Four and a half million hectares of land and all the people occupying it were transferred to the control of bantustan administrations on 31 December last year. The action, which drew little comment in the press, was effected by a series of proclamations published in the Government Gazette. This followed a move by the government to greatly increase the repressive powers of the non-'independent' bantustans, amid re-affirmations of their key role in its constitutional plan for a federal state.
The changes have several implications, including increasing the power of the apartheid regime to repress political opposition. Large numbers of people who have been forcibly removed occupy the transferred land, and will now be administered by authorities which have been given even greater powers of forced removal than the central government had.
Although the labour bureaux in the non-'independent' bantustans were abolished in 1986, there are new provisions for these bantustans to control the supply of labour for employment outside the bantustans. If the bantustans involved are made 'independent' in the future, then people living on the newly incorporated land will lose South African citizenship and become subject to the harshest aspects of the regulations under the new pass laws. A Constitutional Laws Amendment Bill published in October 1986 contained proposals which, if adopted by Parliament, will take this process still further. A memorandum published with the bill envisaged the 'autonomy' of the bantustan authorities increasing, in line with policy statements earlier in the year projecting the bantustans as regional authorities in a future federal constitution.
Powers of Repression A Proclamation by the State President in February extended the powers given to the non-'independent' bantustan authorities in March 1986. As a result of these changes and the earlier changes in 1986, the non-'independent' bantustans will control almost all aspects of the administration of the areas assigned to them. The new powers were to come into operation at various dates, and some have still to be implemented. Excluded from their authority are military matters, the control of the regular police force, relations with other governments, communications, telecommunications and broadcasting and the raising of loans.
Their enhanced status includes the power to restrict and ban organisations, meetings and people, to restrict people to particular areas and to forcibly remove them to others. Other matters include: education (other than university education); economic and industrial planning and activity; the division of the population into administration units; the appointment of officials; the establishment, maintenance and administration of townships; the establishment and control of prisons; and control over the movement of people not assigned to the bantustan by the central government:
Transfer of Land and People The March 1986 proclamation stated that 'land matters' were included in the transfer of authority. A government official explained that this meant bantustan authorities could now decide 'in what way, and to whom, the land will be awarded and how it will be utilised'. This particular power was brought into operation in the areas covered by the six bantustans of Lebowa, Gazankulu, Kwazulu, Kangwane, Qwaqwa and Kwandebele on 31 December last year by a Proclamation of the State President. Other proclamations listed land, totalling 4.5 million hectares, where ownership or control was being transferred on 31 December.
By this action all those who lived in the transferred areas came directly under the bantustan administrations. Previously they had fallen under a variety of administrations, but principally under the South African Development Trust. The trust was established by the 1936 Land and Development Trust Act which fixed at 13 per cent the portion of the country allocated for African occupation. Under the bantustan consolidation proposals of 1975 and subsequent years, Trust land was scheduled for incorporation into bantustans. Many of the people who were forcibly removed were relocated on Trust Land. Other areas of land incorporated by the recent proclamations were administered by the Department of Education and Development Aid (formerly Cooperation and Development) or by the provincial authorities. Other areas transferred were occupied by squatter communities – one example is that of Inanda with an estimated population of more than five hundred thousand people.
The new powers have been given to the non-'independent' bantustan administrations at a time when they face resistance on a scale not seen for many years. Ultimately repressive powers in these areas lie with the South African Defence Force and the regular South African Police. However local bantustan police forces have also been formed and have taken on an increasingly active role in suppressing opposition. In addition in some areas – for example the Kwandebele and Kwazulu bantustans – there are semi-official armed forces under the control of the authorities.
The activities of the Lebowa bantustan police were revealed in evidence given at inquests into the deaths in detention of three activists during 1986. They have participated in joint operations with the SADF and SAP, including the armed occupation of the University of the North.
During March the Kwazulu authorities asked the central government to grant them control over the police stations in the bantustan area, in which the Kwazulu bantustan police operate. It was reported that the transfer had already been agreed. The decision was criticized by anti-apartheid organisations in Natal, in particular the UDF, which said that the bantustan police had sided with Inkatha in attacks on other organisations in the townships.
By the end of March at least 40 members of UDF affiliates had been killed in such attacks in Natal over a period of three months. Another five people whose political affiliations were not stated were killed, and five members of Inkatha also died. The killing of three shop-stewards in Mpophomeni in December was reported in the last issue of FOCUS, as was that of 12 people at the home of a KwaMakuta Youth League leader Victor NTULI in January. In February five members of the Hammarsdale Youth Congress were killed, and in March eight members of the Hammarsdale Youth League. In the last incident, the bodies of seven pupils were found shot or stabbed in a ditch in KwaMashu township and the eighth was found dead in Newlands together with another severely wounded person. Mpophomeni, KwaMakuta and KwaMashu are all townships within the Kwazulu bantustan.
The Publicity Secretary for the UDF in Natal, Lechsa Tsenoli, described the killing of UDF members as 'part of a systematic plan to cripple the organisation in the region'.
