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FORCED REMOVAL• On a continent fast losing the race to feed itself,

most of our rural communities under threat of removal are self-sufficient — and more.

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• In mediaeval England they used to paint white crosses on houses struck by the plague. In medi­aeval modern-day South Africa, black people nave come to know that a white number painted on a house can also be a sentence of death.

• Once a community like Driefontein has be n des­troyed and its livelihood taken away, the resettled people seldom have any means of starting peasant agriculture again.

• Mr P W Botha and his cabinet should sit down one day and ask themselves whether they really believe they can continue dumping people on to tlib L *id and expect their to stay t 'ere. Do lb y not e the signs that the 'homelands’ may be ie clung burst ing-point?

Published by the BLACK SASH, Khot r I^ouse, 42 de Villiers Street, Johannesburg. with nermiwof' n !■>IP' "rT TV,_

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Behind the little flags on maps

Following the shooting of its leader. the tiny Transvaal village of Driefontein is the of a brief blaza :n the world's spotlights. JOHN KANE-BERMAN step; behind the facades into tft* day-to-d.y

realities of Driefontein, and point* out that it it jurt one example of a giant piece at social engineering whose only assured effect is that its intended results backfire.

u-sfeu;* ux tr ic S ' :V ' * ri

Saul Mkhize addressing a group of elderly

TWO hundred miles to the south east of Driefontein Consolidated Limit­ed. the world's richest geld mine, is

mother place tailed Driefontein — w/icse owners face removal to the “ home­lands" because the government thinks they are “poorly situated” and need to be “consolidated".-

tvery now and then an act of cruelty or violence causes* brief flicker of public attention to what is happening to South Africa's “poorly situated" people.

In October 1979, Moama Sekole, a father of six who worked in Johannes­burg as a gardener, returned home to his village in the northern Transvaal to find his family scattered and lis house, built with his life savings, in ruins It had been demolished in the course of a removal. Saying he now had no future, Sekole went out and hanged himself.

In June last year, a newspaper report­ed “heartbroken Fin go leader collapses m Parliament” . Isaac Tembeni and seven other villagers had travelled through the night from the Ciskei to see Dr Koornhof, the minster responsible for removing “poorly situated” people. They said their community of 500 families had beea removed from fertile lands near the Tsitsikama forest to two-roomed huts in a Ciskei location, Elukhanywetu. “ I came to see Minister Koornhof s face so that our children should cme day know that we were not afraid to go to the highest authority to put our case,” Tembeni said.

Dr Koornhof, as we have come to expect of him, said that his door always stood open to people who wanted hit help. However, ha added, he could not see these particular people because they were now citizen of a foreign country and must go through diplomatic channels. That too we have come to expect of Dr Koomhof. Exhausted after his long journey and hit fruitless wait into the night to sec Dr Koornhof, Tembeni collapsed j i the corridors of Parliament.

This year, on Saturday 2nd April, a white policeman half his age shot Saul Mkhize dead in tne Transvaal Driefontein. where 5 000 people face removal Once again, the newspapers and (foreign! tele­vision showed a modicum of interest in the plight of the “ poorly sit-a ted” . One or two political groups bussed themselves in for Mr Mkhize'i funeral, and another martyr was proclaimed.

The real tragedy of Saul Mkhize and

OtheB luce him is that the public shows no interest in them until they are dead. Mkhize the dead martyr attracted a thousand times more attention in and outside South Africa than Mkhize the living hero was able to. The continuing tragedy of Dnefontein is that when the televwio* cameras and the clenched fists have been put away, Mkhize’s people will again find themselves almost completely alone in their battle to be left m peace. A lawyer and an MP or two, a handful of advice office workers, and perhaps a few friends will be the only people retailing aay interest.

Political commentators may earnestly point out how much damage the govern­ment doea itself internationally every time it creates another martyr, but the fact remains that the killing of Saul Mkhize has removed the main obstacle to the destruction of his community. That fact is not altered when the “Congress of Soutfe African Students" or the “ Work- eis’ Support Committee” r ;kes use of his funeral for a piece of political theatre that is simply irrelevant to the plight facia* the people he has left behind.

One needs no ideological perspective to appreciate the absolu.e ick -dneiS of what the government h . ,n store to: Driefontein. One has only to 'tand z' S aJ Wkhize's house or i W'side an j lock down at *ht rest of Dr »n ntein stretching away be;ow u. wonder a what kind of a country South Vfric3 is ‘hat it allovrs it* rulers to do s c n ^ : u so uu*r- ly destructive.

Yet, a dam is to be tu ilt nearby, and

Drieforrtsin res*:Ei-ts.| yes, it wt!i '"ood some of the Driejontem j properties But -nore than two-thirds of

them will r o t be flooded — and the Drie­fontein people have shown them .ei/es enterprising enough to turn the dam to advanta^; by putting fish into it. They could fish .not only for their own con­sumption but also for sale to others m the area — the kind of initiative one would have thought the Small Business Development Corporation would encourage.

Driefontein is not a wealthy village. But on a continent fast losing the race to feed itself, .t a self-sufficient - and more. The peasants and their tenants rear cattle, goats, and chickens. They grow maize, pumpkins, potatoes, and peach trees. Drought hss hurt them this year, but when the rams are good they produce a food surplus to sell in neighbouring white towns, including Wakkeistroom Several of the p lr;c»-'ers own tractors.

White Sa’Jth Af. icans like to claim that black people are clueless when it comes to .’arming. Dr.efontein is not >r.'y proof of the opposite bt.t one of the vestiges v,i a bygone ’.ge th it ha* so far escaped aestiue'inn. A. nvud th~ '^ ir

! the centur 'ack pco"le were n.-.v:I i: :xy . i ~ 1 fi >7 w h . : tarm-• .rs ii.J c 'cfir- }v — i.i.e'ir.c the:.'

prod.^e a 'he B-. m i in iin ’nines ai d ncur . yjft^reG a s?\er?

hhotir shortage in .! e yt s ti nr in Boer ’Aar An ;nJ; -ndent peasantr posed j i . r-v io u ‘ threat. So mea urrs were devised to step furt.ne: land -u'chas-

Houseproud Driefontein mother*.a and thereby create a landless proleta­riat that had no choice but to work for low pay.

The Natives Land Act of 1913 not only began carving up the country into what are now the “w tite” areas and the “homelands” , but also prohibited further land transactions between black and white. Driefontein escaped by one year, having been bought in 1912 on behalf of the Native Farmers’ Association of Africa Ltd by P. ka Serna, a Johannesburg attorney who later became president- general of the African National Congress.

Seme's plan was to subdivide Drie- fontein into plots for individual stand- owners, of whom theie axe now about 300. Some of them lease out part of their small acreage to tenants with 'vhom they practise sharecropping. They have sunk boreholes and dug wells, and built small thops, schools, churches, and sturdy homes.

...e houses are not the land of tin shanties that one tecs in old Crossroads in C<>pe Town or in Soweto backy irc Many axe solid traditional stjne structur es. Otiiers, built of stock brick and point­ed white, would not look out of place in many a Johannesburg suburb.

Another striking feature of Dr.e- fontem is the piles of firewood to be seen One does not sea much firewood in the "homeland” areas into which "poorly situa . :d” people are deposited. These areas become overpopulated so rapidly that vegetation is progressively destroyed as displaced people chop down all the trees in their forage further and further afield for fuel.

In mediaeval England they used to paint white crosses om houses struck by the piague. In mediaeval modem-day South Africa, black people have come to know that a white number painted on a

1}

house can also be a sentence of death. In Driefontein, in November last yeai, numbers suddenly appeared on grave­stones M well.

At f ih t, the Driefontein people joked about tne numbers on the houses. Govsramewt officials, they say, told them the numbers would help the post office deii»w their letters. They laugh when they teH you this because they know that the officials know that they know what the real purpose is. But the numbers on the gravestones caused outrage. “When we bury our d^ad," Saul Mkhize wrote, *Ve expect them, as all people do. to rest in peace.” Two days after he had complained, the numbers - which the Department of Co-operation and Development said had been painted by the Department of Environment Affairs and FisHenes - were suddenly removed

Numbering is part of the ore-removal ntuaL To entreaties from ’he people of Driefontein to be allowed to stay on the Und they had inherited from their fore­fathers, the government replied.: “ Every­one of iis lu s to ;nan.e sacrifices in some way ur other to further peace and pro- saerity in .hij beautiful country of oar's. Although the government thn.-efor; appreciates and respects your feelings the• elocauon and resettlement jf vour people will have to be ca m iJ out in the interest of all concerned."

One wonders in what *ay it furthers fcace and prosperity or serves tne interests even of the whites in whose name it is carried out.

Five years ago cholera was virtually unknown in South Africa - or at least ro t a single case was reflected tn official health statistics between 1974 and 1973. In 1979, however, there were three notified cases, with 648 the following year and 3 874 in 1981. Since then the

numbers have risen steadily - to the extent that it now looks as if the disease has become endemic

Dr Nak van der Merwe, the M in:ter of Health, blames Frelimo. His colleagues and his supporters no doubt expect him to do that. But the epidemic actually appears to have broken out in parts of the KaNgwane “homeland" that had been packed with resettled people, as the Sunday hxpress reported in November 1980. As is the case in many of the relocation areas that cot the face of South Africa, KaNgwanes resettlement camps lacked pure vater supplies and proper sewerage arrangements — exactly the situation in which cholera is likely to break out. Fhe Health Dcpaiiment put out some genteel leaflets urging people to wash their hands after going to the “ toilet” - j-Ivies which >n the circum­stances beicr.gs in the “ Let thim-eat- cane ’ category.

In 19 -0 cholera was KaNgware’s nroblem If Dr Iloomhof and his col­leagues had h jJ tneir way, the area o ild row nc Ioutit p ir. •>* Swaziland. «nd 3 iyon : c. t— ^.r. n^ jso u t U-.eaie there -■e told :c .•£> ■*: c.ugh the proper ,. r->- n-atic cl c,j. ̂ _.ra 0fknows i i ; ;.- o t rrcn-Ttaje barrie's, -:iJ ?v *, e nil <! t^eHealth P ep an .u n f vas bu;;v -vith another v terr.em - t:i:s e re urging the publ: at .a’t e "not o eat any raw slieli- fish” b ee jji" cViiera had bee-, found .n oysters in the knysra area. In Januan •his year we were loid that an $&-; e;r oid farmer had become the “first white person to h3ve cort-actcd cholera in South Africa during the ’ales' outbreak" and was being treated in the Newcastle provincial hospital.

Is there some terrible poetic lustice in p le a s e t u r n o v e r

- CONTiNUEDstore for white South Africa? Are the cholera-free people of Driefontein to be uprooted and dumped in conditions that will cause yet another part of South Africa's water supply to become contami­nated? Is there in angry Cod who is even now preparing for us a mighty demonstration of the pumness of our attempts to erect racial barriers?

Already predictions are being made of the effects of elemental force* on key aspects of apartheid policy. The drought, says Dr Van Zyl Slabbert, will force the pace of black urbanisation and overtake all me government's calculations in this regard. Angry fanners, bitter about the relatively low increase in the maize price, are already threatening to cut back production next year, which they say will cause tens of thousands of blacks to stream to the cities in search of work outside agriculture.

Destroying communities like One- fonteia, as hundreds of other such communities have been destroyed before, no doubt satisfied the planners of grand apartheid, who are then able to wipe yet another "black spot” or “poorly situated’ area off the big maps on their office walls. They probably feel like admirrls moving little f lap around as they pick o7f enemy ships in some great naval conflict.

Do they stop to think for a moment that in the very process of purging black people from the rural areas of “white” South Africa they art probably increasing the urbanisation thrust? Once a com­munity tike Driefontein has been destroy­ed and its livelihood taken away, the resettled people seldom have any means of starting peaaant agriculture again. Instead, they swell the numbers of the jobless j) the overcrowded “homelands” and so contribute to the pressures forcing people out of the “homelands” and into the urban areas - passes or no passes. Thus ire people who were once making a a economic contribution to the com­munity at large suddenly turned into fugitives from the pass laws, illegal work­seekers, and burdens upon the rest of the community.

“ Is the saNgwane government going to look after us. ensure our pension md provident funds, and, most of sll, take care of our welfare? Schools, roads, water sewerage, hospitals. Will all these be there when and if we have to move? This is a big responsibility they take on. Are thev pr-pared for these costs? I think not," sa<i Saul Mkhue in a meeting with represertatives of that government

The homeland” authorities, it seems, have no say in the matter, however Pretoria’s plan is to move half the Drie­fontein people to the Lochiel area near KaNgwane, and the other half to the 3abanango area near KwaZulu. The land on to which they are due to be moved is not yet cart of either "homeland", how­ever. It ~elcngs to the South African Development (formerly Bantu) Trust, *h<- :t trustee is the State President and which a controlled by Dr Koornhof. The

land win be incorporated into the "hom e­lands” only after it has V en parsed full of people that Pretoria 10 longer wants on its map of “white" South Africa.

The “homeland” administrations have no choice*but to do what they to help resettled people. Dr Oscar Dhlomo, secretary general of Inkatha and mm-ster of education in KwaZulu, noted after an investigation of 26 concentrations of removed people that resettlement on KwaZulu'* borders "wreaks havoc” with education planning. Children and their parents arrive at neighbouring KwaZulu schools begging for admission and the KwaZu|u authorities feel they cannot justify Refusing them just because they are victims of the “ ruthless implement­ation ot apartheid policy” .

Dhlt^no continued: “ Severe mal­nutrition amongst children often follows the resettlement experience as people have b<*n forced to dispose of their live­stock, which at least ensured a sporadic supply of fresh milk in their children’* di-t. The resettlement experience is extremely traumatic. It must be borne in mind f!ut the people being resettled are generally uneducated and illiterate. What­ever degree of mastery they have over their environment, they have acquired as a result of experience and tradition. For these people to be uprooted," bundled on * trick and driven to a new environ­ment o{ which they have no experience, for molt, if not all, precipitates extreme stress. This stress takes its toll on people’* health and ability to mobilise themselves to cope in their new environ­ment. Extreme depression, sometimes even complete mental breakdown, and a high incidence of stress-related JIness ire also common features of the health profile in rese'deraent areas.”

The g ano apartheid p 'ann jrs in Pretoria h.ive mostly had qu 'te ir. easy time dumping people :n the "hom e­lands” . Whether they will be abu to keep them there is another question. however.In 1978 the average population density of the “ wfcite” areas vas 20.5 people per square Itflometie. Bophutha Tswaria r.ad a denaty of 31.75, and the Transkii 55,1. All the rest of the “ homelands" were at least three times as densely populated as

the ‘white” areas, with the fgure for KwaZulu - into which ieveral hundred thousand more people are to be dumped- standmg at 98,9 per square kilometre. Tiny Q w a q w a , whose population grew by 756 per cent between 1970 and i9S0. thanks .Tiir.ly to remo' a is, now has 1 1 accommodate 374,5 people on each square k i^ n e tre of land.

Mr FW. Botha and his cabinet should sit dowa one day and ask themselves whetaer they really bei.eve they :an continue dumping people on to this lind and expect them to stay there. Do they not see the signs that the “homeland.. ’ may be reaching burr-'ng-point? In August 1981 Dr Koornhof launched a total onslaught to drive “ squatters” out

' o f Cape Town to the Transnei. Most of them are back on the dunes near D.F. Milan Airport. In the same year, dele­gates from rural areas at the Transvaal National Party congress complained of stock the/: committed by blacks stream­ing out of nearby “homeland" areas. The Eastern Cape Agricultural Union, its members facing similar problems, asked for national servicemen to patrol the borders - not with Angola or MozambEue. but with the Ciskei. A Nat MP from the area said footpaths out of the Ciskei should be blocked off. Farmers in Natal complained of stock theft, but said one of the reasons for it was hunger in the “ homelands” . A spokesman for the N'atil Agricultural Union said: "The policy of forced removals is partly to blame. The Department (of Co-operation and Development) is guilty of casing problems by establishir communities removes from ■''ther area* :i»ht on the border - of*i:i with no employment opportunities."

The jsv irtz n e if . answer to these p .-'t'e.n? c T •ir'ntlv ' to e-ect 'ences uetAsen .re V h iu ’ iita s *na the ‘'ir.d jp erce i * hc .n tlj-1 s . 'depending on ‘he jvaiic.-ility of f :-.<is ’ accordinc to the V ..*...-.ter of Community Dev-iop- ment.

P-rhics '?* Minister of Foreign Affairs. !r P;k B >tha, she .id have the last word " ’Aherever you tave borders you are going to five problems.” he said. He ne--er ;pc Ice a truer word. •

Collection Number: AK2117 DELMAS TREASON TRIAL 1985 - 1989 PUBLISHER: Publisher:-Historical Papers, University of the Witwatersrand Location:-Johannesburg ©2012

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