LISTEN | ‘Whites are thieves and there won’t be peace’: Malema urges supporters to occupy ‘stolen’ land

EFF leader Julius Malema has doubled down on his party’s radical stance on land reform, vowing the EFF in government would expropriate farms without compensation and hand them to farm workers.

Speaking to a cheering crowd at Sophiatown Extreme Park in Johannesburg on Sunday, Malema said land must be returned to the people who work it.

“When the EFF goes into government we will expropriate farms and give them to the farm workers because no white man works the farm,” he said.

“It is black people who are driving tractors, harvesting and know how to work the land. We require no white supervision. Let the farms be returned to the farm workers.”

Listen to Malema:

Malema’s comments come while he has been expressing the EFF's readiness to enter the government of national unity, but only if the ANC removes the DA from the coalition. 

He said the fight for land remains at the heart of the EFF’s mission.

“The EFF is at the centre of championing the struggle for the return of the land. We must never sleep in the duty. They wish we can forget the issue of land. We will never forget because this land belongs to us.”

Malema invoked the memory of South Africa’s resistance heroes in his message.

“BaSotho, amaXhosa, amaZulu, baPedi, they all fought for the land. Because the land is not yet returned, we are duty-bound to pick up the spear and continue the fight to reclaim what belongs to us.”

He also made remarks about white landowners and the legacy of apartheid.

“They must be reminded all the time that they are thieves. When they say, ‘I am not a thief, I was born after 1994’, tell them anyone in possession of stolen goods is a criminal, therefore they are thieves too. If they don’t want to continue the legacy of their parents, they must return the stolen goods to the rightful owner. We will see whether we forgive them.

“As long as the land is in the hands of the minorities, there will never be peace in SA. How can you have peace when people are landless? Our people want land, dignity to defeat poverty and crime. You can only do that when you have the land.”

He linked crime to economic inequality, saying: “They say there are no white criminals. Why would there be white criminals? They’ve got everything. If you give us what they have, we will not be criminals.”

Malema rejected the recently signed Expropriation Act, which allows for expropriation with nil compensation under specific conditions.

“We need to identify every piece of land that belongs to us and start using it for the benefit of everyone. We don’t want the Expropriation Act that [President Cyril] Ramaphosa signed in its current form. How do you give criminals money?”

He ended his address with the controversial chant “kill the Boer, Kill the farmer”, a slogan that has repeatedly drawn legal challenges and public condemnation but has been defended as being part of historical rhetoric.

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