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South African White Farmers
Warn Of Zimbabwe-Style Crisis

By Sue Thomas
10-29-2

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (Reuters) - White South African farmers have warned that farm killings and legislation are threatening to tip the country's agricultural sector into a crisis similar to that of neighboring Zimbabwe.
 
"There is growing concern among white South African farmers as regards their future, mainly as a result of events in Zimbabwe and Namibia, but also as a result of certain actions, or lack of action, in South Africa," leading trade magazine SA Grain said in an editorial in its latest edition.
 
"If this spirit of anxiety and negativism is not addressed vigorously and effectively, the long-term sustainability of agriculture in South Africa is in danger."
 
SA Grain accused South African President Thabo Mbeki and his ruling African National Congress of "marching down a road that must end in the destruction of the White South African."
 
The warning comes against a backdrop of a controversial land drive in Zimbabwe, where President Robert Mugabe has sanctioned a sometimes violent land grab by blacks to reverse the white domination of the country's best commercial farmland.
 
South Africa's government has consistently said it will not tolerate Zimbabwe-style land grabs on its soil, emphasizing that any land reform that takes place under it will be done in a market-friendly manner and within the rule of law.
 
SA Grain said South African farmers were "already experiencing Zimbabwe-style situations on their farms," citing one farmer who had been unable to evict about 40,000 people who had illegally occupied his land near Johannesburg.
 
"The question in everyone's mind...is: 'Will we have a Zimbabwe in South Africa? Or...How long will it be before we too are driven from our land?"'
 
The editorial also highlighted strict new labor legislation, stringent property taxes and continued farm attacks as reasons for heightened anxiety among South African farmers, despite a good grain crop and prices for other commodities.
 
Farmers say their profession is the most dangerous in the country, with 145 farmers killed in 1,000 attacks last year, compared to 84 murders in 433 attacks in 1997, South Africa's main farmers organization Agri SA said Monday.
 
South Africa has some of the highest rates of violent crime in the world, fueled by poverty and glaring income disparities.
 
Agri SA say the number of farmers has fallen to about 50,000 from 130,000 some 30 years ago, mainly due to farm violence and economic hardship.
 
The South African government said last week it aimed to put 30 percent of agricultural land in black hands by 2015 in a bid to right the wrongs of apartheid which dispossessed hundreds of thousands of black South Africans of their ancestral land.
 
It has promised that its land reform program will be peaceful and orderly, and has so far carried out all its transactions on a "willing buyer, willing seller" basis.
 
Copyright © 2002 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.






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