Racism & xenophobia

Landlessness=Racism Campaign

2001-09-03, Issue 33

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/racism/2545

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The National Land Committee (NLC), a network of land rights NGOs in South Africa, is embarking on campaign entitled "Landlessness=Racism" to coincide with the UN World Conference Against Racism (WCAR) and the preceding NGO Forum to be held in Durban, South Africa, August 27-September 7 2001. The purpose of the campaign is to highlight the plight of landlessness in South Africa, and elsewhere, and its continued link to racism. For more information on the campaign, and how you can get involved, contact Andile Mngxitama, NLC Land Rights Coordinator.

To all international Allies and Partners

LANDLESSNESS = RACISM CAMPAIGN 29 AUGUST TO 1 SEPTEMBER 2001

The National Land Committee (NLC) is participating alongside the newly-formed South African Landless People’s Movement (LPM) in a major civil society initiative to put the issue of landlessness on the international agenda during the upcoming UN World Conference Against Racism (WCAR) and the preceding NGO Forum to be held in Durban, South Africa from 27 August to 7 September 2001.

The NLC is a network of ten NGOs working in land reform and rural development in all of South Africa’s provinces. The LPM was recently formed in July 2001 and is made up of landless peoples groupings from across the country. The NLC and the LPM share a common agenda- namely to ensure that the historical dispossession of land from the majority of South Africans be addressed through meaningful and thorough-going land and agrarian reform.

The NLC and the LPM, along with the South African NGO Coalition, the Rural Development Services Network and the trust for Community Outreach and Education, are embarking on a ‘LANDLESSNESS = RACISM’ campaign to coincide with the WCAR. The purpose of the campaign is to highlight the plight of landlessness in South Africa, and its link to continued racism. This situation also prevails in many other countries where racism and related discrimination also manifests in the continued landlessness of vulnerable communities. The campaign is being run in solidarity with other international movements, notably the Palestine Solidarity Committee, and the Dalit Solidarity Group from India.

Representatives of landless communities from all over South Africa will be converging in Durban by 29 August. They will be accompanied from all of the provinces by the NLC’s affiliates.

On 30 August, a Landless People’s Assembly will be held where communities and individuals will provide moving testimony on how they continue to suffer gross racist discrimination on account of their landlessness. Representatives of international movements will also highlight their struggles, demonstrating to their South African comrades and the world that the issue of landlessness is unresolved and that superficial attempts to address racism are bound to fail unless the root cause-landlessness caused by colonial and imperial conquest- is addressed.

On 31 August, a march will be held in the streets of Durban, and a memorandum delivered to South African President Thabo Mbeki. This memorandum will include all the correspondence from landless communities to himself, government ministers and officials requesting a resolution of the land issue. It is hoped that this will remind him -and the world- that seven years into our democracy landlessness and racism remain a pervasive reality in South Africa.

We thus call on our international partners to support this initiative. You can do so in several ways:

· If you or your organisation is going to be in Durban, join us at the Landless Peoples Encampment and listen to testimonies from landless communities;

· Share your stories and experiences with the Landless Peoples’ Assembly;

· Join the March of the Landless on 31 August;

· Send us details of your own land struggles for inclusion into the Landlessness=Racism information packs;

· Inform your local media about this campaign, or send us their details and we will contact them;

· Send messages of solidarity and support to the campaign to enquiries@nlc.co.za or fax us at +27- 11- 339 6315.

Any assistance that you or your organisation could give to make this campaign, to ensure that the profile of land struggles in South Africa and around the world is boosted, would be greatly appreciated.

SEE YOU IN DURBAN!! Siyaya!

Yours in struggle,



(Zakes Hlatshwayo)
Director, National Land Committee






















The National Land Committee comprises: Association for Rural Advancement (AFRA) in Kwazulu-Natal; Association for Community and Rural Advancement(ANCRA)
-Kurumanin Northern Cape Province; Border Rural Committee(BRC) Eastern Cape; Eastern Cape Land Committee (ECLC); Nkuzi Development Association in Pietersburg
and Elim, Northern Province; Southern Cape Land Committee (SCLC)in Western Cape Province; Surplus People Project (SPP) in Western and Northern Cape; and The Rural Action Committee (TRAC) in Mpumalanga Eastern Province and North-West Province.

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