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- WORLD, Page 47World NotesSOUTH AFRICAFor Sale Or Rent
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- The banner headline in the Johannesburg Star summed up the
- historic day: APARTHEID'S PILLARS COME CRASHING DOWN. South
- Africa's white-dominated Parliament last week repealed the
- notorious Land Acts and the Group Areas Act, which divided
- residential areas along racial lines and restricted land
- ownership by blacks, reserving 87% of the country's land for
- whites. Now blacks will be free to buy, use or rent land and
- property anywhere in South Africa. The scrapping of the
- legislation was a victory for President F.W. de Klerk, who
- pledged last February to get rid of all remaining discriminatory
- laws by the close of the parliamentary session on June 30.
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- While the action was symbolically important, in practice
- there will be little visible change. Only a small number of
- middle-class blacks are yet able to afford houses in the plush
- white suburbs, and many of the cheaper inner-city apartment
- blocks have been unofficially multiracial for years. At the same
- time, the government has so far opposed any moves to restore
- land confiscated during the apartheid era to the original black
- owners.
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