The apartheid military was a repository of large tracks of valuable land in the country. When one considers that the land was acquired through systematic dispossession of communities, it is therefore no surprise that the government of the day has placed land reform as a priority issue on their agenda. The SADF used the land for weapons testing and training purposes.
Land reform is essential in trying to rectify the injustices of the past.
The Defence and Development Project feels that the land reform programme must also place the conversion of military land, from defence to development purposes, firmly on its agenda. With communities now able to reclaim their land there has especially been intense struggles around the restitution of military land. The DDP is concerned with issues of conversion of military resources. An important component of the project is the conversion of military land. The difficulty in claiming land used by the military is that it is often contaminated with unexploded ordnance even after clearing exercises have been done by the military.