What is more important: restoring land to a dispossessed community or having the third- largest battle school in the world? Nicole Turner reports
It is a matter of some pride for the South African National Defence Force (SANDF)that the Lohatla Battle School, south of Kuruman in the Northern Cape, is playing host to Operation Blue Crane in April.
For the 16 days of the exercise, the Khosis people – more than 30 families – are restricted to 14 000ha with long-range missiles flying over their heads.
“When they close the roads during exercises we must wait for three to eight hours for them to open again; they don’t care if we are sick,” says Joseph Free, leader of the Khosis community, which has lodged a joint application with the Gatlose and Maremane Tswana communities for the restitution of 74 000ha of the 135 000ha battle school.
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) peacekeeping exercise is billed as the biggest regional operation yet, with a budget of more than R20-million. It will involve 4 000 SADC personnel in a bid to strengthen regional peacekeeping efforts. Blue Crane has the backing of the United Nations and the Organisation for African Unity, but not of the Khosis community who live in the middle of the battle school.
Six years after their successful application to the advisory commission for land allocation, the communities are still waiting for a court decision in what is probably the most complicated and sensitive land restitution case in South Africa.
As far as the SANDF is concerned, the Khosis people are illegal occupants and must leave. For the three claimants, the battleground is the heartland of their claim. An oasis in the Kalahari, the area has abundant water from natural springs, and unlike the rest of the land which used to make up the Gatlose and Maremane reserves, it is uncontaminated with the ammunition which operations like Blue Crane leave behind.
The drawn-out case has brought the Department of Land Affairs, which long ago recognised the validity of the claim, into direct conflict with the Ministry of Defence, which, until now, has refused to return a single hectare to the dispossessed communities. Last year the Land Claims Court referred the parties to mediation, hoping for an out-of-court settlement.
Joseph Free is a descendant of the Griquas who settled around the springs of the Khosis in 1850. They were joined by the Batlharo and Batlhaping tribes, who were granted the Gatlose and Maremane “native reserves” by the British in 1885.
The communities intermarried and farmed communally under the leadership of the Batlharo chiefs. For more than a century they lived peacefully. They built schools, churches and houses with bricks made from the clay soil and planted fruit trees and vegetable gardens. The water that bubbles up from the red earth was channeled into furrows to feed the orchards and gardens, and their large herds of animals grew fat and healthy.
“We lived well. There was no apartheid between us. We shared everything,” Free says. None of this rural idyll pleased the apartheid government which had decided to eradicate “black spots”.
In 1977 the Tswana families were loaded on to trucks and moved to the former Bophuthatswana, and the next year the army took occupation of the reserves to establish the PW Botha Battle School.
“The removals happened suddenly. They tore off our roofs and threw our things on trucks and destroyed our houses. Our animals had to make the 300km journey by foot, many died on the way. Many people died too, during the removal and after, because where we live now is dry and sandy – making a living is very difficult,” says Boniface Masiane, a representative of the Maremane community.
The “coloured” people were allowed to remain on the 14 000ha that now make up the Khosis, but once the army moved in, various attempts were made to get them to leave. In 1992 they were offered land at Jenn Haven, south of the battle school. A few families moved voluntarily, the rest were treated as illegal squatters.
Access roads to the nearest town, Danielskuil, were closed and residents had to (and still do) travel 80km to the nearest town. Water pumps were broken and buildings were destroyed. More families moved, but despite the difficult conditions in the Khosis, and the eviction proceedings instituted against them in 1993, 38 families refused to leave.
When the African National Congress came to power, the eviction proceedings were suspended to allow for a political settlement of the issue. “The ANC promised us we would get our land back, but our people are still living like immigrants in the base – they have no government services, they are not enjoying the fruits of the new dispensation at all,” says Rev Holele, a descendant of the original Batlharo chiefs.
Despite high level delegations from both regional and national structures, including two visits by President Nelson Mandela, and many promises that justice would be done, the ideal of land restitution seems to have fallen victim to vested military interests.
The SANDF argues that as the third-largest battle school in the world, with an investment of R90-million in its infrastructure, Lohatla is a valuable national asset, and its continued operation is of greater national interest than land restitution.
The tension between the communities and the SANDF reached a climax in 1995 when the communities, already frustrated by a lack of progress in their case, were further outraged when the army granted permission for 40 white farmers to graze their livestock on part of the battle school. They occupied the land and many were arrested.
Diane Philander, a project officer at the Group for Environmental Monitoring, says: “Our leaders know that people should have their land returned, but they have already hitched on to the benefits that the battle school may offer as a national asset. Someone needs to decide what is more important: restoring land to a dispossessed, impoverished community or having the third- largest battle school in the world.”
Life in the Khosis continues to be unbearable. Although there are Eskom lines running through the land, there is no electricity and no telephone lines. Free claims that the army stops mobile clinics from entering the base, that soldiers deliberately fire over the community and kill livestock.
“The letters in their name may have changed, but we are dealing with the same army,” he says.
The community also claims that the SANDF uses dirty tricks to try to oust them from the land. “They came to us and told us we will get ID cards so we can enter and leave the base. Then they took the list of names to court and said all these people want to move away from the Khosis,” says one member.
Tensions between the community and SANDF have meant that the bulk of voters in the Khosis will be unable to vote in this year’s elections. The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC)reports that between 40 and 60 of the 81 voters in the Khosis have not been registered after the SANDF refused permission for the IEC to conduct voter registration on battle school land.
The IEC was allowed to set up registration at the battle school gates, 25km from the Khosis on the last day of registration, but only a handful of voters made the journey, the rest refusing to register under those conditions. “Why can’t we register to vote on our land, where we live, where we were born?” asks Free.
Restoring the land remains complicated. After 20 years of playing host to the army, much of the land is contaminated. In 1996 Mechem undertook a feasibility study, which estimated that to clear the whole school would cost the state about R70- million. About 38 000ha in the south have been identified as having low levels of contamination and it is this land which the communities hope to get back.
When he is given permission to visit the Khosis, Holele fills a bottle with water from the Khosis eye, which he takes back to the Bendel resettlement area where he was dumped in 1977. Sitting in the dry dust of his yard, he nurtures the hope that one day he can retire to the Khosis.
As for Free, he has defied the apartheid government and the army, and he will continue fight for his rights. “I was born in the Khosis, and I’ll die here,” he states resolutely.