Whites in South Africa face uncompensated land seizure, as recently amended by law—a move drawing comparisons to early Zimbabwe, and putting the fate of South Africa’s white population in question.
The idea in South Africa was pushed forward by the radical left-wing political party the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and accepted by the parliamentary majority African National Congress (ANC). South Africa’s newly elected president, Cyril Ramaphosa, said the land reforms would end racial disparities in land ownership “once and for all,” according to The Independent.
“We must ensure that we restore the dignity of our people without compensating the criminals who stole our land,” said South Africa’s new President Cyril Ramaphosa, via The Independent.
The opposition party in South Africa’s Parliament, the Democratic Alliance, does not support the amendment and said the decision will “undermine property rights and scare off potential investors,” according to The Independent.
In Zimbabwe, this kind of policy caused steady economic decline, deindustrialization, a loss of export revenue from agriculture, an unemployment rate that reached 90 percent. The policies caused an estimated $20 billion in economic loss, according to Quartz.
The Quartz article, written by South African economists, infers that when landowners have their property taken and are not paid for it, all of society ends up paying for it in some way.
“The white South African population currently faces ethnic cleansing and persecutions at the hands of the ANC government, the EFF, and various groups that seek their liquidation and to appropriate their property. Thousands of white farmers have been brutally murdered, often including torture and rape and mutilation. Many white South Africans today live in poverty and squalor as a consequence of the ANC government’s Black Economic Empowerment policy, which shuts whites out of the labor pool,” reads the petition for European leaders.
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