By Norm Dixon
JOHANNESBURG — Hundreds of rural labour tenants — impoverished communities who exchange labour on white-owned farms in return for the use of land — have begun a campaign of strikes and marches in the Piet Retief region of the eastern Transvaal.
The campaign, which began on July 20, follows months of harassment by right-wing farmers and police. The National Land Committee (NLC), an independent network of land service organisations that is representing the tenants, described the campaign of mass action as a "last ditch effort" to bring the tenant's grievances to the attention of the ANC-dominated national and regional government.
Addressing reporters here on July 18, representatives of the NLC, the Farmworker Research and Resource Project (FRRP), and the COSATU trade union federation said the harassment of tenants ranged from the impounding of livestock, evictions from land, assault and abduction and even the murder of rural people. Tenants are denied even basic workers' rights. Tenants believe the upsurge in attacks on their communities is an attempt by white farmers, many aligned to neo-Nazi organisations, to prevent tenants from claiming land under proposed land reform programs.
The NLC said labour tenants in South Africa are "today's slaves" and have few enforceable rights. They rely on the land on which they live and work for subsistence. They are paid little or no wages; those that are seldom get more that R30 (A$12) a month. Tenancy contracts are usually based on verbal agreements that have been passed down between farmers and tenants for generations. Tenants are granted the use of a piece of land in exchange for providing labour for the landowner.
In many cases the labour tenants have lived on the land in question all their lives, as did their ancestors for several generations and who are buried there. They know no other way of life and having been denied education opportunities by the apartheid regime, are unable to compete for work elsewhere. While the system of labour tenancy was formally outlawed in 1979, it continues to flourish in areas of the eastern Transvaal and in the Natal Midlands.
More than 500 tenants in the Piet Retief area are facing eviction and the FRRP reports this number is increasing. At least 45 farms in the area recently reported incidents of eviction, harassment, assault and cattle impoundment and the NLC suspects that many other similar incidents are going unreported.
Tenants who have their livestock impounded by farmers are forced to pay R3000-R6000 (A$1200-2400) to get them back. If tenants cannot raise the money, or do not claim cattle in time, the animals are sold or given away to other farmers.
Violence and brutality is widespread in the white farmers' vendetta against labour tenants. Simon Vilakazi was abducted from Grootgeloof Farm on November 15 and has not been seen since. Last year Bheki Mlangeni was beaten to death by a farmer. At the beginning of July a tenants organiser was physically attacked by farmers and police. The police told the organiser he would be "lucky to be alive in two months time". Farmers have demolished and burned down tenants' homes.
The labour tenants say they cannot rely on the police, who collaborate with the farmers, for protection; police often participate in attacks on tenants or simply stand by and watch. Many police reservists are local white farmers. A key demand of the tenants' mass action is that this collaboration end and that farmers, who have been accused of assault and other crimes, be brought to trial.
Labour tenants are demanding that South Africa's labour laws be implemented on farms, legislation be implemented for a living wage for all labourers on farms, a moratorium of farm sales, and the end to the expulsion of tenants' children from farms.
The campaign is also designed to draw attention to the serious inadequacy of the interim constitution and the bill of rights as it relates to labour tenants and other landless South Africans. The NLC pointed out that two clauses in the constitution bar tenants from benefiting from land reform. The property rights clause emphasises the sanctity of "rights in property" which will entrench white farmers' land ownership and block tenants claims to land rights.
In addition, the constitution specifies that expropriation of land can only be "for public purposes". This term, says the NLC, is narrow and could exclude land reform. It may mean that land for redistribution will only be able to be obtained on a "willing buyer, willing seller" basis. The NLC suggests that this formula was a major reason for the lack of widespread land reform in Zimbabwe.
While the NLC has welcomed the ANC's promise, in the Reconstruction and Development Program, to redistribute 30% of the land in the next five years, it believes the government's mechanism for the return of land to communities — the Land Claims Court — does not accommodate land tenants. The court will only benefit those that were dispossessed of their land directly through apartheid laws.
Tenants are calling for these clauses of the interim constitution to be scrapped because they will severely hamper, and possibly prevent, land reform from taking place. They have also demanded that the Land Claims Court be empowered to take a broader approach to land reform by being able to resolve the problems of communities with no land and those who do not have claims over a specific piece of land.
FRRP's Abie Ditlhake said the current ownership of farms must be "called in to question. The white farmers own the land because they have the title deeds. It was part of the broad policies of apartheid to deny blacks access to land. Labour tenants believe their inability to own land is a result of this racially-determined access to land. They believe they own those pieces of land that they occupy and that should be recognised".
A NLC statement earlier this year called on the ANC to "investigate the land of absentee farmers, land owned by farmers who are in debt to the state and land not being used productively ... By the South African Agriculture Union's own admission 20% of farmers produce 80% of agricultural produce at present. The land owned by the remaining 80% should be used for redistribution and for aspirant black farmers. This would not adversely affect the agricultural economy and will involve communities which have a wealth of experience in farming".
Dickson Motha, coordinator of the Congress of south African Trade Unions farm workers' project, said that COSATU fully supported the demands of the labour tenants. He announced that COSATU was in the process of establishing a single, strong trade union representing farm workers. The union would be launched in February. Members of the Food and Allied Workers Union, the Paper, Printing, Wood and Allied Workers Union, and the Clothing and Textile Workers Union employed on farms would be covered by the new union, which, at its formation would have at least 50,000 members.
The NLC's Jabu Dada told Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly that rural communities were "not excited about the pace of the new government's land reform, especially as it concerns labour tenants who do not have rights to land. The interim constitution does not provide them those rights and the government does not seem to be doing anything around that. People are not very happy".
Labour tenants have called on the minister of land affairs, the ANC's Derek Hanekom, to issue a clear statement about what the government intends about labour tenants rights and its attitude to their demands within a week.