The government continued during the first months of 1984 to forcibly remove African communities to the bantustan areas, despite assurances in 1983 that it would refrain from doing so as far as was 'practicable and possible'. Violence and the threat of violence remained the only methods of removing people in the face of organised resistance: the tactic of pressurising people to move 'voluntarily' appears to have failed.
The use of force was particularly evident in the case of 'black spots' (African-owned land in areas designated 'white') and in attempts to eliminate informal 'squatter' settlements in 'white' urban areas. Reducing the number of Africans living in urban areas outside the bantustans to the level required by white-owned economic enterprise remained a priority. Alongside the programme of forced removals and the constant demolition of 'shack' housing, the government continued to use the pass laws to force 'illegal' Africans out of the cities. This was reflected in increased convictions under the pass laws and steps to tighten influx control.
Attention was focussed on removals in February when over 100 families from the village of Magopa in the Western Transvaal were transported to Pachsdraai, a resettlement area due to be incorporated into Bophuthatswana. In an operation involving scores of policemen, the village was sealed off from all outsiders including the press, and reportedly designated an 'operational area'. The police claimed that villagers moved voluntarily, but villagers later denied this. Some told of police violence. Magopa was due for removal last November but was given a last-minute reprieve following international publicity. Its removal finally came after an appeal by a group of villagers was turned down in the Pretoria Supreme Court.
Magopa was a long established settlement on land bought before the 1913 Land Act effectively made the purchase of land outside the 'reserves' by Africans illegal. The land offered a reasonable means of subsistence for a sizeable section of the community. In contrast, the land at Pachsdraai is poor and most villagers will be forced to become migrant labourers.
Many other communities live under the constant threat of removal and suffer harassment when they organise to defend themselves. Embuleni, near Badplaas in the Eastern Transvaal, has been scheduled for removal since 1932, in terms of the Black (Urban Areas) Consolidation Act, under which it was prescribed as an urban area, but not proclaimed for residence by Africans. The deadline for removal of the 3,000 residents came and went in January, and the future of the community is unknown.
The Ciskei bantustan authorities have for some time been participating in the regime's plan to move the 7,000 residents of Mgwali, a 'black spot' in the corridor between the Ciskei and Transkei bantustan areas, to Frankfort in the Ciskei. The area is administered by the Ciskei authorities. In 1981 a Planning Committee was formed to administer the removal, under the orders of the bantustan's president, Lennox Sebe. In 1983 the Mgwali Residents' Association (MRA), formed to resist removal, complained that drought relief in the area was being given only to those who did not oppose the move. The MRA has been subjected to constant harassment by both Ciskei and South African security police. In February this year nine members of the MRA were arrested by Ciskei police and detained for several days.
In an earlier instance of violent repression of resistance to removal, Saul Mkhize, a community leader in Driefontein in the south-eastern Transvaal, was shot dead by a policeman in April last year. Mkhize had led resistance to the forced removal of the people of Driefontein to the KwaZulu and KaNgwane bantustans. A policeman charged in connection with the killing was acquitted of murder in April this year.
Alternative ways of forcing people to move 'voluntarily' have also been used. The 14,000 inhabitants of Huhudi, a black township in Vryburg in the northern Cape, were scheduled for removal to Pudomong in the Bophuthatswana bantustan in 1970. The aim was to make Vryburg a 'white' town: Africans removed from the town would then commute to it to work. All development in the township has ceased. Early in 1984 the Northern Cape Administration Board confirmed that it would remove a large section of the township, without stating when this would take place. The Huhudi Civic Association, opposing the removal, claimed that residents were being pressurised to move through increased rents and a freeze on house-building.
In a parallel scheme in the eastern Cape, the regime plans to remove the African inhabitants of Duncan Village township in East London, to Mdantsane, in the Ciskei bantustan. From there they would be expected to commute to work in East London. East London would then have no permanent African residents. Following several statements about the precise area affected, the decision to 'disestablish' Duncan Village and remove all 12,858 inhabitants was announced as final in March.
Meanwhile, during the first three months of 1984, hundreds of 'shack' dwellings in Duncan Village were demolished, leaving an estimated 2,000 people homeless. In answer to a question in parliament on the provision of alternative accommodation for these people, the Minister of Co-operation and Development, Dr Piet Koornhof, said that it was assumed 'these people returned to where they came from'. The intention would appear to have been to force Africans into the neighbouring bantustan area.
In June 1983 the government described as a 'success' its expulsion of over 8,000 people from Katlehong township on the East Rand to the Ciskei and Transkei bantustans, after 1,000 shacks were demolished in that area. In October shacks were again demolished there.
The inhabitants of makeshift homes on the KTC site adjacent to Crossroads in Cape Town have suffered constant raids and demolition of their dwellings by administration board officials over the past year. In February 1984 a week-long ban was placed on the entry of film and television crews into African townships in the Western Cape; no reasons were given for the ban.
In March the Western Cape Administration Board confirmed that the first Crossroads residents would be moved at the end of July to the new township of Khayelitsha, 25 miles outside Cape Town, where the government plans to settle 250,000 Africans. In a scheme to exclude Africans from the Cape Town area, it is planned ultimately to remove all 'legal' Crossroads residents - an estimated 18,000 with permanent urban residence rights - to Khayelitsha, together with all 'legal' residents of the African townships of Langa, Nyanga and Guguletu. These areas would then become 'Coloured' group areas in line with the 'Coloured labour preference policy' of the Western Cape. The government confirmed that the remaining 'illegal' Africans would be removed to the Ciskei and Transkei bantustans. 'Illegal' Crossroad residents number 30,000, while the number of 'illegal' Africans in the Cape Town area as a whole is impossible to calculate, although the government estimated it this year at 94,000.
A freeze has been placed on all further development in the three townships, while construction work on Khayelitsha was reported to be underway in the early months of 1984. Africans living in these areas were expected to settle voluntarily in the new township, but a survey conducted among Crossroads residents revealed that 90 per cent of them were opposed to moving.
