No liberty without land, Vryheid hearing told
Liberation is incomplete without the return of the land, Parliament's Joint Constitutional Review Committee heard in Vryheid - the KwaZulu-Natal town with the name that means "freedom" or "liberty".
A delegation of the committee held its first public hearing on the amendment of Section 25 of the Constitution in the province on Wednesday.
The first round of 20 speakers followed the pattern established at the committee's earlier hearings in the Northern Cape, Limpopo, the Free State and Mpumalanga, where most black speakers supported an amendment, and white speakers, often representing organised farmers' organisations, opposed it.
The first speaker, a man who wore ANC colours, said an amendment must be implemented post-haste. He said people in the rural areas did not need smallholdings. Instead, they needed large tracts of land to sustain themselves.
A representative of the African Farmers' Association of South Africa said the association supported an amendment.