Former colonies calling for reparations

In Asia, huge tracts of land continue to be held in large plantations, although with the exception of the Philippines, little effort has been made there to redistribute property. In the Philippines, however, where 72 percent of rural families are landless and employment on large plantations is highly seasonable in nature, violent confrontations over land have become common.

"What has happened with the land invasions in Zimbabwe is not unlike what has happened in Brazil, in other countries in Latin America, and even in the Philippines," says Martin Adams, a researcher on land affairs who has worked with South African Department of Land and a number of international research institutions. "It's associated with these tremendous inequalities in the distribution of wealth."

The need for land reform itself is not controversial. Sections of the conference draft declaration calling for land reform passed with little controversy, and many nations, including most Southern African countries, have programs that seek to buy land and redistribute it to the landless. The question raised by Zimbabwe, and the increasing number of land occupations in South Africa, is by what means land may be redistributed.

International leaders, including UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, have condemned the violence in Zimbabwe, saying that land reform must occur within the framework of the rule of law. Next week, South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki and four other regional heads of state will travel to Harare for a two-day summit with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe aimed at resolving the crisis in that country. In South Africa, attempts to occupy land have been quickly crushed by the government, and Namibia's president has rejected a Zimbabwe-style grab of white farms despite pressure from within his own party.

Land activists, however, say government programs to buy land from farmers legitimize the original theft of land from blacks during colonialism and are moving too slowly to meet the demand for land.

"We're saying you've stolen the property, but we'll buy it back from you when you want to sell it and at what price," says Mr. Mngxitama. "Zimbabwe has been trying to do land reform this way for 20 years and has made little progress."

Some South African land groups say the land reform program has failed to deliver. When the country's new government took power in 1994, they promised to redistribute approximately 30 percent of the country's 122 million hectares in five years. Seven years later, only 3 percent of that land has been redistributed.

Mr. Adams, who is currently working with the Ugandan government on their land reform program, disagrees. He says land purchasing and redistribution programs can be successful and that in Zimbabwe, prior to 1990 when political motivation for land reform diminished, 3 million hectares out of a targeted 8.8 million had been successfully redistributed.

Nevertheless, most land experts admit that governmental land reform programs in Africa and elsewhere have had mixed success. Many countries like Uganda, which passed an ambitious land reform program in 1988, have found that the costs of such programs have exceeded even their most ambitious estimates.

But the cost of doing nothing may be more than countries can afford. "We've seen what has happened in Zimbabwe. Whatever the injustice of the disposition, for them to visit 100 years later the decedents of the dispossessors and demand the land back is quite a disaster," Martins says. "I think the South African situation is basically going the same direction."

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