Amandla! South African Land Activist Energizes US Organizers

Food First was proud to sponsor the US tour of Mangaliso Kubheka, National Organizer of South Africa's Landless Peoples' Movement.  Mangaliso built global bridges between his movement and organizers in the United States.  

Mangaliso  accepted the 2005 Food First International Economic and Human Rights Award on behalf of the global small-scale farmers' network Via Campesina at Food First's 30th Year Anniversary Celebration.

Food First, Via Campesina, and the National Family Farm Coalition are proud to bring Mangaliso Kubekha to the United States to strategize with farmer organizations, community groups, universities, and policy makers on implementing Food Sovereignty locally and globally.  Mr. Kubekha brings the message that to address rural poverty and hunger – in
South Africa as in the
United States – we must support groups organizing for resources and power to create food and trade policies that meet human needs.  As the World Trade Organization strips governments of the ability to set their own food policies, Mr. Kubheka joins farmers in the United States and from around the world in organizing for better ways to feed our communities.

“Amandla!”  With his deep baritone shouts of “power!” in the Zulu language, Mangaliso Kubekha brought a roaring crowd to its feet at a farmers’ meeting preceding the 2005 World Social Forum.  Kubheka is the National Organizer for the Landless People's Movement of South Africa.  The efforts of Kubekha and millions of other South African activists successfully ended the apartheid regime and brought the African National Congress to power in 1994.  “We must remind the government what they stand for, since we put them where they are,” Kubekha states.  One of the policies of the former apartheid regime was to force Black South Africans to leave their land and property to relocate to other parts of the country.  More than 3.5 million South Africans were forcibly removed from their land between 1960 and 1980. 
South Africa's post-apartheid government committed to redistributing land to Black African farmers, and the Landless People's Movement of South Africa engages in creative nonviolent organizing to pressure the government to meet these commitments.  As the
United States confronts its own racial gulfs in the faces of survivors of hurricane
Katrina, South Africa’s struggles for racial justice and land tenure for the poor provides a mirror in which we see ourselves.

South Africa's Landless Peoples Movement is a member of Via Campesina, a global network of small-scale farmers which develops and promotes the concept of Food Sovereignty.  Food Sovereignty is the right of peoples to define their own food and agriculture, including the right to protect and regulate domestic agricultural production and trade.  To achieve this, Via Campesina calls for World Trade Organization to cease negotiations on agriculture, and works to develop trade regimes that meet the needs of farmers and consumers over those of corporations.  In the
United States, thousands of farmers and community organizations are joining Via Campesina and working for a more sustainable and just US Farm Bill and trade policies through the National Family Farm Coalition.