Earlier this month in Bredell, near Kempton Park on the East Rand, South Africa and some say that ‘land grabbing fever’ has hit South Africa, hot on the heels of the Zimbabwean debacle.

The land is owned by government, Transnet and a private company. Thousands of homeless people invaded the Bredell land allegedly after paying the Pan African Congress R25 a plot.

An interim Court order was granted allowing the government to evict the ‘squatters’. In coming to his decision, Judge Rabie made a reference to the irresponsibility displayed by the PAC.

Predictably, there has been a war of words between the PAC and the ANC over the land invasion. PAC leader Stanley Mogoba has warned that should the matter not be resolved satisfactorily resolved there could be a ‘revolution’. “If government wants to go the route of confrontation, they are asking for very big problems”, he said (www.iol.co.za).

ANC spokesperson Smuts Ngonyama called the PAC “an organisation of agents provocateurs masquerading as a caring liberation movement when, in fact, they are the worst hypocrites and opportunists who will jump at the slightest opportunity to exploit the plight of our people, with the sole purpose of lining their pockets” (www.iol.co.za).

Anglican Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane said that he found it paradoxical that the government was so quick to commit to a multi-million rand arms deal with not a visible enemy in sight, but at the same time so slow to respond to an issue it billed a top priority in the run-up to the 1994 general election (www.iol.co.za).

According to the South African Sunday Tribune, a group of black tenant farmers have invited Robert Mugabe to come to SA to advise them on how to proceed to get land. Joachim Hlatswayo, a tenant leader was quoted in the same newspaper as saying that they wanted to hear Mugabe’s views on land restitution and land seizure. The invitation to Mugabe has been confirmed by the Zimbabwean High Commission in Pretoria, but they noted that in terms of diplomatic protocol, only the President of SA, Thabo Mbeki could invite the president of another country for a visit.

What is clear is that the Bredell ‘land invaders’ have become political pawns. While government’s land restitution has been largely ineffective, it is equally clear that landless people are getting impatient (www.iol.co.za).

The squatters are now appealing the eviction order. In the meantime, local PAC leaders have not been able to account for the money collected from the squatters.

The Zimbabwean experience has suddenly made land grabbing an alternative to remaining landless. This week, saw the establishment of the National Landless People’s Movement. NLPA representative Lucas Mufamadi says they support “the gallant actions of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe”. He also said that land occupations are inevitable as land reform has been slow (www.mg.co.za).

Clearly, the Bredell land occupation is illegal and governments all over need to take quick action to avert this from happening by stepping up the pace of land reform and where land occupations have occurred, they must take action too.

However, should our laws not reflect an African reality as far as land is concerned? Should there be private property clauses in our constitutions, or should there be communal property provisions, or should there be both? Civil society and governments must start seriously debating this and other human rights issues to make sure that we do not prescribe to a Eurocentric definition of human rights which does not fit into the African context. The landlessness issue must be looked at from this perspective.

In the interim, government must start pouring its resources into land reform. In addition, land grabbing must be strongly discouraged.