Forced removals and resettlement of Africans have been increasing steadily in South Africa, and many thousands of people are being or soon will be forcibly uprooted from their homes. This article is based on IDAF's evidence to the Ad Hoc Working Group of Experts of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, during their visit to London in August 1980. Each of the cases below is an example of the implementation of "separate development".
In April the government brought in legislation which further curtails the rights of squatters. The main provisions of the *Prevention of Illegal Squatting Amendment Act 1980* are:
- A squatter structure erected without local authority permission is now illegal. Previously the squatter had only to get the permission of the land owner before building a structure.
- The Minister of Community Development can make an ad hoc extension to the area of jurisdiction of a local authority by declaring an area outside its jurisdiction to be within its jurisdiction of a local authority by declaring is not needed by the government. This provision is the result of the events at Crossroads in 1977 when the local authority was not prepared to demolish the camp. As the Financial Mail points out this new provision 'implies that the area of jurisdiction of Kimberley municipality,' for example, could be extended to include either Soweto or Crossroads for the purposes of the Act.'
The Act applies to any squatter structure or camp no matter how long it has been in existence. Previous legislation, through an oversight, applied only to structures erected after 1977.
Colin Eglin of the Progressive Federal Party pointed out during the third reading of the Bill in Parliament that the legislation means "a squatter's shack which has been erected with the consent of the owner in terms of the law as it presently exists and which in no way contravenes any existing statute or local authority by-law or regulation, can now be demolished".
The first reported case of the new law being invoked was in May when 1,000 squatters at Hout Bay near Cape Town were served with eviction notices. The people live on three areas of land at Hout Bay and in two of the areas the land-owners had given the squatters permission to build their shacks and were agreeable to them remaining. Prior to the new amendment the squatters were acting legally and the government had no right to evict them or demolish their homes.
The third area of land is owned by the Tucker Development Corporation which is allegedly co-operating with the government in removing the squatters although the company itself denies requesting that the squatters be moved. In May these people were told they must demolish their homes before 29 June. The 350 squatters did so and were left homeless. The men were then offered accommodation in Langa township, Cape Town, and the women and children were told they would be sent to their 'homeland'. By July several families had been sent to the Transkei but it appears the government has allowed some families to live together in Langa.
Accommodation at the Main Barracks in Langa, where 60 Hout Bay squatters are now being housed, is described by the Cape Town Medical Officer of Health as unfit for human habitation. Despite improvements in washing arrangements and water supply the barracks will still have to demolished and the people of Hout Bay moved again.
An estimated 175,000 African squatters and labour-tenants were due to be evicted in August from farms in the Weenen areas of Natal to be resettled in KwaZulu. August was the date of the expiry of the last labour tenancy contracts which could no longer be renewed. The evictions are part of the government's attempt to control the number of Africans living and working on white farms and to make sure those who do so are migrant labourers.
A labour tenant is an African who agrees to render services to a white farmer in exchange for a piece of land which he can use for private farming. Rural squatters are Africans who are given permission to live on a white farm with their families if the family will work for the farmer. The labour-tenancy system was abolished in 1970 but because of opposition from white farmers it was agreed that it would be a gradual process with the last contracts not expiring until August 1980.
Most of the former tenants and squatters will be taken to resettlement areas in KwaZulu such as Nondweni and Msinga. Some of the men will be allowed to remain on the white farms and work as migrant 'farm labourers' on a yearly contract basis. Some of the women and children from resettlement camps near to white farms will be picked up in trucks and taken to work on the farms on a daily basis when work is available.
Despite growing government restrictions, the two systems of labour tenancy and squatting have survived until now because they provide a cheap and in some cases free source of labour for the farmer, and because Africans have strongly resisted pressure to retreat to the Bantustans and become migrant farm workers. Tenants and squatters have heard of conditions in the resettlement camps like Nondweni where their neighbours have been sent and have decided they prefer life on the white farms — all be it feudal and demeaning.
A 1980 British television programme showed what had happened to an African squatter who had been endorsed out to a bantustan. The African's baby had developed kwashiorkor — a disease of malnutrition. The man faced the prospect of never working again; the child, of death from the disease.
One of the latest removals involves the 3000 African residents of Valspan township in Jan Kempdorp. They are being moved 26 kms away to Pampierstad in BophuthaTswana, and will have to become commuters to retain their jobs in Jan Kempdorp.
The first phase of resettlement involves 280 of the estimated 400 families. The rest are to be moved when houses become available. There is disagreement between the government and the Valspan Community Council as to the willingness of the people to move. The *Rand Daily Mail* concluded from its investigations that many residents were signing applications to be moved without fully understanding what they were doing. Although some of the residents do seem to be in favour of resettlement, the majority want their houses and facilities at Valspan to be improved instead.
In June 1979 the BophuthaTswana government moved one hundred families of the Bakgatla tribe from their village of Welgeval in the Pilanesberg mountains to tents and shacks at Sandfontein. The purpose was to make way for a 60,000 hectare game reserve. The establishment of the reserve is supported by the World Wildlife Fund and this international recognition was obviously an important factor in the decision to give wild animals priority over the Bakgatla people who have lived in the area since 1500 and who purchased the land in 1898.
The people were paid an average R1,800-R2,000 in compensation per family. They reportedly consider this insufficient to build new homes from scratch and are concerned that the land allocated for their 10,000 head of cattle at Sandfontein is already being used for grazing by other residents and is not adequately supplied with water.
As a result of the evidence submitted by IDAF to the UN Working Group, the World Wildlife Fund will be called before the Group in Geneva later this summer to explain its support for the project.
