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back to land reform

National Land Committee (NLC)

    The National Land Committee was formed as the National Committee Against Removals in 1985, and has its roots in the forced removals during apartheid.  Since 1990 the NLC has been working on land restitution issues; according to its website, the National Land Committee "actively assists poor black rural people across eight (of nine) provinces to access land rights and development resources."[1kbw]  In 1993 the NLC launched the "Back to the Land Campaign" in order to protest the property rights clause in the proposed constitution.[2kbw]  The NLC went on to launch the Rural Development Initiative (RDI) in 1999, as an effort to build a social movement based on the growth of local rural organizations; this effort produced the Rural People's Charter, which outlines the demands for land reform and rural development of more than 600 rural communities across the country.[3kbw]

    The affiliates of the NLC are: The Association for Rural Advancement (in KwaZuluNatal); The Border Rural Committee (in the Eastern Cape); The Southern Cape Land Committee; Surplus Peoples Project (in the Western and Northern Cape provinces); The Association for Community and Rural Advancement (in the Northern Cape and North West province); Nkuzi Development Association (in the Northern Province, as well as parts of Mpumalanga and Gauteng provinces); The Rural Action Committee (in Mpumalanga and North West provinces); and Land Access Movement of South Africa (LAMOSA).[4kbw]

    The NLC criticizes market-led land reform, and advocates for government involvement and regulation of land restitution.  Zakes Hlatshwayo, director of the NLC, commented that “Land reform is a market-led process, based on a willing buyer and willing seller. Those who own the land still make the decisions about what land to sell, when, where and how. The market is manipulated by those who have the land and are willing to sell. And, for economic reasons, they are not always willing to sell. We are saying that there must be a policy review. Rather than a market-led process, government can get involved and regulate how the land is acquired."[5kbw]  The NLC attributes the slow pace of land reform to the government’s willing buyer, willing seller method, arguing that the economic power in that relationship is on the side of the seller; Wayne Jordaan of the NLC said, "Landlords determine the price and the type of land that is sold."[6kbw]

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