The people of Namaqualand didn’t just want to see the queen, they wanted to ask her for help, writes Justin Pearce
The people from Namaqualand didn’t wave flags to greet Queen Elizabeth on her arrival in Cape Town on Monday. They waved placards. The only obviously dissenting voices in the crowd, they had travelled 500km or more to remind her of a promise broken by Elizabeth’s great- great-grandmother, Queen Victoria, and to try to enlist royal help in their struggle for land.
The members of the Namaqualand Civic Association had written to the queen requesting a meeting, but when they were informed that this could not be fitted into her schedule, they decided to demonstrate. The letter they sent to the queen points out that Queen Victoria had promised protection to the people of Namaqualand in the 19th century, and had then betrayed them by giving away their land to “foreign intruders”.
“We understand that the British Crown and the British Government no longer have any say over what happens in our country, but we know that because of the nature of the position and that of your government it would be possible for you to use your great influence to advance our cause,” the letter reads.
British High Commission representative Nigel Casey said the British government was still waiting for a formal submission by the Namaqualanders before deciding whether to intervene on their behalf.
The situation of the Namaqualanders is complicated by the fact that they have no obvious recourse to the Land Claims Court which, in terms of its founding legislation, is concerned only with claims on land that was taken after the promulgation of the Land Act in 1913.
Coincidentally, the day of the protest also saw a case in which De Beers Consolidated Mines won a court order declaring itself to be the rightful owner of four disputed tracts of land near Steinkopf in Namaqualand.
The land, which was purchased by De Beers from a private seller in the 1940s, is claimed by the Steinkopf community who are the descendents of the people who were alienated from the land in the last century. When De Beers announced their intention to sell the land by public auction, the Steinkopf Management Board raised objections concerning the company’s claim to the land.
De Beers eventually sought the declaratory order in the Cape Supreme Court to clarify the ownership of the land before going ahead with the sale.
Lawyers acting for the Steinkopf Transitional Local Authority (the successor to the management board) argued the case on the basis of aboriginal tenure. According to Sue Power of the Surplus People’s Project, aboriginal tenure had not previously been invoked in a legal case in South Africa, and the community had not been optimistic about winning the case.
However, Wallace Ngoqi, land claims commissioner for the Northern and Western Cape, points out there is still legal space for the Steinkopf community and other Namaqualanders to submit claims to the Land Claims Commission.
He points out a clause in the Land Restitution Act which allows the commission to make recommendations to the minister of land affairs concerning land which falls outside the immediate terms of reference of the act.
If the commission and the minister agree that there is some merit in the claimants’ case, the issue could be resolved by means of negotitation between the claimants and the current owners of the land.