The three members of the nation vowed to protest every day until they can hand over their memorandum to President Cyril Ramaphosa. (Photo by GULSHAN KHAN / AFP)
As ANC delegates voted for the top seven leaders on the third day of the ruling party’s elective conference on Sunday, three Khoi and San activists stood barefoot in their traditional animal skin attire, protesting for the rights of their people.
The Khoi and San have long demanded recognition as the first indigenous people in the land, which now makes up the Republic of South Africa, and have previously complained that the constitution does not recognise their rights.
“The leading parties are doing things on their own, we as the Khoi and San nation do not exist to them despite the fact that we are the kings of the soil and should be the leaders of the nation,” Chief Joseph Marble, president of the Khoi and San mass movement, said on Sunday.
He added that the nation deserved basic rights to have a say on how its people should be ruled and live in this country which initially belonged to them.
Marble was flanked by Sam Davids and Derrick Wilikinson. The trio, who collectively represent the 46 tribes within the Khoi and San nation, have been protesting since Friday and said they would stay outside the Nasrec precinct that is the venue of the 55th ANC conference until they had handed over their memorandum to President Cyril Ramphosa.
They vowed to carry on protesting, even if it meant having to spend their nights on the streets until the conference was concluded.
In their memorandum, they are demanding equal rights and opportunities as well as jobs specifically catered for Khoi and San people.
(Photo by Gallo Images/Fani Mahuntsi)
“We demand jobs, we demand a redress, we demand that your law (on) affirmative action must go and remove the B-BBEE (broad-based black economic empowerment). This is against us, the Khoi and San people, and so-called coloured people,” the memorandum states.
“When you look at our public clinics, we don’t have any Khoi and San sister or admin clerk in charge, even the nurses working at our clinics are only black, as well as the security officials. This shows that the ANC does not care about us.”
Members of the Khoi and San nation also protested outside the ANC’s previous elective conference in 2017 , also held at Nasrec. Since then, Marble said on Sunday, nothing had changed for the nation.
He lashed out at the ruling ANC, accusing the party of misusing state funds for security services at its conference at the expense of service delivery.
“During elections, the ANC says to us that we are all black, but when the elections are over; we are not black anymore and are thrown away just like a cigarette is thrown away when finished,” said Marble.
In August, on the International Day of the World’s Indigenous People, members of the Khoi and San nation marched to the constitutional court to hand over a memorandum in which they again demanded that their indigenous rights be recognised, equally applied and upheld in the country.
A march was also held in Cape Town on the same day.
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