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MKMVA welcomes plans to amend Section 25

Land
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The MK Military Veterans Association (MKMVA) has welcomed the Joint Parliamentary Constitutional review Committee’s adoption of the resolution to amend Section 25 of the Constitution.

Member of the MKMVA National Executive Committee, Carl Niehaus says the amendment of property clause is long overdue.

Niehaus says the authors of the current section ignored the reality that black people in particular , Africans were forcefully removed from their land by the colonial masters and the Nationalists apartheid regime.

Niehaus says there will be no justice until the land is returned to its rightful owners. “The consequences of apartheid like Groups Areas Act, the removal of the majority of blacks and especially African people from their land. All of that should be part of the project justice; it should come to an end. The Parliamentary constitutional review committee made a decision that finally the report on the change of the Constitution in order to have the expropriation of land without compensation is accepted.”

Niehaus says it cannot be proper that after 24 years of democracy most of the land still belongs to minority groups. He says the land question, if not addressed, has the potential of pushing back all the political gains achieved since 1994. Niehaus says a true multiracial and multicultural society, as advocated by ArchBishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, cannot be realised if land ownership continues to remain in the hands of the few.

“When ArchBishop Desmond Tutu spoke about the Rainbow Nation, I think he expressed the hope,  the reality is that we do not yet have a Rainbow Nation and until we address the injustice of the past, redress those; until we deal with issues such as land, Until we deal with issues such as small minority that control the economy of this country, forget about true reconciliation. Forget about talking about the Rainbow Nation. It cannot be achieved without justice.”

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