5 September 2001
South African President Thabo Mbeki said at the weekend that illegal land occupations in the country were because of a shortage of houses and not a demand for land as was the case in Zimbabwe. "The issue that we have seen more recently in South Africa with regard to this has not been a land question - it's been a housing issue," Mbeki told Reuters in an interview.
Speaking on Sunday on the sidelines of the United Nations World Conference Against Racism (WCAR), Mbeki said poor people in urban areas needed homes, not land. "They are not looking for land as land, they are looking for a place to pitch a house ... If there had been houses somewhere else then that would not have happened. In reality it's because of the particular evolution of the South African situation that you do not have in South Africa as strong a demand for land as you would find for instance in Zimbabwe," Mbeki said.
The invasion of a piece of land outside Johannesburg in July raised fears that South Africa risked the same kind of land invasions and social upheaval that is currently taking place in Zimbabwe.
Meanwhile, asked about the land issue in South Africa and Zimbabwe, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan told journalists at a press briefing on Saturday that he was not too involved with the situation in southern Africa, but he had been monitoring the situation in Zimbabwe. He said that land reform was necessary, but it had to be credible and legal and adequate compensation must be paid to those whose land was taken.
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