch on the government’s progress in redistributing land as frustration continues to grow within and outside the ANC about the failure of the governing party’s “willing-seller-willing-buyer” policy on land.