South Africa: Returned land an "election ploy"

The government returned to three coloured communities on Monday a parcel of land confiscated under apartheid in the 1970s, but the families dismissed the move as an election ploy. Land Affairs Minister Thoko Didiza was in the Lohatlha area in the northwest of the country to return 2000 hectares of land to the Gatlhose, Maremane and Khosis communities, whose land was turned into a military school in the 1970s. But a spokesperson for the communities, Marcia Manong, said the apartheid government had confiscated 62 000 hectares of land from more than 500 families in the community between 1975 and 1978.