The Herald: Haunted by the ‘why‘ of 1970s forced removals

The Herald 21/11/07

Haunted by the ‘why‘ of 1970s forced removals

Ben Maclennan in CAPE TOWN

BEN Mafani never met Piet Koornhof, who died last week at the age of 82.

But he hopes to come face to face with Koornhof in the afterlife, because he has a question for the apartheid-era cabinet minister.

Mafani wants to know why he, his family, and thousands of other people were forcibly removed from “white” South Africa three decades ago and dumped in plank houses at Glenmore on the edge of the Ciskei. It is a question that has gnawed at Mafani since the day in April, 1979, that police arrested him at his home in Coega, near Port Elizabeth, and officials destroyed his dwelling and trucked him and his belongings to the resettlement camp.

At the time, Koornhof was minister of what was euphemistically called the department of co-operation and development, and as such, bore political responsibility for its forced removal programme.

Koornhof was no stranger to the hardships of forced removals. In 1971, after a visit to one of the most notorious dumping grounds in the Eastern Cape, he declared there would be “no more Dimbazas.

“I am not prepared to have inhumane treatment on my conscience,” he said.

But he was also on record as saying that South Africa was a white man‘s land, and that instilling in the Bantu a longing to join his own people in the “homelands” was a white man‘s patriotic duty.

Mafani once wrote a letter to Koornhof, in 1978, to protest against the pending Coega removal.

But he never sent it because police arrested him as a troublemaker and confiscated the letter.

Since the advent of democracy in South Africa, Mafani has been firing off letters to the new institutions of government in a dogged campaign to secure some sort of redress for the community.

The letters have gone to politicians, ranging from provincial legislators to President Thabo Mbeki, to the department of justice and the public protector.

The replies have always been vague – in his words, “playing hide and seek . . . nobody took this thing seriously”.

In 2004, he decided on a more direct way of drawing attention to his cause. He took a 50km taxi ride to Grahamstown, stood in the High Street, and threw a rock through a window of the High Court.

He was arrested, but after he had spent several months in jail awaiting trial, the case was dropped.

Denied his day in court, Mafani mulled over the matter for several years.

On September 7 this year, he went back to the High Street – with another rock. This one was carefully painted – in black, to show that the people of Glenmore were “sitting in a black place”, red “meaning that our people are crying blood”, and white, “saying I need freedom in Glenmore”.

He threw the rock through a window of the High Court.

Predictably, he was arrested again, and charged with malicious damage to property.

And this time he is going to get his day in court. His next appearance is on December 6.

Mafani, freed on R300 bail, said this week that conditions were tough at Glenmore. People survived on pensions, and there were no jobs for school leavers. – Sapa

http://www.theherald.co.za/herald/news/n17_21112007.htm