Any effort to seize and redistribute farms owned by white landowners “would not be a good thing,” a top U.S. diplomat warned the South African government on Thursday.
“We encourage a peaceful and transparent public debate about this important issue that seems to be happening in South Africa right now,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told reporters on Thursday. “If policies are poorly implemented, there are potentially detrimental political, socioeconomic, and other issues.”
President Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo discussed the topic in “the last day or so,” Nauert added. The subject of whether the South African government would seize white-owned farms received extended attention during a Fox News segment, followed by a tweet from the president announcing that Pompeo had been directed to take an interest in the issue.
“It was discussed with the president and he will focus on this issue,” Nauert said. “He will take a look at it.”
The latest State Department report on human rights makes no mention of land expropriation in South Africa. Nauert was reminded of this omission, but she demurred when asked if the U.S. government is aware of the South African government considering any such plan.
[Opinion: Trump has a point about South Africa’s farm land-grabs]
“I’m just saying that expropriation of land without compensation would not be a good thing and would send them down the wrong path,” she said.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa called for an amendment stipulating the South African Constitution “does not prohibit the expropriation of land without compensation” by the government.
“The proposal that we essentially put forward is to make that clear, explicitly clear and once that is clear, we will then be able to speed ahead with our land reform processes,” he said Monday.
The land controversy dates back decades, when black South Africans were banned by the white-minority apartheid regime from owning land.
“White South Africans, who make up around 8% of the country’s population, still own 73% of agricultural land, according to estimates from farmers association Agri SA,” the Wall Street Journal observed. “Until now, agrarian reform in South Africa has been led by voluntary sales by white farmers and other property owners to the government at market prices under a policy known as ‘willing seller, willing buyer.’ But these efforts have moved just 8 percent of agricultural property from white into black ownership, far short of the 30 percent target the ANC had set for the first five years of democracy.”
South African leaders see the redistribution of land as a key socioeconomic milestone. But efforts to do so by force have backfired in other countries, such as neighboring Zimbabwe and Venezuela.
“There is no evidence to show that most Zimbabweans became better off after the land grabs we saw in the early 2000s,” according to the BBC. “[Venezuela] has gone from producing 70 percent of its food to importing 70 percent of it, according to the Confederation of Associations of Agricultural Producers.”
Nauert cautioned against drawing a strong analogy between South Africa and Zimbabwe, given how the latter country “squash[ed] civil society,” the free press, and the nation’s judicial system. “I think they are different situations altogether,” she said.
But she warned repeatedly against forcible land seizures. “The expropriation of land without compensation, our position is that that would risk sending South Africa down the wrong path,” Nauert said. “We continue to encourage a peaceful and transparent public debate about what we consider to be a very important issue; and, the South Africans certainly do as well.”
