South Africans have witnessed a Zimbabwe-style land invasion within a few kilometres of Johannesburg International Airport and been alerted to its potential impact on the value of the rand.
In an unfolding drama with long-term implications, thousands of landless blacks have, with the encouragement of the opposition Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), moved onto a deserted expanse of land near Kempton Park, a small town adjacent to South Africa's biggest and busiest airport.
The PAC, formed in the late 1950s by Africanists in the African National Congress disgruntled with what they perceived to be the disproportionate influence of the descendants of Europeans and Asians in the organisation, allocated plots of land to homeless blacks in return for a "registration fee" of R25.
Denying charges of profiteering, the PAC insisted that the R25 payment was made voluntarily to pay for the legal costs of opposing a pending government application for a court injunction ordering the squatters to vacate the land (which, though vacant, has several owners, including the government, two state-funded utilities and a farmer).
The occupation of the land - or, as the PAC sees it, its repossession by the original owners - built up steadily until Thursday, when government officials, including the Land Affairs Minister, Ms Thoko Didiza, moved in to halt the process with the help of armed police.
Amid growing tension and threats of physical resistance - which had earlier seen the temporary withdrawal of government officials on the advice of security officers - 200 squatters were arrested as suspected trespassers.
Nearly half of them were later released without being charged. A handful of people, thought to PAC militants, were taken into custody on charges of incitement to unlawful occupation of land.
Ms Didiza, one of several women in the ANC-led government, stressed that the redistribution of land - which is still heavily skewered in favour of whites - had to occur in a lawful manner. "The rule of law has to be followed," she said.
The determined action of government against the invasion - which included an urgent application for a court eviction order - drew a clear distinction between South Africa (where government upheld the rights of property owners) and Zimbabwe (where Mr Robert Mugabe's government has viewed land invasions approvingly).
But it did not halt the steady decline in the rand which fell to a record low of R8.24 to the dollar yesterday.