Land rights of SA’s forgotten people

“Former president Thabo Mbeki noted that South Africa is two nations in one: one rich and white, the other poor and black. I would argue that South Africa is actually three nations in one: the rich in cities, the poor in cities, and the even-poorer who live in communal land areas subject to the rule of traditional leaders. Virtually all black, the even-poorer are South Africa’s forgotten, with grand economic development strategies paying little attention to them.

Almost one-third of the country’s population still live in communal land areas, which are the remains of what once constituted the apartheid-era Bantustans.

Today, most communal land is trust land, formally belonging to government, but in effect managed by traditional leaders. One exception is the land that belonged to the former KwaZulu