Swapna Prabhakaran
Thousands of people evicted from Cape Town’s District Six in the apartheid era were given hope of restitution this week – to regain their land or get financial compensation.
Their hope springs from a joint decision by the Western Cape provincial government and the Cape Town city council to withdraw an application made last year for the land.
The application, in the Land Claims Court, sought to challenge the claims of former residents on the grounds of “public interest”.
District Six is valuable land within walking distance of Cape Town’s central business district. The city council had planned to develop land made vacant by the previous government.
Starting in the 1960s, government bulldozers flattened houses after the suburb was zoned for whites in terms of the Group Area Act. The 35 000 coloured residents were forcibly relocated to townships in the Cape Flats. Much of the suburb remains a wasteland.
Former residents fought against the redevelopment plans prepared by the city council and the Western Cape government. They argued that the Cape Town Community Land Trust, the body set up to implement the plans, was not representative.
Dr Elaine Clarke, one of two facilitators appointed by the Land Claims Court to identify all possible claimants to the land, said this week: “The people who were thinking `Nothing will ever happen in our lifetime, we will never get anything back while we live’, are now thinking `We know we will get our land’.”
Former residents can now claim their original land, other land in the area, financial compensation or land in the area in which they now live.
The Land Claims Court will move swiftly to set up a commission to validate the claims of former residents before the end of the month.
Anwah Nagia, chair of the District Six Land Restitution Fund, said a trust is to be formed for the victims of the forced removals. Building new houses, to enable people to return to their land, will start within six months.