OWN CORRESPONDENT, Durban | Tuesday
HUNDREDS of subsistence farmers in KwaZulu-Natal have threatened violence and Zimbabwe-style land invasions if they are moved from land near Mandeni they claim as theirs, but whose title is held by descendants of the first white Zulu chief, John Dunn.
“If the land affairs minister says the people must be re-removed, she must provide coffins,” warned Mangete community member Leslie Sibiya.
The Mangete community burnt tyres and blockaded a road and farm entrances Monday to protest at delays in deciding their land claim. A large contingent of police and army personnel were deployed to the area to control the situation.
The community was evicted from their land in 1976 to allow the Dunn family to plant sugarcane, and returned in 1997. About 900 families have been squatting since then on the 63 farms which make up the Dunns’ land.
In 1997 local chief Khayelihle Mathaba applied to the Land Claims Commission for the restitution of the land.
Sibiya said members of the community who had been living on the Mangete land wanted Agricultural and Land Affairs Minister Thoko Didiza to clarify whether they would be evicted from there. Didiza is currently out of the country.
Dunn, a white trader, married into a prominent Zulu family and was granted a large tract of Zululand in 1879. Dunn’s descendants claimed they were living in fear following incidents of arson in the sugarcane fields.
“We feel that the kind of invasion that has been threatened is very much a Zimbabwe one. We received letters to say they were going to invade our farms with immediate effect” said Pat Dunn from the Mangete Landowners Association.
“It is absolute nonsense that these are apartheid era settlements…. We hoped to settle this matter peacefully but apparently this won’t be.” – AFP
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