Sent: 29 Julie 2008 10:35
Vriende
Die aanlyn weergawe van Business Day het die volgende berig oor gister
se konferensie. Let asseblief op die aanhaling van Prof Lungisile
Ntsebeza van die Universiteit van Kaapstad – Miskien het dit tyd geword
om hierdie mense reguit te konfronteer en daardie "bewyse" op die tafel
te plaas??
Groete
Jan Bosman
Whites did not steal land from blacks, says Pik
Franny Rabkin
WHITE settlers did not steal land from native inhabitants when they
arrived in SA, said former apartheid minister Pik Botha yesterday.
He was speaking at a conference on the Expropriation Bill as part of a
multipronged effort to defeat the bill, which is now before Parliament.
The Ad Hoc Committee For the Defence of Property Rights gathered
historians, politicians and farmers to discuss the question: did the
current owners of property obtain it unlawfully?
Much of the discussion was focused on restoring a largely discredited
history: that the land in SA was empty when settlers arrived.
The history suggests that land was given in treaty to white settlers and
that the land, in any event, belonged to the Khoi and the San people —
these were nomadic people who were not settled; and that both whites and
blacks (from which the Khoi and San were excluded) were settlers.
The Expropriation Bill seeks to allow the government to expropriate
private land with compensation but not necessarily at market value.
Organisations present at the conference included AfriForum, the
Afrikanerbond, AgriSA, commercial farmers organisation TAU SA and the
Freedom Front Plus (FF+).
Botha said, "The Voor-trekkers occupied areas where in general, at the
time of the Great Trek, no settled black communities were to be found."
Werner Weber, FF+ spokesman on land and agricultural issues, referred to
specific treaties, such as the one signed between Voortrekker Piet
Retief and Zulu King Dingaan in 1836, in which, he said, Dingaan gave
Retief all the land between the Tugela and the Mzimvubu rivers in return
for cattle which Retief had recovered for him. Weber said land owned by
white people in the "Transvaal, Natal and Free State was obtained in a
friendly way".
This version of history, standard fare in pre democracy textbooks, was
dismissed outright by Prof Lungisile Ntsebeza of UCT in an interview
yesterday.
"That's rubbish," he said. "There is evidence in abundance that land was
dispossessed from the indigenous people, violently in many cases."
He asked why the settlers fought wars with African nations if the land
was empty and people were not settled there.
Historian and writer Louis Changuion put the land issue down to a
"misunderstanding between the two race groups".
This was because they "didn't have the same understanding" of land
ownership. Boundaries were not recognised and there was no such thing
before white people came to SA.
Jan Bosman
Besturende Direkteur
Afrikanerbond
janbosman@abond.co.za
Tel: (011) 482-1600
Faks: (011) 726-5877
Privaat Faks: 086 658 6336
www.abond.co.za
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