Nancy Sephairi was 14 in 1966 when the bulldozers moved in and destroyed the homes of her community at Metsimatshwe, near Kuruman in the Northern Cape. The police dumped the families on a patch of dry veld near Reveillo with a packet of salt, a bag of mielie meal and a tent each. “We were told to build our own houses and return the tents,” Sephairi told the Mail & Guardian at the assembly of rural landless women in Kimberley.
Today Sephairi and more than 20 others are out on bail, facing charges of trespassing on the land that was once theirs.
In 1996 the Metsimatshwe community instituted a land claim. “In 1998 the report was finished [by the Department of Land Affairs], but nothing happened, it was all empty promises,” says Sephairi. “When we saw we were being taken for granted, we decided to go back to our land.”
On June 22 some members of the community moved back. “They say we are invading, but we are not invading – we are going back to our own land.”
The police arrested more than 20 people late on June 23, on a farm now known as Groot Vlakfontein. The next day all were released on bail. The case has been postponed five times since then.
But, Sephairi points out, the department hastily verified and gazetted the Metsimatshwe claim after the occupation. Now land affairs officials and the landowners will start to negotiate the purchase of what is today six farms, owned by four farmers and the Kuruman municipality. Four of the landowners have indicated their willingness to sell.
But Sephairi warns that if things don’t move quickly enough, the community will take the law into its own hands. “There are hundreds of people who want to go back. We know where the area is. We don’t want to offend anybody, but we will go back if nothing happens.
“They can’t keep us in jail for ever, they can lock us up, but they’ll have to let us go again and we’ll go back to the land. We want our own back. We’re not afraid of the cells.”