smh.com.au

Whites warned of Zimbabwe-style seizures

A crowd runs past burning barricades in Phillipi, Cape Town. Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets in the latest clash between authorities and protesters demanding land and housing. Photo: AFP

By Ed O'Loughlin, Herald Correspondent in Johannesburg

White South African business should "share" more with blacks or risk Zimbabwe-style seizures, the country's leading black businessman has said.

Mr Cyril Ramaphosa, a senior figure in the ruling African National Congress and chairman of the TML media group, told the BBC that too much of South Africa's economy was still in white hands despite efforts at "black economic empowerment".

"If we don't do anything, if we don't move quick enough, yes, [Zimbabwe-style attacks on white farms and business] could happen. That is a fair warning," Mr Ramaphosa said.

"We want the white private sector in this country to heed that warning. Let us all be aware of the responsibility and share. Share what we have."

Zimbabwe has announced the seizure of 90per cent of white-owned farm land in an attempt to head off growing popular opposition to the 20 year-rule of President Robert Mugabe.

Eight white farmers have been killed by self-proclaimed liberation war veterans organised by Mr Mugabe's party. Another is in critical condition following an axe attack at his home on Monday.

In recent months South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki has been criticised at home and abroad for failing to condemn attacks on whites and opposition supporters in Zimbabwe.

This year Government supporters, who call themselves veterans of Zimbabwe's war of independence, have spread their intimidation campaign from farms to white-owned businesses and foreign aid agencies. Foreign investors' fear of "contagion" from Zimbabwe has contributed to the South African currency's big slump on international markets.

Mr Ramaphosa said previous efforts to boost black participation in the private economy had not gone far enough. As chairman of the Black Economic Empowerment Commission he recently called for new legislation to force white business to share more of its wealth with black business people.

Mr Ramaphosa, formerly leader of the National Union of Mineworkers, quit active politics after losing out to Mr Mbeki in the contest to succeed former president Nelson Mandela.

He became one of South Africa's wealthiest blacks through the first round of post-apartheid "black empowerment" deals, in which white-owned conglomerates sold off chunks of stock to well-connected black entrepreneurs in supposed "sweetheart" deals.

Although at one point the resulting "black chip" corporations controlled 10 per cent of the Johannesburg stock market, this has slumped to about 2per cent.

Mr Mbeki has again baffled doctors and AIDS activists by declaring that violence rather than the AIDS epidemic sweeping Africa is the main cause of death in his country.

Official figures show South Africa with one of the highest murder rates in the world, with 22,000 of its 40 million people murdered each year. Another 10,500 die in road accidents. However, the United Nations estimates 7million South Africans will die of HIV/AIDS in the next decade, an average of 700,000 a year.

It is estimated that one in 10 people carries the virus.

Asked if he accepted that AIDS, rather than racism or corruption, was the greatest threat to his country, Mr Mbeki told the BBC that he had learned that more than half of South Africans who died between the ages of 16 and 64 were killed by violence.

-- Anonymous, August 14, 2001