In an effort to compensate for years of apartheid, South Africa is reclaiming white-owned land and redistributing it to black settlers. The first of these enforced seizures was carried out earlier this month. The plan reeks of the problems endemic to the same land-reform idea employed in now-economically-desolate Zimbabwe.

South African President Thabo Mbeki “has come under criticism for failing to resolve the issue of land restitution, something he promised to complete by 2005,” wrote Stratfor (February 15). In order to head off a challenge to his leadership of the African National Congress (anc) ahead of party primaries scheduled for December, he has pushed land reform toward the Zimbabwe model.

For some years, under South Africa’s “land reform” policy, white-owned farms have steadily been taken over based on a “willing buyer, willing seller” principle. During this time, immense pressure has been placed on farmers, with squatters illegally occupying white-owned farms and government security doing nothing about it. Mid last year, the South African government went one step further by giving white farmers an ultimatum: Sell their farms for an agreed price within six months or face being forcefully evicted from their farms.

Now, the government is making good on that threat. In its first expropriation of privately owned land, the government seized a 62,271-acre farm in Barkley West owned by the Evangelical Lutheran Church on February 13.

This same type of land redistribution program was a primary cause of Zimbabwe’s plummet to economic ruin. President Robert Mugabe started his forcible land redistribution program for political purposes, just as Mbeki is doing. While Mugabe succeeded in getting re-elected, the ripple effects through Zimbabwe’s economy include uncontrollable inflation rates and unemployment hovering around 70 percent. It is believed that South Africa may follow in the unsuccessful footsteps of its northern neighbor.

While many people suffered wrongly under apartheid, land redistribution will create only more problems. The clanging of Zimbabwe’s tumbling economy bears witness to that. Making whites turn over their farms to people with, in many cases, little or no farming experience could have a devastating effect on the country’s economy. South Africa, which has been so richly blessed in natural resources, may find itself trying to live off fallow ground.