Sugar cane fields are at the centre of a conflict involving a Natal community which says it has been left out of the land-restitution process. Weekly Mail
THE electricity poles disappear on the road to Ezimwini just before the tarred road turns to dust, but sugar cane cloaks the surrounding hills almost to the first house of this rural village in the Embo-Thimuni tribal
Zwelibi Muthwa (74) says it was not always that way. He points to a place overgrown with sugar cane where he attended school in his youth, and to another where he used to herd his father’s cattle. “I was born in this place. The white farmers were never so close to us when I was a child. Then they kept increasing in numbers and coming closer. I was herding cattle on that hill and then they chased us off the grazing land,” he says.
Muthwa and others in his Umbumbulu community south of Durban say they have been left out of the land- restitution process — and just about everything else that has to do with the reconstruction and development programme (RDP). Now they are demanding their own reckoning with history.
“Sometime in the early part of this century, a certain man came here and asked my grandfather, who was acting regent at that time, if he could plant tobacco, but that land was never paid for,” says another resident, Amandus Mkhize.
“After that they started to grow sorghum — what they call ‘kaffir corn’ — and then sugar, and then they just kept selling it to other sugar farmers,” interjects Ephraim Shezi (64).
The current “owner” of the surrounding Klipsruit Farm is CG Smith’s Illovo Sugar company. But Smith is selling up, and has divided his 1 500ha farm into plots on offer to existing white farmers and emerging black farmers alike.
Three 200ha plots have already been sold to established white farmers and an advertisement in the Zulu-language newspaper Ilanga drew some 183 applications for 15 plots of land set aside “to support the RDP by encouraging black farmers to buy land”, according to farm manager John Louw.
The project has drawn a mixed reaction from the farm’s 140 employees. Some will be retrenched; others will be reallocated to CG Smith’s Senzele Sugar farms; and others are enthusiastically contemplating purchasing the 70ha to 105ha plots if they can find the money for the R63 000 deposit.
“I have been working for CG Smith for 16 years and I know everything there is to know about raising sugar. If I buy one of those plots, I will make at least
R120 000 profit just from harvesting the cane that is already sitting there. The only problem is the money,” says Simon Cele.
“If they can give me the money for a deposit, they musn’t worry about it, because I’ve been farming 200 to 300 hectares every year successfully. But I only have R30 000 and I will need that to run the farm, to pay labourers and to buy equipment,” adds the prospective
Illovo says it is dedicated to the project’s success, however, and it is negotiating with banks to help the applicants access the funds. Louw says the management is aware many applicants cannot raise funds for the deposit and adds: “They are in Pretoria right now and are flying all around to find a solution.”
But conflict looms for these emerging farmers, whose plots will surround Ezimwini and its sister community of Ezakheni. Residents say there have already been incidents of cane burning and tussles over cattle grazing in the sugarfields. Muthwa warns: “They will regret it if they buy the land, because they are buying it from people it doesn’t belong to.”
The soon-to-be farmers are unaware that the land they have set their sights on will be contested. Farm supervisor and land sales adviser Patrick Mnikwa is also hoping for a piece of the action, but he says he was not informed of the community’s claims: “No one has told us anything about it, we just saw that the land was for sale and wanted to buy it.”
Protest Sokhele, Illovo’s cane development consultant, says he has not heard of the land claims and that he has traced the title deeds back to 1873 and 1875 — before the cut-off date for current land legislation. “We had wide consultation and many of the applicants are members of the community. We have spoken to the local MP, Roy Mbongwe, and the chairman of the mill- cane committee, Jerry Hlela, is on our selection committee. Nobody from the community has come to talk to us about a conflict of interest.”
There is no Roy Mbongwe on the provincial legislature list, however, and Mkhize says the cane committee which Sokhele consulted “favours Illovo because it is their structure, set up to get the cane to the mill”. Mkhize says none of the community members can afford to buy the 70ha minimum plots on sale, and the calls for land restitution are echoing throughout Ezimwini.
“Everybody here knows this land doesn’t belong to CG Smith. This land belongs to the people. We do not even have enough land to put up a community centre or build any facilities for the people,” adds local school teacher Tom Mkhize, a member of Chief Langalasembo Mhkize’s Embo-Thimuni Development Committee.
He says he was part of a delegation that approached kwaZulu/Natal MEC for Economic Affairs Jacob Zuma last August for help in getting development started in the community: “We are always sitting on the fringe of this beautiful land. We are also on the fringe of development. We fall outside the boundaries of projects by Eskom, Telkom and Umgeni Water. We told Zuma we needed help even to get a road to the primary school. Right now the students are having to carry the furniture to the school on their heads.”
The community has grown impatient in the past six months as Zuma has not come to visit them, he adds, even though he had visited Illovo just down the road. “We saw him come to where the tarred road ends. But he didn’t come any further.”
Zuma could not be reached for comment.