Remind De Klerk that history never forgets

IS sad and unfortunate to hear a figure like FW de Klerk saying apartheid was not a crime against humanity before the State of the Nation Address.

Those who argue that the past should be buried should look at the present situation to realise the damage the Natives Land Act, which was passed during apartheid, did to this country’s landless majority. It is important to reflect on our sad history to remind and teach a fellow like De Klerk that history never forgets.

The day after the 1913 act was passed, thousands of black families were made landless in the country of their birth. More than a century later, South Africa is still dealing with its effects.

Popular history identifies the act as the critical moment when the country was divided into two incurably unequal zones – a fertile, productive heartland comprising 87% of the land reserved for whites, and a marginal, unproductive periphery, made up of the 13% of land reserved for blacks. Africans were stripped of their land and livestock. That led them to be labourers, unpaid labourers, and in the process they became homeless.

The act instigated a long, painful and devastating history of brutality, forced removal and eviction. The Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development is in the process of reversing the legacy of this act through Restitution of Land Rights Act 22 of 1994.

President Ramaphosa has said his government has released 44 000 hectares of state land for the settlement of land restitution claims and will this year release 700 000ha of state land for agricultural production.

South Africans still have the chance to reverse the legacy of the 1913 Natives Land Act; make your voice heard, as Parliament has extended the deadline (until the end of February) for written submissions on the Draft Amendment Bill relating to land expropriation without compensation.

MPHO M RAMMUTLA | Pretoria