praag.co.uk

South Africans must take back the land that belongs to them without having to pay for it, ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema said in Cape Town on Tuesday.

"Willing buyer, willing seller is not an alternative... The alternative from the youth league is that we take the land without paying. That is what we are proposing," he told the league's provincial council at the University of the Western Cape.

While blacks had forgiven the previous regime for apartheid, he did not understand why they had to pay for what belonged to them.

"They never bought the land, they stole the land. They did not only steal the land, they converted the owners of the land into slaves... now we must pay for that with the willing buyer, willing seller... ."

At the rate the land redistribution programme was currently going, in 100 years the government would only have delivered 25% of the land, he argued.

He was speaking ahead of the league's 24th national congress, which would start in Midrand on Thursday. Delegates were expected to push for the nationalisation of the mines and land redistribution.