South Africa’s ANC Talks Teft On Land As Unrest Flares

Residents stand in front of markings with sticks at an open land in Nellmapius township

South Africa’s government has built close to 4 million houses for low-income families since the end of apartheid in 1994…. What happened after that period? Read more on Reuters:

Lizzie Mboweni is one of millions still waiting for one. Last Saturday she joined scores of squatters from Diepsloot, a shantytown north of Johannesburg, in a violent attempt to grab plots in an unused field across the road, part of a campaign of land invasions launched by the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), an ultra-left opposition party.

The frustration of millions of impoverished black South Africans like Mboweni is not lost on the ruling African National Congress (ANC), which is resorting to brute force to thwart the invasions while signaling a populist shift to the left on land.

This includes proposals to ban foreign ownership of land and limit the size of farms. Police firing rubber bullets drove Mboweni and the EFF back across the road, a small skirmish in the wider battle for the hearts, minds and ultimately votes of South Africa’s underclass.

“I think it is better to give the people land. It is squashed in here,” Mboweni told Reuters, pointing to the cramped and make-shift shacks of Diepsloot.