Land reform in South Africa has been slow and inept
ZABALAZA MSHENGU was born on a farm in Ashburton, in the east of South Africa, on January 11th 1914. Seven months earlier the government had passed the Natives Land Act, which marked out 90% of the country for whites, who made up just 21% of the population. It was among the first of many laws to codify segregation. From 1948, under apartheid, 3.5m blacks were forcibly moved to isolated reservations called “homelands”. Mr Mshengu, however, remained. He became a “labour tenant”, working without pay on a white-owned farm in exchange for untitled land at its edge. There he grew maize and herded goats. He buried his parents, then five of his seven children, on the land.
After the advent of democracy in 1994 the African National Congress (ANC) pledged restitution, usually in the form of land, for those expelled from their homes and for labour tenants. Mr Mshengu lodged a claim in 2000. In 2007 the Land Claims Court said he met the relevant criteria. Yet deeds never arrived. Despite many...