Alexander Hammond is a researcher at HumanProgress.org, a project run by the US libertarian think tank. Hammond says former dictator Robert Mugabe began chaotic land seizures of 23m acres from white-owned farms that led to riots, the killings of farmers, famine and economic collapse.
Some experts are predicting that South Africa could already be heading towards hyperinflation — just as Zimbabwe did a decade ago.
Eventually, the daily inflation rate average in Zimbabwe skyrocketed to 98 percent in 2008 and the cost to the crisis-hit country was calculated at $20 billion. Millions of starved Zimbaweans who had cheered the land grab, fled to South Africa to escape famine.
Despite the disturbing ramifications of this human-rights abuse, the mainstream media — both cable and network news in the US — have remained stubbornly silent on the issue.
The South African government has started the process of expropriating two game farms based in Limpopo, as FWM reported.
It appears that the expropriations are meant to serve as retroactive punishment merely for being white, with the ANC asserting that the seizures were “tied to addressing injustices of the past” to justify their racial discrimination.
News of these seizures broke on the morning of August 20, giving networks more than enough time to fit the story into their evening broadcasts. However, no one bothered to mention the abuse, Newsbusters reported. On Monday President Cyril Ramaphosa promised to speed up land grabs.
“These same networks did find time for other pressing international matters — such as the case of a Norwegian woman who was rescued after falling off a cruise ship embarking from Italy. That story was mentioned on both ABC’s World News Tonight and NBC Nightly News.
“Back in 2016, CBS Evening News ran segments two consecutive nights proclaiming that the white rhinoceros was ‘under assault’ in South Africa. ABC has reported on that same crisis as recently as October of 2017.
“Cable news outlets CNN and MSNBC have been equally uninterested in the ongoing land seizures. As far as print media,” the online news outlet noted.
Hammond warned in an opinion piece for US international affairs magazine The National Interest: “South Africa is beginning to head down the same path toward social and economic disaster that its northern neighbour Zimbabwe took eighteen years ago.
“Violence became common as five white farm owners and dozens more black farm workers were killed.
“Then, food shortages devastated the Zimbabwean people as food production in the nation that was once dubbed the ‘breadbasket’ of Africa, fell 60 percent within ten years. And finally, the economy was ruined as the land grab induced hyperinflation that peaked in 2008.
“In 2009, the Zimbabwean economist Eddie Cross estimated that legalising seizures of white farmland with no compensation cost Zimbabwe more than $20bn.”
Land invaders attack Pieter Boshoff’s vehicle by hurling rocks. Photo supplied
The danger signs are already there, with reports from the South African Police and the Transvaal Agricultural Union — a group representing the interests of white farmers — revealing an increase in the number of attacks on white farmers.
Hammond continued: “Ramaphosa promised that expropriating white farmlands without compensation will turn South Africa into ‘the garden of Eden’. In reality, this amendment will mean the Rainbow Nation faces increasing violence, a decline in productivity, and further economic degradation.
“Unable to boost a struggling economy, the ANC will continue pushing populist policies to bolster their popularity before the next election.
“They see sacrificing the rights of white farmers as a price worth paying for another term in office and, if the majority of South Africans willingly accept this sacrifice, the brutal consequences will come hard and fast.”
Meanwhile in Burgerfort, in the northern province of Limpopo, a white farmer was forced to flee from his farm when 70 hostile black land invaders closed in on him. Despite a court order issued against the invaders, Pieter Boshoff (70) says he now fears for his life.
Makeshift homes erected on Boshoff’s farm. Photo supplied.
The South African Police watched how the invaders started erecting makeshift homes on his property, and then attacked Boshoff with rocks, but did nothing.
The provincial police spokesperson, colonel Moatshe Ngoepe, responded by shrugging off the complaint when contacted by Afrikaans-language online outlet Maroela Media.
Boshoff’s lawyer, Chanta van der Walt, said they are experiencing many difficulties in getting police to make depositions indicting the invaders. According to Van der Walt they fear retribution if they speak out.
