South Africa needs its own Robert Mugabe, say squatters in the Hartebeespoort dam area. The landless people of the region want urgent land reform. They are fed up with constant evictions that have forced them to move from one farm to another. They have also threatened to occupy a farm they believe to be owned by President Thabo Mbeki.
Government legislation forbids such evictions unless alternative land can be provided for the evictees. Yet Colin Ndlovu, one of the squatters, says he has never been given alternative housing. “I am a refugee in my own country,” he said. “I have nowhere to go, no place to settle. Maybe we need a Mugabe to help us.”
Ndlovu is part of a community of 800 squatters from the Michaeljohn settlement at Hartebeespoort dam who are currently under the threat of another eviction from a plot that belongs to a Free State farmer. Ndlovu says Mbeki owns one of the farms in the area. “If we are forced to move again, we will go and squat on [the president’s] doorstep,” he says.
The Mail & Guardian was unable to find any evidence that such a farm was owned by the president or a member of his family. David Hlabane, a presidential aid, denied that Mbeki owned property in the area.
Roger Roman, a local land activist who helps communities in their battle against evictions, says sympathy in the squatter camps for Mugabe and Zimbabwe’s land-grab programme is rife. He estimates that about 4 000 families and 13 000 landless people roam the Hartebeespoort dam area. “Of those, two-thirds are under the threat of eviction and one-third are about to be threatened. Is that a healthy situation?
“I know it is difficult for landowners to have squatters on their farms, but [people] have to be treated humanely,” he said. “How can you throw someone out on the street with nowhere to go? Many evictions are done illegally, but the poor communities are not informed enough to realise it.”
Illegal evictions are a problem in the area, admitted African National Congress councillor for the area David Makara.
“But the government has done all it can to assist the people. We have worked with the Legal Aid Board to ensure they are not evicted unfairly and have negotiated with the landowners so that they can have [more] insight [into] illegal evictions.”
He said the government was in the process of identifying farms to accommodate the landless. “We hope to have 500 houses [built by] next year, but first we have to buy the land from the current landowners and we are still busy with negotiations.”
Most of the people in Michaeljohn are employed by homeowners in the luxurious new developments on the shore of the dam, a popular recreation and holiday area. The squatters are bitter about their poverty.
“The rich at the dam say our housing is not their problem,” said Ndlovu. “When will it be their problem? When we start taking land?” Another member of the Michaeljohn community, Hetrecia Mabasa, said the people there have no roots. “We are not welcome anywhere, except as cheap labour.”
She has been living in Michaeljohn for three years but said that some of the farm workers settled in the area 20 years ago. The community is using this argument to fight against their eviction. They are relying on the terms of the Security of Tenure Act, which gives property security to farm workers who have been settled on a farm for more than 10 years, to win their case.
Mabasa and Ndlovu feel the local council has been of no help in the matter. “They have thrown in their lot with the rich people. They do not care about us,” they said. “As long as the council get all the nice contracts from the rich, they are happy.”
Makara has another view of the situation. “It is unfair to say government has done nothing,” he says. “Apart from helping in illegal evictions, we have given the communities water and other resources they did not have before.” Earlier this year the Pretoria High Court ordered the government to remove 40 000 squatters from Modderklip, a farm near Benoni, and to supply them with alternative housing.
The application to the court was made by Agri SA and farmer Braam Duvenage. Farmers and land activists alike see Modderklip as a watershed case in determining the fate of illegal squatters on farms in South Africa.
Roman says the Modderklip case may be the saving of the Hartebeespoort squatters because it will set a precedent, forcing the state to provide housing for evictees.
“We are holding our breaths to see what will happen there, because it will influence every single landless person in this country.”
The government is currently appealing the Modderklip case. Abbey Makoe, spokesperson for the Department of Land Affairs, told the M&G that the case would be an invitation for every landless person to blackmail the government to provide housing.
“We have an orderly way of supplying housing,” he said. “People will simply jump the queue by invading land and expecting the government to issue them a house thereafter.”
Roman agrees that the implications of Modderklip might lead to chaos in land redistribution. “But time is running out for land reform,” he said.
“Communities such as those at Hartebeespoort dam are fed up with being shunted around with nowhere to go. If they are not accommodated, South Africa might be heading for another Zimbabwe.”