FACT CHECK: CNN’s Anderson Cooper Falsely Claims Blacks Own 4% of Private Land in South Africa

CLAIM: “30 years after apartheid, black South Africans are over 80 percent of the population, but still only own 4 percent of private land.”

VERDICT: FALSE. Cooper’s figure has been debunked, and likely exaggerates racial disparities.

CNN continues to contribute to the claim — embraced by the South African government — that President Donald Trump’s concern for the welfare of white Afrikaners is driven by misinformation and racism.

To that end, this week Anderson Cooper repeated an oft-cited, but inaccurate, claim that black South Africans only own 4% of privately owned land in the country.

From the CNN transcript:

I personally know a white landowner who was murdered years ago on his farm, but it was a crime. It was not a genocide. As far as farmland being confiscated, last year, South Africa passed a law which allows the government to seize land without payment in some cases, and redistribute it if it’s found to be just and equitable and in the public interest. Now, supporters say it was an attempt to right the wrongs of apartheid, which saw land confiscated from blacks by Afrikaners.

30 years after apartheid, black South Africans are over 80 percent of the population, but still only own 4 percent of private land. Now, whatever you might think of that law, whether you support it or not, the South African government says they haven’t actually seized anyone’s land yet and at least not yet. The president says it’s a genocide and that’s not true. And that falsehood is what has predicated Afrikaners getting fast-track status to America over the millions of people across the globe facing political or religious persecution or any number of other circumstances, which would qualify them for refugee status.

The 4% figure is wrong, as South Africa’s Institute of Race Relations (IRR) pointed out earlier this year:

The misrepresentation of data around land ownership is distorting how the public understands the issue, and how it is debated.

This is most clearly seen in the frequent claim – without proper contextualisation – that 72% of the country’s farmland is owned by “white” people as opposed to only 4% owned by “black” people.

…

The 72%-4% split is drawn from data in the official 2017 land audit report … . It refers only to freehold land held by individuals and registered at the deeds office. The report shows that coloured [i.e. mixed-race] people own 15% of such land, Indian people 5%, “others” 3%, and co-ownership schemes, 1%. But land held on these terms accounts for only about a third of the land in the country (while this is often described as farmland, it is better understood as “rural” land, as much of it is not in use for agriculture).

Landholding across South Africa – urban and rural – is held in the following manner: individuals, 30.4%; trusts, 24%; the state, 23%; companies, 19%; community-based organisations, 2.9%; and co-ownership schemes, 0.7%. For the overwhelming majority of South Africa’s land, it is not possible to assign a “racial” identity.

Says [Terence Corrigan, Projects and Publications Manager at the IRR]: “It is revealing – and damaging – that the narrative constructed around the 72%-4% split conveys the message that ‘nothing has changed.’ It erases the modest land reform successes that have been achieved, since this tends to happen through community rather than individual schemes. It also ignores recognising that land to which black people have historically had access – the erstwhile homelands – has been state property and remains so three decades after the transition.”

In 2018, a separate IRR publication noted that even according to the controversial 2017 land audit, black South Africans own the majority (56%) of land in urban areas.