Simmering tensions over land rights have boiled over after a dispute about=
the burial of a teenager, reports Eddie Koch
There is a war of the graves taking place in the Badplaas district that=20 shows, in a strange way, how the everyday lives of farmers and their labour=
tenants are being shaped by a silent but bitter struggle over land reform i=
parts of the Mpumalanga province. It all began four weeks ago, when Josiah Nkosi collected some cash from=20 his friends and went down to Masheko=D5s Funeral Undertaker to buy the=20 cheapest coffin they had for his 19-year-old daughter, Sibongile, who had=
died after =D2coughing for a long time=D3. With the money that was left over, the Nkosi family hired a tent and=20 prepared a few pots of maize porridge. They invited other labour tenants on=
their farm to an all-night wake for the young woman, before they buried=20 her in a makeshift cemetery next to their homes =D1 in much the same way,=
they say, that relatives who have always lived on this land were put to res=
That Friday night, the owner of the Mooiplaas estate, a man called Piet=20 Smit, arrived at the vigil, some say armed with a pistol. He told the famil=
they were squatting on his property illegally and that the funeral was not =
go ahead.=20 In the morning, Nkosi took his problem to the local office of the African=
National Congress. Its officials tried to organise a meeting with the farme=
and, when this failed, they advised the family to hold the service that=20 Sunday. The Badplaas police arrived at the funeral and simply informed=20 Nkosi that the landowner had threatened to go to the Supreme Court for an=
order to exhume the body. On the same day, a second tragedy struck the Nkosi family. Nkosi=D5s son,=
Vusi, who had stolen a van from a nearby farm, was killed when he rolled=20 the vehicle on the way to the funeral. And so began another battle for the=
Smit=D5s attorney found a law that says people must be buried in a proper=
cemetery. The farmer again insisted that the burial was illegal. But, by=20 now, word of the conflict between the owner and the tenants of Mooiplaas=20 had spread through the entire district, igniting a mood of militancy and=20
Members of the ANC Youth League based in Elukwadini =D1 a resettlement=20 area for evicted tenants, whose name means The Place of Anger =D1=20 announced they would march on a cemetery not far from the Badplaas=20 holiday resort and exhume the bodies of white families buried there if the=
farmer went ahead with his threats. The authorities had reason to take them seriously.=20 Late last year, a farmer called George Potgieter evicted three labour-tenan=
families from his farm in the same district and dumped them at Elukwadini.=
Youth League members promptly hijacked Potgieter=D5s truck, which cost=20 R290 000, and a trailer loaded with cattle feed, while it was travelling=20 between Badplaas and Swaziland.=20 They parked it at the ANC office and told the farmer he could have it back=
=D1 if and when he arrived for talks to reinstate the evicted families. The=
result: Potgieter sent his manager to negotiate. The farmer got his truck a=
trailer back. The families returned to the land. And now the owner has=20 offered to give them each title to eight hectares of property on his farm.=
There have been more brutal forms of labour-tenant resistance in the=20 district. Farmers=D5 cattle have been hamstrung, fields have been burnt by=
disgruntled labourers and, in at least one case a Badplaas farmer was=20 assassinated and his home burnt down.
The Mpumalanga government, alarmed by escalating tension in the district,=
decided to intervene. MEC David Mkwanazi attended a meeting with Smit=20 in the local steak house. When this failed to break the impasse, the minist=
instructed the police to let the second funeral go ahead and ensure that th=
labourers did not carry out threats to attack the farmer=D5s homestead. Although it appears the tenants have won the first round in their macabre=
skirmish with the farmer, the battle is far from over. Smit has informed al=
150 tenants (or squatters, depending on whose view you take) on his farm,=
in writing, that they must leave by the end of the week. The families have,=
in turn, asked their senator, Simon Gininda, to lodge an official claim for=
title to the land which, they say, belongs to their ancestors. Whatever the outcome of this contest, the war of the graves in Badplaas has=
become a case study in the bitterness, and complexity, that confronts the=
men and women whose job it is to reform the patterns of land ownership=20 that have been inherited from South Africa=D5s colonial past.
# The farmer=D5s story
=D4This farm is my dream. I worked for 10 years on a farm that I rented in =
Badplaas area until I had enough money to put down a deposit on this=20 place. It cost me R600 000 and now, because of these problems, I will be=20 lucky to get R300 000 for it. When I came here in September last year, I told these people on my farm=20 that they could stay if they worked for me, even though my purchase=20 contract said that all the existing workers would vacate the farm within tw=
They refused and I brought in my own labourers, who are very happy.=20 Other farmers in the area have had strikes but I have never had disputes=20 with my workforce. They live in houses made of wood that I bought for=20 them, but I have a dream to build them brick houses with electricity when=
this farm makes a profit. My workers=D5 lives are being threatened by these squatters. They steal my=
fencing and sell it. Sections of my grazing land have been burnt down and=
three head of cattle have been stolen. They cut fences and let cattle into =
irrigated fields. This is very expensive, because it costs R12 000 to R15=
000 a hectare to prepare a field for cultivation. They sabotage my irrigation system (which cost R350 000) by loosening=20 the couplings on the pipes that run into the fields. This damages the=20 gearbox which, at this rate, I will have to replace every few months at a=
cost of R3 800 … It is difficult to explain how many headaches are caused=
by these people. We are a good-hearted people, but we have become careful with these=20 feelings because of the problems caused by land reform. All the=20 government has done is made these people (the squatters) angry and it has=
made us angry … I do not want these graves on my farm because they will=
use them to make a land claim against me for a farm that I paid for. In the past, farmers have used violence to achieve their aims. I have never=
done this to achieve the things I want. There is a legal process and I will=
follow this (to have the tenants evicted).=D3
# … and the tenants=D5 view =D4We were born here and have never known any other place. Our parents=20 and grandparents and their parents lived here before there were any white=
farmers. There are many graves on this farm to prove it,=D3 says Josiah=20
=D2Before Smit came here, I was a driver and was given R500 a month in the=
harvesting season and 90kg of mielie meal. When Smit took the farm, he=20 offered us all (men and women, skilled workers and labourers) R150 a=20 month and a 2,5kg bag of meal. He said =D4if you don=D5t like this you can =
On the farm next door, I can get R900 a month for operating the harvester.=
That=D5s why we never worked for him. Now he employs only Shangaans and he says us Swazis are a problem.=20 They say he often assaults them. Every month he sends someone to recruit=20 a new batch of Shangaans from Mozambique and he pays them very little.=20 We asked the ANC to have a meeting with him to explain our problems but=20 he has refused to discuss the issue. Instead, he told us to get rid of our=
cattle and that he will charge R20 for every head of cattle we keep. His=20 father threatened to use force against us if we refused. On the night of the vigil for Sibongile, he came here with his gun and=20 threatened to shoot us if we held the funeral … Now he has written us an=
eviction order and told us to leave by Thursday next week. But we have heard about this new law =D1 the Land Reform (Labour=20 Tenants) Bill =D1 which says we can get title to our land. We have laid a=
land claim for the farm. Some say we just want this little place he is=20 expelling us from. Others say we want the whole farm because it has=20 always been ours.=20 Most of us say it is okay to pay for the land (as suggested in the Bill) ev=
though we have worked for these years without getting enough to purchase=20 land =D1 but we can only pay after we get the land back and have made=20 profit. It is because we have nothing =D1 we have not been able to save=20 anything during these years =D1 that we made the farmers rich.=D3