Land, Liberation and Compromise in Southern Africa

Land, Liberation and Compromise in Southern Africa Chris Alden and Ward Anseeuw Land, Liberation and Compromise in Southern Africa 9780230_230842_01_previii.indd i 8/8/2009 1:14:54 PM This page intentionally left blank Land, Liberation and Compromise in Southern Africa Chris Alden and Ward Anseeuw 9780230_230842_01_previii.indd iii 8/8/2009 1:14:55 PM © Chris Alden and Ward Anseeuw 2009 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2009 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries ISBN-13: 978-0-230-23084-2 hardback This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne 9780230_230842_01_previii.indd iv 8/8/2009 1:14:55 PM Contents Acknowledgements vi Introduction 1 1 Understanding Land, Politics and Change in Southern Africa 5 2 Sowing the Whirlwind – Zimbabwe and Southern Africa 38 3 Darkness at Noon – South Africa 75 4 A Distant Thunder – Namibia 120 5 Liberation and Compromise? 158 Fieldwork 180 Notes 185 Bibliography 216 Maps 234 Index 241 v 9780230_230842_01_previii.indd v 8/8/2009 1:14:55 PM Acknowledgements The authors would like to acknowledge, in the first instance, the French Institute of South Africa (IFAS), and in particular its research directors Philippe Guillaume, Aurelia Segatti-Wa Kabwe, and Sophie Didier, for their unstinting encouragement, for providing funding for the field work, and for supporting this initiative throughout. Garth le Pere of the Institute for Global Dialogue also deserves our thanks for providing targeted assistance at the initial phase of the project. Many assisted us in the research phase, including in Namibia, Ben Fuller and Deon van Zyl (National Economic Research and Policy Unit); in South Africa, Maxi Schoeman (University of Pretoria); and in Botswana, Michael Taylor (Ministry of Agriculture) and Kenneth Good (University of Botswana). Others, particularly Willem Odendaal, Karin Kleinbooi, and Renaud Lapeyre, helped out by providing relevant data and information. In London, Laurie Nathan gave sound and scholarly commentary on some chapters, while Deborah James, James Putzel, and Jo Beall took the trouble to listen to an early version of the project. We would also like to thank Alexandra Webster for her support in bringing this manuscript into its published form, and Erin O’Brien for reviewing this edition of the book. Finally, we also like to convey our gratitude to the many people we interviewed during this project, in particular those affected by land conflicts. In South Africa, many thanks go to the Landless People’s Movement, to The Rural Action Committee, to the farm workers’ organisations in Kwazulu Natal’s Vryheid region and to the Agri-SA’s members of the North West Province. Thanks also go to the different land protagonists, farming communities, as well as to urban and rural land dwellers in the Waterberg, Gobabis, and Ovamboland regions in Namibia and in the Kweneng Province in Botswana. It bears mentioning that none of these individuals or institutions is responsible for the findings and/or observations we make in this book. vi 9780230_230842_01_previii.indd vi 8/8/2009 1:14:55 PM DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC UNITED OF CONGO REPUBLIC Kinshasa OF TANZANIA Dodoma Dar es Salaam Luanda MALAWI ANGOLA Lilongwe ZAMBIA Lusaka MOZAMBIQUE Harare MAURITIUS ZIMBABWE Port Louis NAMIBIA Antananarivo Windhoek BOTSWANA MADAGASCAR Gaborone Pretoria Maputo Moabene SWAZILAND Maseru LESOTHO SOUTH AFRICA Cape Town Figure 1.1 Southern Africa vii 9780230_230842_01_previii.indd vii 8/8/2009 1:14:55 PM This page intentionally left blank Introduction On the eve of the crisis in Zimbabwe, one that was to inexorably pull its neighbours into a regional reconsideration of the politics of land, a workshop was held in November 1999 in Windhoek, Namibia. The delegates, all members of the regional non- governmental network Mwelekeo wa NGO or Mwengo, had come together to assess the regrettable inaction sur- rounding the land situation in their respective countries. In his opening remarks Uhuru Dempers pointed out that the liberation struggle in all the countries in Southern Africa had been inspired by the colonial disposses- sion of land. Despite this, he went on to say, land reform remained an area of struggle for all the countries. He hoped that the legacy of a common history and ongoing initiatives in the area of land reform and redistribution would inspire Southern African NGOs to review their local circum- stances and collaborate in future on land policy across the region.1 Within three months of the meeting, the regional quietude that so disturbed participants had been expelled by events in Zimbabwe. A ‘fast track’ land reform programme characterised by violent occupation of white commercial farmland by purported ‘war veterans’, overturned the unequal distribution of agricultural holdings that had been a part of the country’s political economy for ninety years. NGO land activists in Namibia and South Africa, though disturbed by the violence that accompanied reform, generally welcomed developments in Zimbabwe as providing fresh impetus to their own local campaigns. Moreover, Robert Mugabe’s revival of anti- imperialist rhetoric, not heard since the era of liberation struggles, shook the complacency of elite accumulation and seemed to promise a return to the revolutionary politics of the past. It was only as the Zimbabwean situation lurched from political contro- versy to economic free fall that the certainties that were expressed at the workshop began to fracture into a variety of regional responses. 1 9780230_230842_02_intro.indd 1 8/6/2009 5:33:28 PM 2 Land, Liberation and Compromise in Southern Africa From a very different corner of the region, white commercial farmers living in Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa watched events unfold in Zimbabwe with growing trepidation and public disquiet. From hav- ing once held a position of privilege under minority rule, these farming communities had endured uncertainties of the transition to a black government and had largely accommodated themselves to the new cir- cumstances, even learning to prosper under a government dominated by their once implacable foes. Responding to the rising crescendo of racial rhetoric and violence in Zimbabwe over land, the white commercial farmers’ associations in all three ex- settler states issued an unprec- edented joint statement in June 2000. Due to the political past of most of the southern Africa countries, land restitution and land redistribution are imperatives for political, social and economic stabil- ity … Unfortunately, the result of failure with land reform cannot be ring- fenced to the country concerned, but its effects will be felt in the region.2 The former liberation movements that governed Namibia and South Africa, caught off-guard by the farm occupations and electoral violence in Zimbabwe, struggled to come up with a response to the Zimbabwean crisis that did not compromise their established political interests in office. Recognising their own vulnerability on agrarian reform, which they had promoted as a key tenet in their liberation struggle but largely neglected once in power, and worried the land issue could inspire disgruntled trade unionists and opposition parties, these governments found themselves embracing contrary policies: simul- taneously defending property rights enshrined in their constitutions, acknowledging the imperatives of land reform across the region, placat- ing international opinion, all the while honouring the regional principle of solidarity in their interactions with Zimbabwe. Within Namibia and South Africa’s leading political parties, trade unions and local NGOs, divisions began to appear which pitted democracy and human rights advocates against those arguing for a more thoroughgoing commitment to land reform by the government. For traditional leaders and their communities, the rising land issue brought with it the possibility

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