Social Justice E-Zine #27 S.Africa,Algeria id WAA21100; Sun, 19 Oct 1997 22:39:56 -0400 Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit source goforth@igc.org Fri Oct 17 03:34:03 1997 SOCIAL JUSTICE #27 October 17, 1997 Ray Goforth Kim Goforth **************************************************************** **************************************************************** IN THIS ISSUE: WHY HAS SOUTH AFRICAN LAND REFORM FAILED? ALGERIA: A CALL FOR ACTION TO END A HUMAN RIGHTS CRISIS. **************************************************************** **************************************************************** Why has South African Land Reform Failed? by Ray Goforth South Africa's apartheid regime was one of the ugliest experiments in human history. It combined racism with 20th century technology to subjugate a 86% of the population to the needs of the white minority. In 1994, the world watched with amazement as the apartheid regime peacefully dissolved, avoiding the final climactic bloodbath that had been anticipated for decades. The democratically elected South African government (led by the African National Congress) committed itself to undertake broad and sweeping efforts to reverse the deprivations institutionalized by apartheid. These efforts were outlined in the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP). The RDP is a policy framework developed through extensive consultation between the African National Congress, its tri-partite alliance partners (Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party) and other mass organizations in the broader civil society. Three years after the promulgation of the Reconstruction and Development Programme, it implementation has been both a spectacular success and an abysmal failure. The successes of the RDP can be measured in several accomplishments that concretely improve the health and well-being of South Africa's poorest citizens. Free healthcare has been instituted for women and children; a nutrition program now reaches over 12,000 schools; over 550 new health clinics have been built and nearly 2500 have been or are in the process of being upgraded. More than 1.3 million new electrical connections have been made and the one-millionth water connection was completed in early 1997. Taken together, these are staggering accomplishments for a nation that teeters with one foot in the developing world and one foot in the developed. In sharp contrast to the RDP success stories stands the nation's experiment with land reform. The RDP's land reform goals had three broad thrusts. The first was the strengthening of tenure rights for the rural poor. Second, land restitution was to be made to those who could prove that their or their family's land had been stolen under apartheid. And third, the nation was to redistribute 30% of agricultural land to the rural poor. All three goals were to be achieved before the year 2000. To date, South Africa is not on its way to achieving any of these goals. After two years of parliamentary wrangling, new laws were passed to protect the tenure rights of the rural poor but the government is finding them almost impossible to enforce. White farmers who fear the increased legal rights being given to those who they once dominated with impunity have turned to violence and intimidation. Tens of thousands of labor tenants (basically sharecroppers) have found themselves illegally evicted. When they turn to the government for help they often find a bureaucrat who was appointed during the apartheid regime. Many of these apartheid bureaucrats were allowed to keep their jobs so the new government wouldn't lose the intellectual capital of their administrative expertise. That decision now haunts the rural poor who find that the face who is supposed to protect their tenure rights from unscrupulous white farmers is the same face who denied their very humanity under apartheid. The land restitution program has bogged down under the sheer weight of the task it is charged with. Beginning with the 1913 Natives Land Act, non-white South Africans were subjected to periodic waves of land confiscations. By the time of the democratic transition in 1994, approximately 60,000 white farmers owned over 80% of agricultural land while 11 million non-whites lived in rural poverty. The Department of Land Affairs estimates that over 3.5 million people and their descendants were victims of racially-based land dispossession and forced removal during the apartheid era. Currently the Commission on Restitution of Land Rights estimates it could take up to 15 years to complete the adjudication of the 13,000 pending land claims affecting more than one million people. The final component of the RDP's land reform program is land redistribution. The RDP targeted 30% of land for redistribution to the rural poor before the year 2000. As of June 1997, less than 2% has changed hands. Although the RDP calls for land expropriation "where appropriate," only .29% of land has been transferred to the poor though this mechanism. Instead, the government has relied upon a "willing-buyer/willing-seller" mechanism for land redistribution. The Settlement/Land Acquisition Grant is the primary instrument that the government relied upon to facilitate the land transfer visualized in the RDP. The grant program provides a 20% subsidy for the purchase of land by the poor. This program has failed to effectuate its design because the rural poor have found it quite difficult to come-up with the other 80% of the purchase price and even more difficult to find a willing seller of prime agricultural land. If the white farmers were content to own the farms while the non- white landless were forced by economic depravation to work for them under the apartheid system, why would they wish to change that relationship after the dismantling of apartheid? Indeed, very few have. The willing-buyer/willing-seller approach to land reform is dependent upon the willingness of white farmers to divest themselves of their land. However, for the most part today's white farmers are the children and grandchildren of the white farmers who actively supported the apartheid policies that drove non-whites off of their land. Such forced removals benefitted these white farmers by opening-up land for them to farm and providing an agricultural labor pool composed of the now landless non-whites. Given the dismal results from the willing-buyer/willing-seller approach to land reform, it is clear that adhering to this approach is unrealistic if the goals of the RDP are to be achieved. As a broad policy framework, the RDP provides a wide channel through which the African National Congress can steer the ship of state. However, so far the government's land reform efforts have steered well to the right. The RDP explicitly acknowledges that reliance upon market forces will not remedy the unjust wealth distribution created by apartheid and the government should amend its land reform program to acknowledge this reality. Tepid market interventions such as providing 20% subsidies on land acquisition are wholly inadequate to alter the maldistribution of agricultural capacity that is the result of apartheid. Even if there is a willing-seller, the government may find that its subsidies simply contribute to land price inflation leading to further enrichment of the current property holders and providing little net benefit to the landless millions. The current stage of social transformation in South Africa is ideal for land expropriation and redistribution. The populace is eager for substantial change. If the government delays this fundamental prerequisite to a successful land reform program, they may miss their chance to institute such a program with the minimum of negative consequences. Domestic and foreign investors are made nervous by instability. However, everyone expects that fundamental economic restructuring will be necessary to fully dismantle apartheid. The time for such fundamental change is now. Five to ten years in the future, land expropriation will not be perceived by the international community as the correct and just remedy for apartheid land policies. Instead, delayed land expropriation will be perceived as destabilizing and threatening to international investment. There are currently 500,000 subsistence farmers and an additional 11 million rural poor who are the potential beneficiaries of a successful land reform program. A successful transfer of agricultural land to those who actually till the soil would ease unemployment, crime and overcrowding in the cities (by stemming the immigration of rural jobless) and provide the foundation for just and equitable development in the countryside. The government gave voluntary land redistribution a good faith try and it is now time for a comprehensive expropriation program. **************************************************************** ALGERIA: A CALL FOR ACTION TO END A HUMAN RIGHTS CRISIS Amnesty International, the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH), Human Rights Watch and Reporters sans frontie[\]res join together to appeal to the international community to act now to address the deteriorating human rights situation in Algeria, and are calling on members of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights to convene a Special Session on the human rights situation in Algeria. As the UN body with primary responsibility for the promotion and protection of human rights, we look to the Commission on Human Rights to provide leadership in seeking solutions to this human rights tragedy. The last year has seen the longest, most intense spell of violence since the beginning of the conflict in Algeria five years ago. Violence which has taken a new and terrifying turn with the massacre of civilians. Thousands of people -- women and children, the poor and elderly --have been massacred with unspeakable brutality. Some of those lucky enough to have escaped having their throats cut or being burned alive in their homes have reached nearby security forces posts and called for help. In vain. Their cries have not been heard in their country, or beyond their national borders. Up to 80,000 people have been killed behind a virtual wall of silence on the part of the international community. Recent statements of the UN Secretary-General, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, UNICEF and the UNHCR condemning the massacres of civilians and other human rights abuses in Algeria go some way towards breaking through the barriers of silence surrounding the crisis. But words are not enough. The international community has for too long turned a blind eye to the plight of the victims in Algeria, despite the warnings sounded by human rights organizations. The UN Commission on Human Rights has so far not scrutinized the situation. It is time to take concrete action to end this spiral of violence and to ensure the protection of the civilian population. The need to investigate and reveal the truth is the first step to finding solutions to this human rights tragedy. For this reason, we are calling for the establishment of an international investigation to ascertain the facts, examine allegations of responsibility and to make recommendations in respect of the massacres and other abuses by all sides in Algeria. Such an investigation has to be provided with broad powers, adequate staff and resources. It should collect evidence, statements, including testimony from victims, witnesses and responsible officials, to discover the truth. Since the outbreak of the current conflict in 1992, extrajudicial executions, deliberate and arbitrary killings, torture, rape, "disappearances" and hostage-taking have become routine. The large-scale massacres of civilians over the past year have taken place against a background of increasingly widespread human rights abuses by security forces, state-armed militias and armed Islamist groups, which have increasingly targeted and terrorized civilians. Disregard for human rights has become the rule rather than the exception. This is despite the fact that Algeria has ratified important international and regional human rights treaties, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights. Time after time, the Algerian Government has simply failed to investigate these abuses by its own forces and by armed opposition groups, and to bring those responsible to justice. This failure has exacerbated the breakdown of law and order and left civilians feeling ever more alone and unprotected. The complex reality of violence and counter-violence has become increasingly confused with the clampdown on information and investigations. Information defined by the authorities as "security-related" is censored and manipulated. International human rights organizations and foreign media have often been refused entry to the country. Human rights workers and journalists who have been let into the country have been subject to surveillance and restrictions. Those who have continued to work in the country have faced death threats and killings. All of these actions have contributed to building a wall of silence around the human rights crisis in Algeria We echo the call of the Secretary General of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) for enhanced cooperation and coordination between the UN and African institutions, and urge Member States of the OAU to support an initiative of this kind. In the context of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership Agreement with Algeria, which contains provisions for the respect of human rights, we urge Member States of the European Union to work for the special session of the Commission on Human Rights and the investigation to become a reality. In the Vienna Declaration and Program of Action of 1993, UN Member States reaffirmed that the promotion and protection of all human rights is a legitimate concern of the international community. We call on them now to honour their pledge. The Algerian Government routinely accuses anyone criticizing their human rights record of deliberately lying, interfering in Algeria's internal affairs, and political bias. Human rights protection is not just an internal affair or an issue of national sovereignty. Algeria is not above international scrutiny. At a time when its citizens are being slaughtered en masse week after week, the government of Algeria should welcome -- not oppose -- international attention aimed at helping to protect lives. Amnesty International #1 Easton Street London, WC1X 8DJ United Kingdom http://www.amnesty.org **************************************************************** For those who have inquired: We (Kim and Ray Goforth) spent several years doing progressive political organizing work in southern California. We moved to Seattle, Washington, USA in 1988 where we took positions with different social service agencies. In 1995, we both completed undergraduate degrees in political-economy at The Evergreen State College. We are currently law students at the University of Washington. Kim's area of interest is women's and children's advocacy. Ray's is sustainable development and human rights. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytaf-10.19.97-22:39:57-444