DA calls for rural safety units and responsible land reform
26 March 2018
The Democratic Alliance in KwaZulu-Natal will today write to Acting Provincial Police Commissioner, Major-General Bheki Langa, calling for firm and immediate SAPS intervention in the event of further incidents of illegal land invasions or rural farm attacks in the province.
The move comes after a recent spate of incidents – some of which have led to the poorest residents in the province being ousted from their homes – and another case during which police allegedly failed to act and even tried to stop a farmer from laying charges.
The DA condemns the actions of the past few weeks in the strongest possible terms. Regrettably, they are the result of the passing of an ANC/EFF Motion on land expropriation without compensation and are being fanned by racial popularism.
Particularly disturbing is that while President Cyril Ramaphosa claims that his ANC government does not support land invasions, some of those who are involved in such acts are from within the ANC’s structures. It is shocking that an ANC-linked organisation is stealing houses from the poorest of the poor.
One such example is the group calling themselves the MK Military Veterans who began with invading flats at the Aloe Ridge Housing Development in Pietermaritzburg. The group has now targeted the Masinenge Housing Development in Margate on KZN’s South Coast – a proper settlement built for informal settlement residents of that area. These are people who currently live in deplorable conditions without proper water and sanitation services as a result of the dysfunctional Ugu District Municipality.
Land and housing invasions and attacks are not limited to urban areas. The recent incidents in Eshowe are a case in point and show how violence can also erupt as a result of racial popularism that is not based on fact. To date, there have not been any arrests made for hate speech and incitement to violence in this regard.
Further recent incidents of invasion include a land grab at an Inanda commercial sugar cane farmer’s property and last week’s Dannhauser farm invasion, during which members of the local community invaded Kliprandkloof Farm with pangas and machetes. Despite the family’s desperate calls to Dannhauser police station, no one was deployed, allegedly due to a lack of vehicles with police only arriving after the family contacted Hattingspruit police station. Even then, they took no action while the invaders stole more than 100 goats and sheep, tools and equipment.
While in a majority of land invasion cases, the police have acted swiftly to quell violence and remove land invaders, this did not occur in the Dannhauser incident. This amid further allegations that the police prevented the farmer from opening a case at the Dannhauser Police Station. This is simply inexcusable and the DA will write to KZN’s Acting Commissioner to urgently investigate what appears to be a case severe dereliction of duty by officials at this police station.
Only the DA has workable land reform model that ensures placing title and wealth in the hands of black South Africans. The ANC/EFF model make the poor even poorer by making them tenants on land owned by the state.
The DA is committed to fighting for KZN’s poorest residents in RDP houses to be given title deeds for their homes so that they can pass this asset on to their children. Land reform is a constitutional imperative and a matter of justice. Above all, it cannot be used as a tool for racial populists to further divide South Africans.
Issued by Rishigen Viranna, DA KZN Spokesperson on Community Safety and Liaison, 26 March 2018
