This article was originally published by Rhoda Wilson at The Daily Exposé under the title: Echoes of Zimbabwe’s Land Grab: South Africa’s President Signs Law That Will Enable Seizure of White Commercial Farmers’ Land

U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to cut off all future funding to South Africa due to the country’s new land expropriation law, which will lead to the confiscation of land from white farmers.  Trump says it is a “massive” human rights violation against white people.

Elon Musk has also criticized the South African government’s land reform policies, accusing them of being anti-white and allowing a “genocide” against white farmers.

The South African government, led by President Cyril Ramaphosa, has denied these claims, stating that the law is aimed at addressing the legacy of apartheid and promoting land reform.

The new land expropriation law in South Africa allows for the government to acquire land from private parties without compensation in certain circumstances, such as if the land is not being used or if it poses a risk to the public.

Some groups have warned that the law could lead to a situation similar to the seizure of white-owned commercial farms in Zimbabwe.  Officially called “land reform,” the reality is it was a hideous land grab by a tyrannical government that devastated the country.

Zimbabwe’s Land Grab

Zimbabwe’s land grab, initiated in 2000 under President Robert Mugabe, known as Africa’s Hitler, involved the expropriation of white-owned farms without compensation. This policy aimed to redistribute land from white Zimbabweans to black Zimbabweans, addressing historical grievances from the colonial period. However, the land was not given to ordinary black Zimbabweans; it was handed over to ruling party officials and Mugabe’s friends.  Mugabe’s land grab has had severe and deadly consequences, which still impact the country 25 years later.

The Zimbabwe government’s land grab was marked by violence and intimidation against white farmers, leading to deaths and displacement.  The land grab exacerbated tensions between different groups – ZANU-PF supporters and the rest of the population – and contributed to political instability. It also led to the displacement of farm workers and the loss of jobs for many Zimbabweans. Agricultural output declined, contributing to Zimbabwe’s economic collapse, including hyperinflation and food shortages, resulting in the breadbasket of Africa becoming a basket case, dependent on food imports.

In the Fort Lauderdale News on 24 September 1974, the reporter Paul Scott wrote: “It is Kissinger’s belief, according to aides, that by controlling food one can control people, and by controlling energy, especially oil, one can control nations and financial systems.”  Many have shortened this quote to: “He who controls the food controls the people.” It is this sentiment that many Zimbabweans have always believed was the motivation behind Mugabe’s land grab.  Once the population felt the effects of food shortages and Zimbabweans were reduced to near starvation, Mugabe used the distribution of food aid as a political tool to influence votes known as “food for votes.”  The first recorded use of this inhuman practice began in the lead-up to the 2002 presidential election, and it continues to this day.

Further reading:

South Africa’s Land Grab

In 2023, Elon Musk, the Pretoria-born billionaire who owns X (Twitter) and Tesla, feared that a crime against humanity was at risk of unfolding in South Africa.  He wrote that he’d heard of calls for “a genocide of white people” in his former homeland.

Musk wasn’t alone in his concerns. Steve Hofmeyr, a South African singer with a cult following, thought that the “g-word” was an appropriate way to describe what was unfolding: “If you think that the slaughter of South African farmers is not genocide enough, ask them about their land, language, religion, education, universities, heritage, monuments, safety, dignity and the race-based regulations imposed upon them and their children.”

Trump voiced a similar concern when he was in the White House for the first time. In a tweet that caused a diplomatic bust-up between South Africa and the United States in 2018, Trump referred to the “large-scale killing of farmers.”

Logging as many as 525 murders and 2,800 robberies with aggravating circumstances in a week, South Africa has one of the highest violent crime rates in the world.

Read more: South African government is not morally fit to accuse Israel of genocide

Earlier today, South African news outlet Daily Maverick published an interview with Kallie Kriel, the CEO of AfriForum.  AfriForum is a non-profit civil rights organization that was created to call up Afrikaners to participate in public debate and actions outside of the sphere of party politics.

The African National Congress (“ANC”) is the ruling left-wing nationalist political party in South Africa led by Cyril Ramaphosa.  The ANC and others blame AfriForum for Trump’s attack.  However, Kriel said the accusations being leveled at the organization are “ludicrous.”  “[The US has] an embassy and a State Department, and they can (obviously) read the Expropriation Act,” he said.

The Expropriation Act (2024), also known as the Expropriation Bill, was signed into law by President Ramaphosa on 24 January 2025. It replaces the Expropriation Act (1975) and allows the government to seize land in the name of “public purpose” and “public interest.”

“We have a problem with [Chapter 5] Article 12 (3) (of the Expropriation Act) which is open-ended. It gives a few examples of expropriation without compensation and says, for instance, that this can include but is not limited to (specific categories of property). It is very broad,” Kriel said.

“If you buy land for it to grow in value, it can be expropriated without compensation. It gives powers to municipalities, many of which are dysfunctional. Even when a legal process (opposing expropriation) is ongoing, the expropriation can go ahead. This is not in line with the Constitution,” Kriel explained.

“There is no large-scale confiscation by the government,” he said. “We are worried by the fact that there are land grabs.  We tried hard to solve this locally. If people do not want to take responsibility for the consequences of their actions, they find scapegoats (by blaming AfriForum).”

Linking Ramaphosa’s proposals in South Africa directly to the disaster Mugabe created, Kriel said: “There should be an (Expropriation Law) Amendment Act to address these primary concerns. Many parts of the Expropriation Act are not a problem. Yes, most countries do have expropriation laws. But not all countries have an expropriation act that allows for nil compensation – that’s only normal in Zimbabwe and Venezuela.”

Kriel emphasized that “the underlying concern is land grabs, with the police not doing anything to stop them (mainly in the Western Cape and Gauteng)” and cited an example.

“We represented the owner of the Akkerland farm after the ANC conference [in] 2017, during which the decision to expropriate without compensation was made,” he said.  Akkerland farm, located in Limpopo province, was earmarked for expropriation as part of a special economic zone with a majority of Chinese investors.  It ended up in court.

“There was a list compiled of which farms would be targeted,” Kriel said. “We had an informant in the Department (of Land and Rural Development) who gave us the list, which the government denied. The amount offered (R20 million rather than the ask of R200 million) was low. When there was a public outcry, the government put the price to market value. But that’s the problem: you have a government with huge resources, and a farmer has to go to court.”