In February 1995, the South African government launched a land redistribution pilot program. In a press conference on February 28, 1995, Land Affairs Minister Derek Hanekom said the object of the plan was to “achieve equitable and fair land distribution and to promote and secure the effective use of land as a resource, in a sustainable way. That is a major challenge.” The program which would go underway in areas in each of the nine provinces would cost 315 million rand (87 million dollars). Hanekom said that “80 percent of South African land belonged to 65,000 white farmers and the ultimate goal was to redistribute some 30 percent of that, most of which would come from bankrupt white farmers who had been kept afloat by state aid during apartheid rule.”¹

According to Joanne Yawitch, an ANC land-policy adviser, ” A reconstruction and development program of Mr. Mandela’s African National Congress aims Õto redistribute 30 per cent of agricultural land within the first five years of the program.Õ But it is a goal that may take twice as long to meet ‘because there will be huge fights.Õ”²

On November 8, 1994, Parliament passed a bill so that “victims of forced removals in South Africa can now reclaim their land”. “Millions of South African blacks who since 1913 were forcibly removed from their land under apartheid, can lodge claims for the return of their property”. The 212 members of Parliament voted in favor. Twenty six members rejected it. About 3.5 million poor and dispossessed people are to benefit under the government’s land reform program. Some 30 percent of agricultural land would be redistributed within five years.³

Substantive issues related to economic reform, especially land reform, were addressed in the interim constitution.

No further developments observed.

On September 5, 2001, the government finally tabled the long-awaited draft legislation to establish the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities. The formation of the commission would promote respect for and protect the rights of “cultural, religious and linguistic communities.”⁴

The national assembly approved the bill in March 2002. On July 22, 2004, the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities (CRL Commission) was officially launched in South Africa—the last of the “State Institutions Supporting Constitutional Democracy” to be set up under Chapter 9 of the 1996 Constitution.⁵Sean Morrow, “A South African Commission’s Mandate To Protect Cultural Rights,” Human Rights Dialogue: “Cultural Rights” (April 22, 2005), accessed July 13, 2010, http://www.cceia.org/resources/publications/dialogue/2_12/online_exclusi…

On April 10, 2000, the South African government appointed a committee of well-known community leaders and experts to advise the government on cultural, religious and linguistic rights. The committee was “charged to advise the government on the establishment of the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic communities.” “As one of the last independent institutions required by the Constitution to be established, the commission’s main functions are to promote respect of the rights of communities as well as to develop peace, tolerance and national unity, among others.”⁶ The commission has yet to be established.

The commission was not established in 1999, even after three years of constitutional provisions.

President Mandela, in his address to the Parliament on February 6, 1998, said that the government was a step closer to setting up the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities.⁷

The Constitutional development minister, Valli Moosa, said, on May 13, 1998, that he would table a proposal during the parliamentary session for the formation of a commission for the promotion and protection of the rights of cultural, religious and linguistic communities. The commission was said to be formed only after consultation with other parties.⁸ No such bill was presented in the Parliament.

The CPPR was not established in 1997.

According to a news report, “a compromise has been brokered in the language and customs area with a proposed Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural Religious and Linguistic Communities, which in essence prohibits the state from barring private institutions such as schools from promoting minority rights.”⁹

According to the Human Rights Commission of South Africa, the amorphous nature of cultural rights is recognized by the 1996 Constitution by providing a constitutional mechanism to establish a Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities (CPPR). The “Constitution protects minority rights. Specific attention has been paid to avoiding terminology, such as ethnic minority to avoid any association with the ethnic particularism of apartheid ideology. Instead the language of the Constitution refers to “persons belonging to a cultural community.” The emphasis has been focused on the minority rights of Afrikaans speaking whites.¹⁰“Economic Social and Cultural Rights in South Africa” Human Rights Commission of South Africa, 2000, accessed July 13, 2010, http://www.humanrights.se/upload/files/2/Rapporter%20och%20seminariedok/…

The CPPR, however, was not established in 1996.