This link is a summary specifically related to land reform. A full overview of the author can be gleaned form his personal web page. Just follow the links of your choice.
Dr. Izak Labuschagne is recently described
by The
Global Politician as “a well-known
political and legal activist in South Africa”.
He was born into a prominent family of Wool Farmers in South Africa of French descent. The Profile under his Web Page will reveal that he is inter alia also a Dealer’s Representative on the Sydney Stock Exchange, a member of the International Association of Financial planning, a Certified Australian Investment Planner, is the principal of the Commission of Inquiry into Administrative irregularities in the System of justice and the Activities of Members of Secret Societies. and is vested with various other skills and accolades unrelated to Land reform.
He has been directly involved with projects
in the land reform sector since 1998, the Projects portfolio peaking at R
2,5 Billion in 2002/3. He has lectured extensively on Agricultural
Development and Land Reform in Africa at conferences organized by Africa Project Access and National
& Africa Growth, Development & Investment Programme
as such in the company of the most prominent movers and shakers in the Project Planning and Funding sectors. He is the CEO for SADC Development Fund Trust the John’s Walk Eco Resort, Port Sail Charters and various other organizations of lesser importance to Land reform.
An extract from his book the WOOLBARONS might serve best to give some insight to his experiences thus far.
When the Land
Tenure Reform legislation ensued in the early 1990’s to penalize a system that
first world farm workers would have given their back teeth to be part of, Izak
was amazed.
When fires
miraculously broke out in all of the deeds offices, destroying the records of
transactions between the pioneering farmers and the chiefs, he was concerned.
When the Land Claims Court started twisting the law on tenure reform and
restitution to the point that it gained an international reputation for
incompetence and bias he became deeply concerned.
In 1998 when he
met the Goodhouse community he unearthed evidence of brainwashing of previously
disadvantaged farmers by the government.
Then in the year
200 he found himself acting in the public interest in a case where the government
were refusing to transfer land to the non-white coloured farming community of
Goodhouse, not only in terms of the new laws but also in terms of laws from the
apartheid era.
Yes indeed! Few
people today realize that the previous regime engaged in a massive land reform
program in the 1980’s that overshadows anything hitherto done. They bought some
40 mil hectares of some of the best land in the country from white farmers and
put it into the name of the Minister of Agriculture to be held in trust until
the various tribes in those areas became self-governing.
That land, that
legacy was inherited by the current government and in 10 years of government
they are still holding on to most of it in order to manipulate the rural vote.
Today we see that
the IFP want to the Zulu’s to be self-governing and want the land transferred
to their chiefs in order that they can get along with projects on those lands.
Projects that are sensitive to their particular culture of land usage.
The ANC however,
are content to let the SACP push them into acquiescing to what they refer to as
the “popular demand, the democratic will of the masses” to have all
agricultural land vest in the state for all its citizens.
When Izak
brought that application in 2000 the prominent
private sector entity in the Land Reform Program that had sought to get
involved at Goodhouse engaged him as a strategic planner for their projects. He
took them from R 250 mil to R 2.5 mil in a little over a year.
Little did he
know when he came up with strategies to speed up the willing buyer willing
seller program that the government did not want such a solution. The government
were doing all they can to make the program fail so as to justify expropriation
of land from white farmers.
Little did
Izak know that the government were also deliberately making projects on state
land fail so as to delay transfer to the non-white occupants, especially if
they did not support the ruling party. When he confronted these issues, he was
poisoned and the rug was ruthlessly pulled out from under him.
Today,
notwithstanding the fact that he is busy with a campaign that has
escalated into an open challenge to
the president of South Africa he is still propagating Strategies vested
with a sensitive and balanced approach for those the many
participants in the Land reform program who are not interested in the proposed
communist system with is excruciating and cruel international and particularly
third world legacy of failure and famine.