Scramble for minerals leaves
Rural dwellers displaced in the pursuit of corporate profits lose far more than just their land
It could well have been 1960 but it wasn’t. It was March 2018 as Dudu Hadebe watched in horror as bulldozers, under the watch of police officers, reduced her home to rubble in a scene reminiscent of the dark days of apartheid’s forced removals.
The five houses the family had built in the 40 years they had lived on the farm Kliprand, halfway between Newcastle and Dundee in KwaZuluNatal, were flattened to make way for coal mining operations. In a matter of minutes, a family that had once lived off the land was rendered homeless.
“We were left with nothing,” said Hadebe recently, after attending a meeting between lawyers, government and mining company officials in nearby Dannhauser.
She recalled how, before the roaring machines began attacking her homestead, workers in red overalls pounced on the houses with vigour, removing clothing, furniture and groceries and dumping them on the back of bakkies.
When they were done, a family’s history lay in ruins, its dignity in tatters. It’s a deep trauma from which she and her children have not recovered. Only memories of years of living off the land and rearing cattle that helped to put three children through university remained.
The coal deposits beneath the earth have cursed yet another community. A new lord, Ikwezi Mining, now reigns over the land.
The chatter of children running in the pastures where herds of cattle once grazed has now been replaced by the roar of trucks.
The families lived on open plots, living a largely self-sustaining and relatively safe life. But now Hadebe and the families who once called this place home have been reduced to strangers who have to follow a long process of filling in security logbooks and being scrutinised by guards before they can visit their family graves.
The Kliprand community’s plight is one faced by thousands of others, not only in South Africa but across the world, where companies that pursue mineral exploration force people off their land.
The Human Rights and Business Dilemmas Forum, an online platform that examines the difficulties facing businesses and people in a bid to prevent and mitigate human rights violations, says resettling people means more than just replacing their homes. This is why giving them financial compensation is not always a straightforward solution.
The forum is a joint initiative between the United Nations Global Compact and the British-based global risk and strategic consulting firm Verisk Maplecroft.
It notes: “Resettling communities means that residents may lose land on which their families and ancestors have lived for centuries. It is land which has provided the conditions to support the residents’ livelihoods for many years. Their social life is situated among their neighbours. Children have grown up to go to the community school. Some groups, particularly indigenous groups, may attach spiritual or religious meaning to the land.”
Early on Friday evening, after waiting more than half an hour for security guards to grant the families access to the graves, Elizabeth Hadebe stood near the heap of rubble that was once her home.
Tears shone in her eyes. Then she looked into the distance, where trucks that ferry coal were lined up facing the opposite direction.
Further to the left of the trucks, conveyor belts towered above the flat landscape. Men in blue overalls and white hard hats milled about the structures. Her cattle will never graze here, and she’ll never watch her grandchildren chase rabbits in the tall grass again.
“I don’t even want to look at this,” she said, turning away from the scene where 40 years of memories now lie in ruins.
The grave of her husband, Maviyo Hadebe, is fenced off a little further down from the rubble. He succumbed to illness in 2013. Now his grave is among many of those earmarked for exhumation and relocation. The whole idea fills Elizabeth with dread. The entire Kliprand community is horrified.
The residents, steeped in the deep cultural and spiritual beliefs of the Nguni people, do not regard graves
Dudu Hadebe now rents a small room for R800 a month on the outskirts of Newcastle. She lives there with her husband and four of their seven children, with no privacy.
The family’s 38 cattle still roam the land in Kliprand, but most of it is fenced off and the grazing that remains is inadequate. The cattle’s condition has deteriorated, making it difficult to sell them at auctions as Dudu used to. For years, the family relied on trading their cattle to pay school fees. One of their children is a university graduate and two others are still studying. But now their source of income is threatened.
Funani Ngwenya’s homestead, comprising nine houses of varying designs and sizes with more 20 rooms, stands near the newly erected fence. The family is living on borrowed time. They, too, face possible eviction.
The family of more than 30, including his children and grandchildren, keep large herds of cattle, as well as goats and poultry. It’s been their way of life since they settled here in 1978. Funani is reluctant to discuss the situation.
His daughter, Thembekile Ngwenya, is worried about the safety of the children who kick about a ball made of rags in the dusty street, as dangerous trucks roar past the homestead.
Some of the Hadebe children have been living with the Ngwenya family since the Hadebe home was demolished in March. Thembekile said the destruction of the homesteads also