So after years of fighting to have the rights to their land, the government now wants to take away from the many and give to the few.

The land ownership rights of about half of South Africa's population hinges on a landmark court action heard last week. Four communities from three different provinces are challenging the constitutionality of the controversial Communal Land Rights Act (Clara) in the Pretoria High Court.

The Act will affect about 21-million people living under traditional leadership, by handing control of their communally owned land over to traditional leaders for administration. The intention of the legislation -- scheduled to come into effect at the end of this year -- is to give millions of rural South Africans security of tenure.

The communities of Kalkfontein, Makuleke, Makgobistad and Dixie from Limpopo, Mpumalanga and North West, argue that Clara is invalid and unconstitutional and will take them back to "apartheid-era tribal units".
and further

But Clara would remove the land from the control of the Makuleke community's democratically constituted communal property association and place it in the hands of a traditional council, Nhlapo argued. "The destruction of land-holding instruments of the local community, and placing control in the hands of a larger institution would inevitably undermine the tenure security of members of the local community."

"The Act will undermine our rights that we won in the restitution case," said Eric Tivani, the chairperson of the Makuleke community's property association.

The association also said that Clara discriminates against black property owners because whites do not have to deal with a tribal authority and have full title to their land.
From the M&G Online.

This whole thing seems a bit backwards. Why would the government even consider this in the first place? Isn't this similar to the setting up of the homelands by the apartheid government???