Mogopa as a case study on Forced removals under rural Apartheid

Transcription

1 Mogopa as a case study on Forced removals under rural Apartheid

2 Context: The 1913 Land Act, Forced Removals and Black Sash Insert pic

3 What was the purpose of the Land Act? What was the difference between the aims of creating the Reserves and the Bantustans?

4 Segregation years were based on keeping White English and Afrikaner together, and Black people in the reserves that with hut tax, dog tax, poll tax, people had to come and work on the mines, in urban areas, and earn cash to pay these taxes

5 With the land act, black peasants could not compete with poor white farmers to supply the towns with food.

6 The Roots of Rural Poverty are born Overcrowding Soil erosion Water shortages Poor facilities Cheap labour pool controlled by pass laws

7 But when Apartheid started: The next step of disinheritance was to plan for depriving the Black SA of his/her SA citizenship entirely: first by dividing people according to tribes in the homelands, and then granting them self- governance, and finally the aim was independence.

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9 Homelands were created based on the old tribal reserves still 13% of the Land

10 Black communities such as Mogopa and Mathopestad had bought land outside the reserves before the Land Act of They had title deed to this land.

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12 Now they were called a Black Spot Forced removals increased in the 1980s, as the government tried to encourage the selfgoverning Bantustans to take Independence.

13 Few White SAs had knowledge of Resettlement camps or witnessed the impact of Forced removals policy. Mogopa woman in Pachsdraai after forced removal

14 Apartheid State tactics -Stop old aged pensions -Bulldoze schools - Stop water supply - Promise tenants land divide and rule - Give chief the old white farmer s house bribery -violence against resistors

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18 Community resistance included -Signing petitions -Speaking to press -Writing letters - Mass meetings - Briefing dignitaries such as clerics, ambassadors, senators, -Legal action

19 Court Action

20 Yet, State still persevered, with force. Removal of Mogopa Feb Started 3am

21 Conditions -Tin toilets in the veld -Poor water supply -Child deaths -Pensioners deaths -Poor soil malnutrition -Costly transport to look for and get to -work

22 Even after the removal, people of Mogopa resisted and moved away to home of Paramount chief, Jacob More in Bethanie. However, this was still in Bophuthatswana.

23 New life, new hope Mogopa mother after removal and fleeing to Bethanie

24 Fetching water at Bethanie.

25 Some women, men and youth met to see what arrangement could be made to get back to Mogopa.

26 The Youth came up with a plan to go back to Mogopa, to bury their dead and clean the graves permission was obtained. The people cleaned the graves, but did not leave Mogopa just camped out there.

27 Burying Isaac More in Mogopa 1985

28 The Church bought a new piece of land for Mogopa, (Holgat) but the land was expropriated by the State

29 The community won a court case showing the removal from Mogopa was illegal. However, the State said Mogopa had been expropriated and offered the community other land at Onderstepoort, near Sun City. So once more, many people moved from Bethanie to Onderstepoort, as a stopgap. Others stayed there. Women below saying goodbye to graves of relatives at Bethanie before leaving.

30 Praying before the court case outcome

31 Some people felt they should stay at Onderstepoort, but it was Bophuthatswana,, but part of the community carried on the pressure to return to Mogopa. Some people went to Mogopa and cleaned graves and just stayed, camping out in basic structures. The State tried to evict them, but the political tide was changing.

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34 Return to Mogopa 1990

35 1994 elections happened and the new ANC Minister of Land, Derek Hanekom stated the community would get back the second piece of land, to Mogopa.

36 Lekgotla Tree

37 Rebuilding a community

38 Home at Last

39 But many challenges still and many people left behind on the way back home.