EFF STATEMENT ON RECONCILIATION DAY
Sunday, 16 December 2018
The EFF takes this opportunity on the Day of Reconciliation, to celebrate the parliamentary process towards the restoration of land to the indigenous people. We celebrate the resolution in parliament, to amend the constitution and allow land expropriation without compensation for equal redistribution.
The EFF has been consistent over the years, that the most important and most urgent need for the humanization of black people, is reconciliation with their land. This is particularly important as today marks 180 years since the defeat of the Zulu armies by Afrikaner colonialists in 1838, during the Great Trek. In this battle of the Blood River, Afrikaners pride themselves that against all odds, a force of around 470 faced 10,000 Zulu warriors who were assaulted them from every side. It is said that only three Afrikaners died, whilst the Zulus sustained 3000 casualties.
Over the years the white supremacists have used this holiday to memorialize their crime of land dispossession against the indigenous people. Despite the formation of Umkhonto We Sizwe on the same day 57 years ago, in 1961, as a response and vow to fight for the restoration of land to African people. It is only following the successful motion of the EFF in parliament, that the true response to the battle of the Blood River has been finally constituted. Only through the restoration of the dignity of access to land can we say black people, Africans in particular, can confidently claim true and genuine decolonization.
Race relations between black and white people can only be sustainable once the land question has been resolved. In the spirit of our democratic dispensation based on human rights, land must be expropriated without compensation for equal redistribution. For our country to know genuine and lasting peace between the former colonizers and former colonized, Africans, who are a majority, must have access to land.
Statement issued by the Economic Freedom Fighters, 16 December 2018
