Land expropriation without compensation in South Africa

摘要

Sir, The relationship between money and natural resources such as land and minerals has evolved over time. One ignores this at one's peril. The collapse of value in currency in Zimbabwe as a result of the disappearance of collateral value after land seizures is a case in point. Initially, the announcement of compulsory transfer of land led to the Zimbabwe dollar (Z$) losing 75% of its value against the US$ in a single day, 14 November 1997 ('Black Friday'). Ignoring the warnings, this was followed by the 'fast-track land resettlement programme' in 2000. The Zimbabwean government formally announced the "fast-track land resettlement programme" in July 2000, stating that it would acquire more than 3 000 farms for redistribution. Between June 2000 and February 2001, 2 706 farms, covering more than six million hectares, were gazetted for compulsory acquisition. According to the Commercial Farmers' Union (CFU), which represents the large-scale commercial farming sector in Zimbabwe, more than 1600 commercial farms were occupied by settlers led by war veterans in the course of 2000. [1] The banks who held the mortgages on the farms had little chance of recovering their money. The financial system failed.