Amahlathi villagers in court challenge to chief’s authority

THE Amahlathi Crisis Committee, representing eight villages near King William’s Town, is challenging in court the decision of the Commission on Traditional Leadership Disputes and Claims to recognise the legitimacy of Chief Lent Maqoma.

According to court papers, it is the first time the Amahlathi have had a chief imposed on them since the Ciskei regime imposed Maqoma on them in 1982.

The committee, represented by the Legal Resources Centre, will argue in the Bhisho High Court today that they arrived in the area in the 1850s.

They had no chief but governed themselves through a system of elected chairpersons and had continued to practise this customary law.

However, in 1982, Ciskeian president Lennox Sebe created a chieftainship over the area and installed Maqoma as chief.

According to the LRC, the community ignored this new development until the position effectively disappeared in about 2000.

However, in 2005, with the promulgation of the Eastern Cape Traditional Leadership and Governance Act, Maqoma again reasserted his authority over the area and even attempted to take over the pending restitution claims that individual Amahlathi villages had lodged in 1998.

The Amahlathi people complained to the commission, which ruled that an antecedent of Maqoma had had authority over the area before the Amahlathi people arrived there.

History professor Jeff Peires has submitted an expert report to the court indicating that the commission relied on misinformation in assessing the history of the land.