Disir
Platinum Member
- Sep 30, 2011
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South Africans have spent much of 2018 debating whether the Constitution must be amended to explicitly provide for expropriation of land without compensation. Lost in this debate is the reality that thousands of South Africans have continued to lose their land under the constitutional dispensation without just and equitable compensation.
These are the members of customary communities — communal owners of the land in the former Bantustans. They are an estimated 16 to 20 million South Africans. Communal land is where the majority of new and expanding mining projects in the country are located.
The legislation that governs mining in South Africa, the Minerals and Petroleum Resources Development Act of 2002 (MPRDA), made the state the custodian of all mineral resources in South Africa. The MPRDA also provides that the Minister of Mineral Resources may grant a mining right to a mining company against the will of the land owner, and indeed, the Minister routinely exercises that right. Land owners cannot stop mining from happening on their land, even if it means that they are forced to leave their land.
That reality has been staring members of the Umgungundlovu community — often called the Xolobeni community, after the name of one of the villages in the area — in the face for more than a decade. The sands of the coastline where they have lived for centuries, is rich in titanium. For years, an Australian mining company, Transworld Energy and Mineral Resources (TEM), has attempted to get a mining right to conduct open-cast mining on an estimated 900 hectares. Their attempts have not yet been successful, because of the resistance of the community members who will lose their land to the mining.
The community has engaged in formal processes, protested, and litigated. But this resistance has come at a huge cost: some members of the larger Amadiba community who will not lose their land, want the mining in the hope that it will bring jobs and economic opportunity. The Chief of the area, once a fierce campaigner for his people against the mine, has changed his mind. This, the community members say, must have something to do with the vehicle and directorship that he received from TEM. Tensions within this community escalated to such an extent that an anti-mining community leader, Bazooka Radebe, was assassinated in March 2016. As a result, the then Minister of Mineral Resources instituted an 18-month moratorium on the granting of a mining right in the area.
Why would members of the Umgungundlovu community be willing to risk their lives, literally, in order to defend their land? Because, for them, land is not simply a place to live, much less an investment to generate income. These households and their ancestors have lived on the land for generations. The land is central not only to their livelihoods, through grazing, cultivation, tourism and the like, but to their very identity.
A household, called umzi, is more than a place of living. For the people of Amadiba, it is a symbol of social maturity and social dignity. It forms the basis of the relationship between the living and the dead, but also of the social fabric of the community today. You cannot relocate the community elsewhere without destroying that. The land is everything.
Xolobeni judgment is vital to land debate
And yet another community lost in the arguments.
These are the members of customary communities — communal owners of the land in the former Bantustans. They are an estimated 16 to 20 million South Africans. Communal land is where the majority of new and expanding mining projects in the country are located.
The legislation that governs mining in South Africa, the Minerals and Petroleum Resources Development Act of 2002 (MPRDA), made the state the custodian of all mineral resources in South Africa. The MPRDA also provides that the Minister of Mineral Resources may grant a mining right to a mining company against the will of the land owner, and indeed, the Minister routinely exercises that right. Land owners cannot stop mining from happening on their land, even if it means that they are forced to leave their land.
That reality has been staring members of the Umgungundlovu community — often called the Xolobeni community, after the name of one of the villages in the area — in the face for more than a decade. The sands of the coastline where they have lived for centuries, is rich in titanium. For years, an Australian mining company, Transworld Energy and Mineral Resources (TEM), has attempted to get a mining right to conduct open-cast mining on an estimated 900 hectares. Their attempts have not yet been successful, because of the resistance of the community members who will lose their land to the mining.
The community has engaged in formal processes, protested, and litigated. But this resistance has come at a huge cost: some members of the larger Amadiba community who will not lose their land, want the mining in the hope that it will bring jobs and economic opportunity. The Chief of the area, once a fierce campaigner for his people against the mine, has changed his mind. This, the community members say, must have something to do with the vehicle and directorship that he received from TEM. Tensions within this community escalated to such an extent that an anti-mining community leader, Bazooka Radebe, was assassinated in March 2016. As a result, the then Minister of Mineral Resources instituted an 18-month moratorium on the granting of a mining right in the area.
Why would members of the Umgungundlovu community be willing to risk their lives, literally, in order to defend their land? Because, for them, land is not simply a place to live, much less an investment to generate income. These households and their ancestors have lived on the land for generations. The land is central not only to their livelihoods, through grazing, cultivation, tourism and the like, but to their very identity.
A household, called umzi, is more than a place of living. For the people of Amadiba, it is a symbol of social maturity and social dignity. It forms the basis of the relationship between the living and the dead, but also of the social fabric of the community today. You cannot relocate the community elsewhere without destroying that. The land is everything.
Xolobeni judgment is vital to land debate
And yet another community lost in the arguments.
