Jubie Matlou
Schmidtsdrift lies in the middle of nowhere, tucked away in thorny acacia bush about 80km south of Kimberley. The route to the tent township, as the area is commonly known, is not signposted, save for roadside signs warning of roaming game kudu, guinea fowl and donkeys.
However remote it may be, Schmidtsdrift was one of the highly contested wards between the African National Congress and the Democratic Alliance during December’s local government elections 2 315 votes for the former and 1 547 for the latter.
The battle was over the heart and soul of the small San community the Xu! and the Khwe people. The slim margin in the election results is attributed to the community’s apathy about political issues and its vulnerability to party political rhetoric.
The San people in Schmidtsdrift are in essence an adopted refugee community. Their first relocation was to the Caprivi Strip in Namibia from southern Angola in 1975 after the MPLA assumed power. When Namibia gained independence in 1990, the community was bundled into planes of the former South African Defence Force and dumped on a barren piece of land owned by the army, Schmidtsdrift. This was to be their home for the next 10 years housed in army tents with negligible amenities and infrastructure such as water and sanitation.
The community is about to leave Schmidtsdrift in a year’s time, for a “permanent” site, Platfontein, a farm outside Kimberley. This follows a decision by the Land Claims Commission that ordered the South African army to return Schmidtsdrift to its rightful owners, the Setswana-speaking Batlhaping people, who are gradually relocating from Kuruman in small groups.
With regard to politics and elections in their transient home, the San community has found it very difficult to determine which way the political wind is blowing.
Zokina Fernando, a Xu! woman, taps into the mindset of many ordinary women in her community who make a living by baking bread and selling it from makeshift stalls along footpaths.
“In 1994 I voted for the National Party with the hope that it will deliver better services to our area. Nothing has changed since I came here 10 years ago. I still live in an army tent and share a pit toilet with my neighbour. I voted African National Congress in December and I hope something better will come our way.”
Avelina Chifake, a Xu! woman and executive member of the Xu! and Khwe Communal Property Association (CPA) said: “Many of our people cannot read or write. Politics and voting processes are too complex for them to understand.”
The CPA believes the broad community should have been accorded the opportunity to choose its own leaders. Both the DA and the ANC sought to co-opt San community leaders on to their party list.
Nicholas Tenda, a Khwe representative on the CPA, said DA officials from Kimberley visited him at his home without prior notice with the intention of enlisting him as one of the party’s candidates in the municipal elections.
“I refused the offer outright. I can only take part in politics if I get such a mandate from my people.”
The real gaffe seems to have come from the ANC. The party selected Mario Mahongo, a Xu!, and Wentzel Katjara, a Khwe, for its candidate list, then dropped Mahongo for giving a television news interview in which he stated that his “community doesn’t know who to vote for because it has no leader”.
Mayor Lucas Sediti of the Seyancuma District Council said the ANC dropped him from its proportional representation list because it felt betrayed by what he had said.
Mahongo, on the other hand, said he had been dropped by the ANC because the party suspected that he had double dealings with the DA, a charge he denied.
Katjara, as the sole representative of the San in the Diamante District Council, has undertaken to work closely with community leaders on the move to Platfontein. “I won’t promise the San people anything at the moment, until project plans are clearly worked out in consultation with community leaders,” he said.
But Katjara is a Khwe and the Xu! hold that with no representation at local council level there is a growing perception among the community that he may end up serving his personal interests as opposed to those of the broader community.
Antonio Sabao, an elderly Xu! army sergeant, said representation of the San community in the council as it stands today is very divisive. “In every aspect of our community affairs we make sure that both the Xu! and the Khwe are equally represented.”
Sediti dismissed these charges and maintained that one of the shortcomings of the San community is that it is still learning to understand the workings of a democracy, particularly with regard to the ward and proportional representation system at local government level.
Batista Salvadore, who is of mixed blood Portuguese and San served on the side of both the Portuguese and South African colonial armies against the national liberation movements in Angola and Namibia.
“My people don’t trust anything from politicians after their experiences in Angola and Namibia. We were brainwashed into fighting against our own people. The Portuguese and later the Boers told us that the MPLA and Swapo don’t have our interests at heart, so we have to join the fight against them. I think if many of us understood the political issues of the time, we would have chosen a different position in the war.”
Chifake, on the other hand, was not as diplomatic about the plight of her people: “Through and through, our people were used as a political football to meet the white man’s selfish political ends.”
When Namibia gained independence in 1989, word began doing the rounds in Caprivi that the Swapo government was going to persecute the San people.
“Louis Pienaar, the then outgoing admini-strator, told some of our leaders serving in the South African army to persuade the people to relocate to South Africa. That’s how we find ourselves in this area,” Tenda said.
The relocation to Platfontein echoes in the minds of many San people. Manne Dipico, the Northern Cape premier, is said to have taken a keen interest in the fate of the community.
“There is talk about serviced sites, with water and sanitation. It appears that top structures will follow later,” said Dikua Duku, an ex-miner with the East Rand property mines, who hopes to land a job when the basic infrastructure is laid out.
If spoils of war are anything to go by, then the San community in Schmidtsdrift have nonetheless a few things to showcase. These include South African citizenship, a radio station, a school, clinic, community hall, an information centre fully equipped with computers, Internet and fax facilities as well as containerised video games for youth.