Rehana Rossouw
CENTRAL government has intervened and promised to resolve a dispute between the South African National Defence Force and three communities who were forcibly removed from their land to make way for a battle
Advocate Patekile Holomisa, chair of the parliamentary Select Committee on Land Affairs, said after a fact- finding mission to the Lohatla school in the Northern Cape last Friday, the committee believed the community’s claim for the return of their land was
The Gatlose, Khosi and Maremane communities were forcibly removed from the land in 1977 and had attempted to persuade their provincial government resettle them in terms of the government’s land reform
A few weeks ago they occupied the land after the SANDF granted permission for 40 white farmers to graze their livestock on part of it. Members of the community were arrested and their shacks demolished.
“After reporting back to the portfolio committee it was decided to secure a meeting with the ministers of Land Affairs and Defence as well as the Commissioner for Land Wallace Mgoqi to expedite the resolution of the dispute as soon as possible,” Holomisa said on Tuesday.
“We will propose to them that the land on which the army’s school is situated should remain in the hands of the SANDF while the rest of the land which is used for shooting purposes is returned to the communities.
The committee will also suggest that land adjacent to the school, which is owned by white farmers, be expropriated by the government to compensate the SANDF for the land taken away.
Holomisa said in their discussions with the SANDF they got the impression the army was “cocooned” from what was happening in the rest of the country. “They gave us the official line, that the communities left the land willingly because they were promised independence in Bophuthatswana. They even told us the communities’ chiefs and headmen signed the agreement to move their people from the land willingly and wholeheartedly. After we met with them they seemed to understand that they will have to shift their position.”
Holomisa warned, however, that his committee was not available to solve all the land disputes in South Africa. Affected communities should use the mechanisms established in terms of the Land Restitution Act.
“We only intervened in this instance because it appeared that people did not have confidence in the correct mechanisms and because the talks between the affected parties had deadlocked. But it is not the task of parliament to travel around the country settling land disputes.”