JOHANNESBURG—There is a swathe of land on the north coast of South Africa’s lush KwaZulu-Natal province, and it is beautiful. Endless rows of sugar cane fill the emerald rolling hills, with a backdrop of an azure Indian Ocean.
It looks peaceful but a battle has raged here for almost 15 years.
“I’ve thought of giving up but then, I think of how my ancestors spilled their blood for this land in the late 1800s so that I could have some kind of prosperity here, and then I fight on,” said Desmond Thompson, a 54-year-old cattle farmer and sugar producer.
Forty miles away, another man is haunted by ghosts of the past.
Inkosi (chief) Mqoqi Ngcobo, headman of the AmaQadi clan of Zulus, told The Epoch Times the spirits of his forefathers are telling him to take Thompson’s land.
“Every night, the ancestors speak to me,” he whispered down the telephone line from his village near the town of Ballito. “They tell me that the British settlers stole that land from my clan and that it is my duty as chief to take back what is ours. I will not stop fighting for that land. I do not care what any judge tells me. Judges have no authority in the spirit world.”
It is a battle of wills that belongs to the past, fought in the present.
For six months in 1879, British troops fought a series of bloody battles against the indigenous Zulus of KwaZulu-Natal. The Zulu resisted bravely but their spears were no match for rifles and cannons.
The British took what land they wanted, and word spread in Britain of the verdant land on the southern tip of Africa.
“My great-great-great grandfather Arthur came here to farm from the United Kingdom in the early 1890s,” Thompson said.
Don’t expect to hear much Afrikaans spoken in KwaZulu-Natal. There’s a reason it’s known as The Last Outpost, and the Union Jack is on proud display in homes, pubs, and on farms. The white inhabitants often support the English soccer, cricket, and rugby teams ahead of South Africa’s teams.
In 1948, the Afrikaner National Party confirmed the Zulu’s isolation when it instituted apartheid. The Zulu were confined to a separate homeland called KwaZulu.
White minority rule ended in 1994 when Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC) emerged victorious from South Africa’s first multiracial election.
Mandela promised to give land to its “rightful owners.”
For many in South Africa, though, it is a promise unfulfilled.
“I thought my clan would get its land back 31 years ago,” Ngcobo said. “But here we are today, and there are black judges—can you imagine, black judges—serving interdicts on me saying my people and me, we cannot occupy the Thompson farm. It is hurting us very badly.”
Ngcobo acknowledges that he “often” instructs clan members to trespass on Thompson’s land, where they erect shacks … until police arrive to break the structures down.
“The authorities call it ‘land invasion.’ I call it ‘land justice,’” he said.
Scenes such as these are happening across South Africa, said Johann Kotze, chief executive officer of South Africa’s largest agricultural union, AgriSA.
“We are well aware of the historical injustices of the past, and it could be that some people have legitimate claims to land currently occupied by some white farmers. But then they must lodge their claim with the state and we move from there. The illegal invasions of land must stop,” Kotze told The Epoch Times.
“I can take you to farms right now where tens of thousands of people have invaded and established huge squatter camps. The police failed to act when the invasion first started and now, it’s almost impossible to get those people off the land without bloodshed. The farmer’s land is now worthless.”
Trump’s action was partly spurred by Ramaphosa’s signing of an Expropriation Act. This law allows the state to seize land in the “public interest” without compensating owners.
The Democratic Alliance, a centrist political party and the ANC’s main partner in the nation’s coalition government, has applied to a court to overturn the ANC leader’s act.
“We’re confident we have a solid case,” Democratic Alliance leader John Steenhuisen said. “The ANC can’t expect to take land for free when it decides it’s in the public interest. Owners must be compensated at market value if the state wants the property.”
Kotze said his organization, AgriSA, “has no problem if the government acquires farms if the owner is willing to sell and if the farmer gets a fair price.”
“This is what’s been happening so far. I would know if the government has confiscated land from a single white farmer. It has not happened ... so far.”
But, he added, invasions of land by “malevolent forces” happen regularly, and they aren’t as “decent” as Ngcobo, the tribal chief.
“Mostly they don’t have any historical link to the territory they claim as theirs, and they have no problem using intimidation and violence,” Kotze said. “They often burn farming lands and that’s a threat to food security.”
One of these forces is a group called Black First Land First (BFLF). It brands itself a “Pan African, revolutionary movement” and is led by activist Andile Mngxitama.
According to the constitution of the BFLF, it subscribes to Leninism, a political ideology developed by Russian Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin. It advocates working-class uprisings to depose capitalism and replace it with communism.
“All whites in South Africa are land thieves,” Mngxitama told The Epoch Times. “They stole this whole country from the original black inhabitants. That’s historical fact.”
He has sometimes called on his supporters to “spill white blood.”
Mngxitama said that he “sometimes speaks figuratively” but acknowledged that his comments have often incited black people to occupy white-owned land.
“They get court interdicts against me but it doesn’t stop me because I have true justice on my side, not colonialist justice,” he said. “How can I be a land thief if the land belongs to me? I don’t need a title deed to prove I own the land. The color of my skin says I own the land.”
Another organization that has encouraged invasion and occupation of land owned by whites is the far-left Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), which holds 38 seats in parliament.
Malema told supporters at an EFF gathering in 2016: “When we leave here, you will see any beautiful piece of land, you like it, occupy it, it belongs to you ... It is the land that was taken from us by white people by force through genocide.”
Malema has also called for the nationalization of all forms of wealth in South Africa, including land, mines, and banks.
“This will break whites’ economic power,” he told The Epoch Times. “Politically, blacks are free. Economically, we are still in chains.”
Malema is also infamous for singing an anti-apartheid struggle song called “Kill the boer (Afrikaner), kill the farmer,” which he says shouldn’t be taken literally.
“It just symbolizes the black struggle against white oppression,” he said.
Malema said whites must share the land “before something bad happens” in the future.
“Black people are angry,” he said. “They see how one white farmer owns 100,000 hectares of land when there’s a township next door where people fight just to have a space to put up a shack.”
Incitement by Fringe Groups
Chris Burgess, editor of South Africa’s largest agricultural publication, Landbou Weekblad (Farmer’s Weekly), told The Epoch Times it’s important to note that land invasions are being incited by “a few fringe groups.”“This magazine has investigated countless farm invasions since 1994,” he said. “It’s the extremists on the left and right who are causing trouble for everyone.”
Burgess said he believes the rule of law is holding in South Africa.
“Politicians make irresponsible statements, yes. The police are often incompetent when dealing with land invasions and they often take too long to act. But essentially, farmers are protected by a strong legal system,” he said.
But, Democratic Alliance leader Steenhuisen said “orchestrated and illegal land grabs” are a crisis in South Africa.
“This situation is placing immense financial burdens on thousands of private landowners, and they’re not only white,” he said. “Land invasions have been a problem for decades but they accelerated dramatically during the COVID-19 lockdown, when property worth billions of rands was lost.”
South Africa’s lockdown policy in response to the pandemic was one of the world’s longest, lasting from March 23, 2020, to March 20, 2022.
Steenhuisen said legislation that currently protects landowners from illegal occupiers isn’t adequate, and the Democratic Alliance has put forward a bill to strengthen the law.
It calls for punitive measures for those who incite or promote orchestrated and unlawful invasions.
“At the moment, these guys are getting off virtually scot-free,” Steenhuisen said.
Back on his farm near Ballito, Thompson doesn’t want to hear about punishment. He wants to talk peace.
“They say the sons will pay for the sins of the fathers, but it’s hard for me to see what sin my fathers committed when all they wanted to do was build better lives, to find peace,” he said.
“But of course, the Zulus suffered a lot. Maybe that’s what this guy who wants my farm also wants: peace. So we’re fighting for peace. It’s crazy if you look at it that way. I love my land too much. I’m a bit lost. I don’t have answers.”
His comments mirror the confusion contained in South Africa’s current land reform process.
Ramaphosa’s government knows that to seize one white-owned farm to give to “rightful” owners will more than likely unleash economic implosion, enhanced by mass emigration of white taxpayers, and flight of foreign investors.
But, to be seen to be doing nothing risks the anger of millions of black citizens.
