Rural families homeless
destroyed the spirit of this close-knit community.
Residents accuse Ikwezi of using bullying and underhanded tactics, and failing to follow proper consultation procedures before it demolished homes and moved into Kliprand.
The affected families have now enlisted the services of lawyers from the Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa (Seri).
Zamantungwa Khumalo, a lawyer with Seri, says although Ikwezi was granted a court order to relocate the families in December 2017, the families — who were then represented by a lawyer appointed by the department of rural development and land affairs — denied that they had given consent for their homes to be demolished.
Khumalo said Seri was informed in February this year that an order for relocation had been granted against the community. But when they consulted with residents, they denied ever having agreed to this.
“The community’s dignity has been impaired. There has been a lack of adequate consultation by the mining company,” said Khumalo.
Ikwezi’s Duan de Villiers insists the affected families were relocated in accordance with an agreement reached between the parties, which was made an order of court on December 13 2017.
He said the relocation of families in March and April 2018 was done under the supervision of the sheriff of the court, in terms of the court order as well as in the presence of the police.
De Villiers denied that Ikwezi failed to properly consult residents, who claim that although meetings may have been held between the company representatives and some people, the Kliprand community as a whole wasn’t represented.
Dudu points out that when the sheriff arrived with the eviction order a day before the bulldozers moved in, they did not recognise any of the names of the people on the court order. The families refused to sign the order, after which the messenger placed it under a rock and left. The next morning, the Kliprand community awoke to the roar of bulldozers.
Thembinkosi Dlamini, the director of Oxfam South Africa, which helped to organise legal representation for the Kliprand families after learning of their plight, described the situation faced by people living in rural KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga as “very bad”.
“Unfortunately, the [mining-] affected villages are remote and not organised and [are] characterised by low levels of education and awareness of their rights. The fact that the affected families are informal land rights holders or labour tenants makes things even more difficult,” said Dlamini.
He said once landowners sold to mining companies, the tenants are then left in peril.
“Mining houses are then quick to declare the residents unlawful occupiers and forcefully move them off the land without consultation. This is not correct, because the rights to free, prior and informed consent apply to individuals and households, no matter what form of attachment they have to the land in question. There is no requirement that a person affected by a project [must] prove ownership. As long as they are going to be impacted [on] by the project, the rights attach,” said Dlamini.
Khumalo warned that mining companies have to understand and respect that black communities function in their own particular way. “When a consultation takes place, it is usually communal. Everyone has to be present. When the men are not around, a consultation cannot take place. The extended family needs to be called if the graveyards need to be relocated. Mining companies have to understand the way people live.”
De Villiers said Ikwezi is in discussions with the affected families, Seri and senior officials from the department of mineral resources, “who are all committed to finding a longterm solution to the concerns of the community”.
He said the discussions began about two months ago and the parties agreed to work constructively to find a solution before the end of next month. Khumalo confirmed this.
De Villiers said Ikwezi has, to date, not relocated any graves in the mining area and will follow the inclusive consultative process provided for by law. “The process includes thorough consultation with the affected next of kin, and no graves shall be harmed or removed without such thorough consultation having taken place and relevant documentation required by Amafa [the KwaZulu-Natal heritage agency] having been obtained,” he said.
Although the engagements between lawyers for the Kliprand families and Ikwezi may lead to a solution in the long term, it will not change the fact that Elizabeth Hadebe will never be able to return to her home, which has been reduced to rubble.
Nor will it wipe away the trauma Dudu Hadebe and her children endured, watching as their family home was razed to the ground. —