EFF: “We are taking what belongs to us”
"This land was stolen from the blacks by the whites".
MBOMBELA – It does not seem as if the illegal occupation of land will soon be something of the past. The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) this week announced that they were not afraid to take, what they believed, belonged to them.
“We are not shaken and we are not scared because we are taking what belongs to us or what was stolen from us,” Mr Collen Sedibe, EFF provincial chairman, said.
This statement was made after the Democratic Alliance (DA) accused Sedibe of encouraging people to occupy land illegally across the province.
According to the DA it was alleged that Sedibe encouraged community members to occupy land illegally in places such as Waterval Boven, Delmas and Bethal Extension 5.
Lowvelder earlier reported on these illegal land grabs in Waterval Boven.
The DA furthermore stated that Sedibe also allegedly said the EFF was in the process of identifying more land for community members to occupy under the guise of it being vacant.
“We strongly condemn the EFF in Mpumalanga’s opportunistic exploitation of our people’s desperate need for land and the government’s failure to deliver on housing,” said the DA.
Sedibe insisted that its occupation programme, however, could not be described as an illegal land grab. “As the EFF we have not grabbed any land from anyone but we have occupied identified unoccupied land which in the main belongs to the municipalities.”
He said municipalities, by their nature and character, were government institutions and government by definition was the people. “This in essence means the land belongs to nobody else but the people and accordingly it is their birthright to use the land for whichever purpose.”
Sedibe said the DA was the last organisation to be scared of their land occupation programme “because they know that this land was stolen from the blacks by the whites”. According to him white citizens had not paid a single cent for the massive hectares they owned.
He condemned the ‘willing buyer, willing seller’ principle saying the government of the day had failed dismally to redistribute land evenly. “The so-called willing buyer and willing seller principle only enriches the whites and leaves our black people even poorer because of the lack of the post-settlement policy. Without land we are nothing and without land we will remain vulnerable, hopeless and homeless. Bring back our stolen land – we cannot buy back our stolen land,” Sedibe concluded.
The DA nonetheless urged the EFF to follow the right procedures to ensure that everyone received fair treatment. “Every South African has the right to access shelter, but going about it illegally will only spell disaster. If the EFF is truly serious about addressing the issues of land redistribution, the DA urges them to follow due process.”
