Khoi go into battle over ancestral land — again
Amazon’s African head office plan opens 500-year-old wounds
The Khoi won their first battle against European soldiers but 500 years later they are fighting for the crumbs of a R4.6bn development on their ancestral land.
Dissatisfaction over the River Club development on the banks of Cape Town’s Liesbeek River this week flared into a slanging match between Khoi leaders on opposite sides of the building line.
A dispute between those who support the development and opponents of the scheme has led to threats, intimidation, protests and a high court showdown. Most Khoi leaders appear to agree on one thing, however: they want some form of ownership back, even as concrete pours into the greenbelt site where their cattle used to graze.
This week some Khoi leaders in favour of the Amazon African head office — the online retail and IT giant is due to be the anchor tenant of the new precinct — say they are unhappy with their share of the spoils.
The Khoi Trust allied to the development will have no ownership stake in the River Club but will instead manage and operate its Khoi Cultural Centre.
It’s cold comfort for most of the ancestors of the Khoi warriors who defeated a Portuguese raiding party in 1510 under the command of Francisco de Almeida, who was killed with 63 of his men.
The community lived near the Liesbeek, which later became a natural frontier zone between the Khoi and Dutch settlers in the days of the Dutch East India Company — the world’s biggest commercial concern in its day.
Some Khoi leaders say history is being repeated with the arrival of Amazon — one of the present-day global business giants.
In colonial days the Khoi were forced off their land by Dutch settlers; in democratic SA Transnet sold the same land to a developer.
“There appears to be an attempt to deny and cover up the fact that this is where the first dispossession of land occurred in our country, holding back restorative justice and healing,” said Tauriq Jenkins of the Goringhaicona Khoi Khoin Indigenous Traditional Council, which is one of the parties in the high court application to stop the development.
“It is where the first title deeds where ‘gifted’ to the Free Burghers [the name given to the early European settlers at the Cape of Good Hope] by the Dutch East India Company. It is where Roman Dutch Law was imposed to justify land theft. This is where the very concept of private property was determined in this country.
“Why deny this history for a ruinous Amazon development that will lethally inject the floodplain with 150,000m of concrete?”
Jenkins says the Liesbeek corridor is a huge missed opportunity for restorative justice and land restitution.
“The issue of land in this country has not been dealt with. How on earth Amazon can weave its way into a place from which a San and Khoi holocaust flowed? It’s unbelievable,” Jenkins said.
Some pro-development Khoi leaders say historic marginalisation of Khoi heritage prompted an alliance with the developer under the banner of the Western Cape First Nations Collective.
“What we have secured within the River Club development, after intensive engagement with the developer, is an exceptional First Nations anchorage,” said chairperson Chief !Garu Zenzile Khoisan, who criticised Jenkins and other “charlatans” at a press conference in Cape Town this week.
“In this heritage anchorage, under our control, we will herald a legacy through which we have secured hope and a future for our people,” he said.
However, there is disagreement within the collective, with some members pushing for an ownership stake.
“An opportunity should have been provided to First Nations peoples to become ownership stakeholders,” Chief Tania Kleinhans-Cedras told the Sunday Times. “We were not able to. Up until now there is a difference of opinion within the trust as to the fact that we should have had ownership.”
Another stakeholder, John Reed of the Korana Royal House, said the Khoi should be an equity partner in the River Club development. He said he was looking at the possibility of using proceeds from fishing quotas to acquire a stake.
James Tannenberger, spokesman for developer Liesbeek Leisure Properties Trust, denied the Khoi groups had any legitimate claim to ownership of the site.
“To ask a private owner to provide an ownership stake to an unknown and limitless body of parties is completely unfeasible and will basically amount to expropriation without compensation,” he said.
“This is also the first we have heard of members of the collective being ‘unhappy’ with the agreement.
“However, the social compact with the First Nations Collective is binding and states what rights and obligations the parties have.”