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The History of Dispossession at Orania and the Politics of Land Restitution in South Africa

2013; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 39; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/03057070.2013.795811

1465-3893

Edward Cavanagh,

South African History and Culture

Abstract This article takes for its subject a small piece of land on the southern banks of the middle Orange River, which has been known in the last few decades as ‘Orania’. A human history of its longue durée is presented, tracking the relationship between people and land, from San occupation right up to the introduction of individualist understandings of private property by European settlers. This is a history of dispossession that carries on into the twentieth century, when the land in question became state-owned before reverting, again, to private ownership. Using interviews, newspaper articles and existing official records, this article then recounts a little-known event: the dispossession of a small squatter community in Orania between 1989 and 1991. After this ‘removal’, Orania was transformed into a small Afrikaner volkstaat, a place exclusively white and Afrikaans. In 2005, the new community discovered that the town's previous inhabitants had lodged a land claim with the Commission on Restitution of Land Rights. This article analyses the investigation and resolution of this claim in order to examine how the concept of restitution has been politicised in post-apartheid South Africa. It argues that the discourses involved in the reclamation of land rights have often been ignorant of more comprehensive histories of dispossession. View correction statement:The History of Dispossession at Orania and the Politics of Land Restitution in South Africa Notes *This research was supported by the Moonee Valley Foundation and the Ford Foundation, and was carried out at the University of the Witwatersrand – and to all, I owe my thanks. It was hindered by the deliberate attempts to derail the project by various representatives of the Commission on Restitution of Land Rights. The paper could not have been prepared without the translations and insight of Emile Coetzee, and the generosity and advice of Lieze-Marie Johannes; though the research as it appears here should not be taken to convey either of their opinions. The community of Orania deserves special thanks for availing key documents to assist my research, arranging interviews, and remaining hospitable and commendably open to criticism during each of my stays. 1 M. Wegerif, B. Russell and I. Grundling, Still Searching for Security: The Reality of Farm Dweller Evictions in South Africa (Johannesburg, Social Surveys and Nkuzi Development Association, 2005), available at http://nkuzi.org.za/images/stories/evictions_Survey.pdf, retrieved on 8 September 2011; S. Wilson, ‘Breaking the Tie: Evictions, Homelessness and the New Normality’, South African Law Journal, 2 (2009), pp. 270–90; S. Wilson, ‘Planning for Inclusion in South Africa: The State's Duty to Prevent Homelessness and the Potential of “Meaningful Engagement”’, Urban Forum, 22, 3 (2011), pp. 265–282. 2 P. Mitchell, The Archaeology of Southern Africa (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002); H.J. Deacon and J. Deacon, Human Beginnings in South Africa: Uncovering the Secrets of the Stone Age (Cape Town, David Philip, 1999). 3 Interview with M. Opperman, Orania, 17 March 2011. For a survey of archaeological scholarship on the Orange River (if a little biased towards data from the lower river), see A.B. Smith (ed.), Einiqualand: Studies of the Orange River Frontier (Rondebosch, UCT Press, 1995). 4 K. McNeil, Common Law Aboriginal Title (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1989), pp. 202–4. 5 A.S. Brooks, ‘San Land-use Patterns, Past and Present: Implications for Southern African Prehistory’, in M. Hall et al. (eds), Frontiers: Southern African Archaeology Today (Oxford, B.A.R., 1984), pp. 40–52; E.N. Wilmsen, ‘Those Who Have Each Other: San Relations to Land’, in E.N. Wilmsen (ed.), We are Here: Politics of Aboriginal Land Tenure (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1990), pp. 43–67. 6 D. Gifford-Gonzalez, ‘Animal Disease Challenges to the Emergence of Pastoralism in Sub-Saharan Africa’, African Archaeological Review, 17, 3 (2000), pp. 96, 104–5; K. Sadr, ‘Invisible Herders? The Archaeology of Khoekhoe Pastoralists’, Southern African Humanities, 20 (2008), pp. 179–203. It remains unclear whether the Khoekhoe and San were physically or otherwise distinct from each other apart from their economies, how the two groups interacted over the longue durée, and whether anthropological data can be projected onto the pre-historic record with any confidence. 7 For ‘Briqua’, see P.S. Landau, Popular Politics in the History of South Africa, 1400–1948 (Cambridge and New York, Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 4. 8 This scholarly ambivalence may be explained in a number of ways, referring either to apartheid or transformation discourse. Nevertheless, that both white people and black people were newcomers to this area – a claim with which few San, or settlers for that matter, would disagree 300 years ago – fundamentally underpins the following analysis without apology. For an introduction to these interpretative dilemmas, see S. Pillay, ‘Where do you Belong? Natives, Foreigners and Apartheid in South Africa’, African Identities, 2, 2 (2004), pp. 215–32; L.M. Thompson, The Political Mythology of Apartheid (New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1985), pp. 196–212. 9 See S. Hall, ‘Farming Communities of the Second Millennium: Internal Frontiers, Identity, Continuity and Change’, in C. Hamilton, B.K. Mbenga and R. Ross (eds), The Cambridge History of South Africa: Volume 1, From Early Times to 1885 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 2010), pp. 112–67; see also J. Parkington and S. Hall, ‘The Appearance of Food Production in Southern Africa 1,000 to 2,000 Years Ago’, Cambridge History of South Africa, pp. 63–111. 10 M. Legassick, The Politics of a South African Frontier: The Griqua, the Sotho-Tswana and the Missionaries, 1780–1840 (Basel, Basler Afrika Bibliographien, 2010 [1969]); N. Penn, The Forgotten Frontier: Colonist & Khoisan on the Cape's Northern Frontier in the Eighteenth Century (Athens, Ohio University Press, 2005). 11 P.J. van der Merwe, Die Noordwaartse Beweging van die Boere voor die Groot Trek, 1770–1842 (Den Haag, W.P. van Stockum & Zoon, 1937), pp. 131–3. 12 For reproductions of the Punishment Act and Smith's Annexation, see K. Schoeman (ed.), Griqua Records: The Philippolis Captaincy, 1825–1861 (Cape Town, Van Riebeeck Society, 1996), pp. 32, 107–10. For the politics of annexation and colonial borders in South Africa, see J. Galbraith, Reluctant Empire: British Policy on the South African Frontier, 1834–1854 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1963), pp. 31–4, 176–241. 13 These treaties were tabled during the period first of Sir George Napier (1842–3), then of Sir Peregrine Maitland (1845–6), then finally (and most damagingly to indigenous rights) Sir Harry Smith (1847–52). Copies of these were proliferated about the colony in the Gazette, and they were commonly reproduced in newspapers. 14 E.A. Eldredge, A South African Kingdom: The Pursuit of Security in Nineteenth-Century Lesotho (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1993). 15 T. Pienaar, ‘Die Aanloop tot en Stigting van Orania as Groeipunt vir ’n Afrikaner-Volkstaat’ (MA thesis, University of Stellenbosch, 2007), p. 57. 16 Remarkably, a carefully inscribed ‘calendar rock’ which traces the Vermeulen family's ownership of this land, right from its purchase in 1882 to the mid-twentieth century, can still be found on the property. 17 For the role of white capital during the Kimberley diamond rush, see R.V. Turrell, Capital and Labour on the Kimberley Diamond Fields, 1871–1890 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1987). For detailed discussions on the emergence of settler-dominated capitalism in South Africa and elsewhere, see D. Denoon, Settler Capitalism: The Dynamics of Dependent Development in the Southern Hemisphere (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1983); J. Belich, Replenishing the Earth: The Settler Revolution and the Rise of the Angloworld, 1783–1939 (Oxford and New York, Oxford University Press, 2009). 18 Pienaar, ‘Die Aanloop tot en Stigting van Orania’, p. 57. 19 Orania Dorpsraad Archives (ODA), A.D. Brown (Principal Engineer), ‘Proposal in relation to the Enquiry into the Vanderkloof Canals […] and the Department's Intentions regarding the State-Owned Land at Vluytjeskraal Canals’, 3 April 1985, p. 1. 20 For a concise analysis of the Orange River canalisation scheme, see N. Jooste, ‘Die Eerste Fase van die Oranjerivierontwikkelingsprojek, 1962–1976: 'N Histories Analise’ (PhD Dissertation, University of the Orange Free State, 1999). For an idea of the kinds of propaganda used by the DWA, see The Orange River Development Project and Progress (Johannesburg, Voortrekkerpers, 1965). 21 A. Duplessis, Orania in ’n Neutedop (Orania: n.d.); Pienaar, ‘Die Aanloop tot en Stigting van Orania’, pp. 57–8. 22 Interview with Opperman, 17 March 2011. 23 ODA, Dr J. de Beer (Director General, Dept. Health and Welfare, Free State) to Mr J.F. Otto (Director General, Environment, Pretoria), 17 August 1982, esp. p. 5. See also Commission on Restitution of Land Rights, Report of the Research into the Land Claim by the Orania Community (Unpublished, February/March 2005) pp. 13–8 (Hereafter: Report on Orania); ODA, T.L. Langenhoven (former overseer of Orania project) to H. Opperman (Orania dorpsraad), 27 September 2005. 24 Report on Orania, pp. 20–1. 25 Interview with Opperman, 17 March 2011; C. Leonard, ‘In Search of a Homeland’, Sunday Star, 17 February 1991, p. 1. See also Report on Orania, p. 18. 26 The classic historical text remains J.S. Marais, The Cape Coloured People, 1652–1937 (London, Longmans, Green and Co., 1939). 27 A. Suzman, ‘Race Classification and Definition in the Union of South Africa, 1910–60’, Acta Juridica (1960), pp. 339–67. See also E. Cavanagh, The Griqua Past and the Limits of South African History, 1902–1994 (Oxford and New York, Peter Lang Publishers, 2011). 28 Report on Orania, pp. 18–9, 37. For the politics of Khoe-San identification, see M. Besten, ‘“We are the Original Inhabitants of this Land”: Khoe-San Identity in Post-Apartheid South Africa’, in M. Adhikari (ed.), Burdened by Race: Coloured Identities in Southern Africa (Cape Town, UCT Press, 2009), pp. 134–55. 29 Report on Orania, p. 38. 30 Report on Orania, pp. 34–5. 31 E. Gunning, ‘Wat Orania Regses Kan Kos’, Finansies en Tegniek, 22 February 1991, p. 4: ‘By the end of 1989, the Department of Water Affairs were paying R33,500 per year to keep the town functioning’. 32 ODA, Brown, ‘Proposal’, p. 4. 33 Land Survey Act (no. 8 of 1997), 1, viii. 34 ODA, de Beer to Otto; ODA, Director-General (Water Affairs and Forestry) to Administrative Secretary (Public Works), 21 October 1996 (names missing). 35 F.C. de Beer, ‘Exercise in Futility or Dawn of Afrikaner Self-Determination: An Exploratory Ethno-Historical Investigation of Orania’, Anthropology Southern Africa, 29, 3–4 (2006), pp. 108–9; Pienaar, ‘Die Aanloop tot en Stigting van Orania’. See also B.M. du Toit, ‘The Far-Right in Current South African Politics’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 29, 4 (1991), pp. 627–67. 36 L.R. Todd, ‘What's in a Name? The Politics of the Past within Afrikaner Identifications in Post-Apartheid South Africa’ (PhD thesis, University of London, 2007), pp. 47–86; M. Freddy Ramutsindela, ‘Afrikaner Nationalism, Electioneering and the Politics of a Volkstaat’, Politics, 18, 3 (1998), pp. 179–88; F.M. Ndahinda, Indigenousness in Africa: A Contested Legal Framework for Empowerment of ‘Marginalized’ Communities (The Hague, T.M.C. Asser Press, 2011). It is significant that British activist Arthur Kemp, proponent of the rights of Britain's white ‘indigenous’ people, provides an in-depth discussion of AWB's volkstaat in Victory or Violence: The Story of the AWB (Burlington, IA, Ostara Publications, 2008), pp. 75–80. See also the ‘Website for the Independence of the Boer People-Nation, BOEREVOLKSTAAT’, available at http://www.volkstaat.net/, retrieved on 13 October 2012. 37 For a more detailed appraisal of the Orania system of property relations, see E. Cavanagh, Settler Colonialism and Land Rights in South Africa: Possession and Dispossession on the Orange River (Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), Chapter 4. 38 M. Waldner, ‘Ons wil nie Weg nie! Waar moet ons Heen?, Rapport, 17 February 1991, p. 10. 39 Report on Orania, p. 28. 40 Interview with Opperman, 17 March 2011. 41 Report on Orania, pp. 25–6. It is unclear in the Report as to whether the ‘sale and forthcoming eviction’ refers to the initial alienation or to the later Boshoff acquisition. 42 Report on Orania, pp. 25–8, 32. 43 Report on Orania, pp. 27–8. 44 ‘Grootgewaag se Kleurlinge wil nie Padgee nie’, Die Transvaler, 20 February 1991, p. 9. 45 ‘Grootgewaag se Kleurlinge’, p. 9. See also C. Leonard, ‘In Search of a Homeland’, Sunday Star, 17 February 1991, p. 1, which suggests ‘about 70 families live in Grootgewaag’. 47 Report on Orania, p. 29. 48 Report on Orania, p. 30. 49 Report on Orania, p. 31. That black and coloured residents had different responses to the eviction is very interesting. It raises a lot of important questions about the experience – and expectancy – of removal, and it suggests that the community of squatters at Orania was not as tight-knit as the Report suggests. 46 Report on Orania, p. 29. 54 ODA, Minutes of a Meeting, 12 October 2005, p. 3. 50 Government Gazette, no. 27846. Notice 1333 of 2005. 51 ODA, L. Rungasamy (Deputy Director, Regional Land Claims Commission, FS/NC) to H. Opperman (Orania dorpsraad), 12 October 2005. Contrast the Promotion of Access to Information Act (no. 2 of 2000). 52 ODA, Minutes of Meeting Regarding Orania Restitution Claim, Regional Land Claims Commission (RLCC), Northern Cape, 12 October 2005, p. 2. 53 ODA, S.T.R. Ramakarane (Regional Land Claims Commissioner, FS/NC) to H. Opperman (Orania dorpsraad), 22 November 2005; ODA, Minutes of a Meeting, 12 October 2005, ODA. 55 ODA, W. Spies (Attorney for the Community of Orania) to S. Ramakarane (Regional Land Claims Commissioner, FS/NC), 1 December 2005. 56 ODA, Spies to Ramakarane. See also J.F. van der Merwe (Dorpsbestuurder of Orania) to Mr Sugar Ramakarane (Regional Land Claims Commissioner, FS/NC), 3 October 2005. 57 Die Burger, 6 December 2006, p. 17, cited in Pienaar, ‘Die Aanloop tot en Stigting’, p. 89; ‘Orania pleased at land claim’, News 24, 5 December 2006, available at http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Orania-pleased-at-land-claim-20061205, retrieved on 10 January 2011. 58 For a comparison between South African land restitution and common law Aboriginal title, see E. Cavanagh, ‘Land Rights that Come with Cut-Off Dates: A Comparative Reflection on Restitution, Aboriginal Title, and Historical Injustice’, South African Journal on Human Rights, 28, 3 (2012). For the doctrine of aboriginal title generally, see P. McHugh, Aboriginal Title: The Modern Jurisprudence of Tribal Land Rights (Oxford and New York, Oxford University Press, 2011); McNeil, Common Law Aboriginal Title. 59 In this, the hundredth year since the passage of the first Union-passed Natives Land Act, the cut-off dates may just be abolished. Delivering the ANC anniversary statement in January, South African President Jacob Zuma gave the strongest indication yet that ‘our government will re-open the lodgement date for claims and provide for the exception’ in existing land law, potentially allowing for historical acts of dispossession to fall within the hitherto restricted scope of land restitution. It should also be acknowledged that the specific nature of these reforms remained unclarified as this article was going to print. See Statement of the National Executive Committee on the occasion of the 101st Anniversary of the ANC, available at http://www.anc.org.za/show.php?id = 10013, retrieved on 6 February 2013. 60 Ö. Ülgen, ‘Developing the Doctrine of Aboriginal Title in South Africa: Source and Content’, Journal of African Law, 46, 2 (2002), p. 132. 61 See, for instance, Ülgen, ‘Developing the Doctrine of Aboriginal Title’; S. Brink, ‘Legal Pluralism in South Africa in View of the Richtersveld Case’, Stellenbosch Law Review 16, 2 (2005), pp. 175–93; P. Fitzpatrick and H. Mostert, ‘Law Against Law: Indigenous Rights and the Richtersveld Cases’, Law, Social Justice & Global Development 2 (2004), pp. 1–17. 62 K. Lehmann, ‘Aboriginal Title, Indigenous Rights and the Right to Culture’, South African Journal on Human Rights, 20 (2004), pp. 89–90; K. Lehmann, ‘To Define or Not to Define: The Definitional Debate’, American Indian Law Review 31, 2 (2006/2007), pp. 509–529. See also Cavanagh, ‘Land Rights that Come with Cut-Off Dates’. 63 Todd, ‘What's in a Name?’ 64 Groenewald, ‘Coloureds claim the Volkstaat’.