EFF leader Julius Malema led a debate in Parliament today on amending Section 25 of the Constitution, calling for land expropriation without compensation.
Malema told the House that the EFF would add its 6% to the ANC’s 62% to get the two-thirds required to amend the Constitution, and called on the ruling party to support the motion to set up an ad hoc committee on the issue.
"If you vote against this, it’s a waste of time. We are already giving our people the land and we are not ashamed," he said.
"People of South Africa, where you see a beautiful land, take it, it belongs to you."
Malema revisited history as motivation for his party’s stance for expropriation without compensation.
"We all know that the Dutch gangsters arrived here and took our land by force. The struggle has since been about the return of the land into the hands of rightful owners."
He said the ANC had sold out when it negotiated a new Constitution in the early 1990s.
"So, those who [now] claim to be radical enough and who want radical change should actually be in the forefront in agreeing that the Constitution must be changed to make it possible for our people to own the land," he said in reference to the ANC’s radical economic transformation policy.
He said it was not right that 10% of the population owned more than 75% of the land.
He said South Africa remains a conquered nation because white monopoly capital still owned the means of production, and at the centre of that was the land question.
South Africa was the only country where a revolution had taken place, but those "oppressing us" did not lose anything.
He said the motion would unite black people in the country, and no white person would understand the clarion call, as they didn’t understand the pain of losing land.
"Many generations died without even knowing what a title deed looks like."
He said expropriation without compensation was the only way to return land to the rightful owners.
The EFF's motion was defeated in Parliament by 261 votes to 33. Two MPs abstained.
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/if-you-see-a-beautiful-piece-of-land-take-it-malema-20170228
