In a statement to mark the Day of Reconciliation today (which will be officially observed only tomorrow), EFF spokesperson Mbuyiseni Ndlozi said that what they were celebrating was parliament’s resolution this year to amend the constitution to allow land expropriation without compensation.

They said today marked 180 years since about 470 Boer trekkers had, according to legend, faced off against a much larger Zulu army of 10,000 and prevailed against them, suffering only three losses.

He said “white supremacists” had used the holiday commemorating this day to “memorialise their crime of land dispossession against the indigenous people”.

He said only through “the restoration of dignity of access to land can we say black people, Africans in particular, can confidently claim true and genuine decolonisation”.

EFF STATEMENT ON RECONCILIATION DAY pic.twitter.com/s6vWCMgUC9 — Economic Freedom Fighters (@EFFSouthAfrica) December 16, 2018

The December 16 holiday was recast as Reconciliation Day after South Africa ushered in a democratic government in the 1990s.

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