Even before Nelson Mandela and the post-apartheid South African government took power in 1994, the issue of land redistribution loomed large: The colonial system put 87 percent of land in the hands of 60,000 white farmers and the state. Over 19 million mostly poor, black and landless South Africans were crowded into the remaining 13 percent.

As early as 1993, the World Bank warned that if the government did not undertake "a major restructuring of the rural economy centered on significant land transfers and smaller scale agricultural production units," the country would face the danger of rural violence and possibly civil war.

Ushering in reform
Once installed, South Africa's new government chose to tackle land reform in two ways: restitution that assessed and processed claims from people who said they were unfairly forced off their land under apartheid, and redistribution, which transferred state-owned other land to formerly disadvantaged communities.

The original plan was for land restitution and redistribution through voluntary market transactions -- known as the willing buyer/willing seller approach -- with a goal of transferring 30 percent of white-owned farmland over five years. However, nearly ten years later, only 2 percent has been transferred. More than 9 of every 10 acres of commercial farmland remain in the hands of 50,000 white farmers, according to The New York Times.

The slow pace of land transfer, combined with increasing political pressure leading up to the April 14 elections, has forced President Thabo Mbeki's African National Congress government to offer new ideas about how to speed up the process.

A revised redistribution program in 2001 increased grants from 16,000 rands (R) per household (about $4,500) to between R20,000 and R100,000, depending on what individuals could contribute to the purchase price of land. The revised program also made grants available to adult individuals as opposed to households, so that multiple adults from the same household could pool their resources.

More controversially, in 2004, Mbeki signed several amendments to the 1994 Restitution of Land Rights Act, including one that allows his minister of agriculture, Thoko Didiza, to expropriate farms without going to court.

According to Chief Land Claims Commissioner Tozi Gwanya, this was only to be used as a last resort.

"Market-based land reform generally may be accepted, but it has inherent problems, more so if there is unwillingness on the part of those concerned, especially the sellers," Gwanya told the Financial Mail.

Confiscation is only allowed in cases where black South Africans can show that the land was once theirs, and that it was unfairly seized. The law also says that the existing owner must be fully compensated.

Critics like Andries Botha, land issues spokesman for the opposition Democratic Alliance, say the new laws will encourage Zimbabwe-style land invasions.

"We are moving from the rule of law to the law of rule," Botha warned in the Sunday Times of London. "ANC ministers imagine themselves as beings of infinite wisdom whose actions should not be questioned. In 1990 the Zimbabwean minister of agriculture also held this kind of view."

More than 1,500 South African farmers have been killed in land-related violence since 1991, according to the Economist magazine.

Political analysts say the effects of the new powers will not be known until after the April 14th elections.

History of land restitution
Since the end of apartheid, the Reconstruction and Development Program has been the centerpiece of South Africa's land reform. The program focuses on land restitution: a legal process whereby people who can prove they were dispossessed of their land after 1913 (when the colonial government formally restricted African land ownership in the Natives Land Act) could regain the land or receive financial compensation.

The new constitution, which Parliament approved in 1996, included the "property clause," which demanded fair, market-related compensation for land taken in the public interest, including through land restitution and land redistribution.

Under the rules, anyone who lost land "due to racially discriminatory measures" since 1913 could take their claims to the Land Court. All claims had to be lodged by the end of 1998 and most cases were settled amicably with compensation paid.

To date, the Land Claims Commission has settled 45,096 of the 79,000 valid claims lodged before the December 1998 cut-off date.

One criticism of the process is that cases that were disputed and sent to the Land Claims Court for adjudication were caught in red tape.

"It soon became clear that the court-driven process was antagonistic and painstakingly slow, hence the settlement of only 41 land claims between 1995 and March 1999," Gwanya said.

The pace accelerated after President Mbeki instructed the Commission to finalize all claims by the end of 2005.

Gwanya said all claims would be settled by 2005, adding that, "by world standards, South Africa has been on the fast track in implementing restitution, considering the slow pace in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Germany and Estonia."

In a separate program launched in 2000, the government plans to purchase and redistribute about 30 percent of agricultural land to promote black commercial farming by 2015. However, critics point out that with just $183 million in the current year's land reform budget, the goal is not practical. Analysts estimate it will take several billion dollars to reach the 30 percent target, according to reporter John Donnelly of the Boston Globe.

Looking ahead
The slow pace of land reform has taken a political toll on the ruling ANC party and the government is feeling pressure from both sides.

A group of white farmers, the Transvaal Agricultural Union, recently established a restitution resistance fund to resist land claims.

On the other side is a fast-growing political faction called the Landless People's Movement, which claims 100,000 members and threatens farm invasions in early 2005, at the height of the presidential election season. "We are going to shake them," said Magaliso Kubheka, who organized the group, according to The New York Times.

At the People's Tribunal on Landlessness and Rural Poverty in March, 250 rural leaders released a statement rejecting the property clause in the constitution, saying that it protects those who have profited from apartheid, and demanded an extension to the cut-off date for restitution claims.

-- By Leah Clapman, Online NewsHour