Security of tenure had very little meaning for the vast majority of South Africans as Nelson Mandela walked out of Pollsmoor prison. Told where to live and what citizenship to have by apartheid, where to reside by the Group Areas Act, liable to eviction at the whim of any landlord or security force, easily arrested for trespass, black South Africans faced often insurmountable legal obstacles establishing their right to live in and to occupy their own land. South Africans too found that their recently bought houses could be attached and sold by the bank with great ease as interest rates climbed in the early 90's to over 20%. The slight sign of improving tenure security in a highly dangerous, racist and volatile society was the announcement of the impending constitutional negotiations and the appointment in 1991 of the Advisory Commission on
Land Allocations to consider the return of land forcibly removed to dispossessed Black South Africans...

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