No room for all in Bophuthatswana

Press, 24 July 1984, Page 21

No room for all in Bophuthatswana

From

Allister Sparks

in

Johannesburg

Apartheid is being given a new twist with a campaign by a tribal

“homeland” to eject nearly a million black people from its territory.

Usually it works the other way around. Since the South African Government began establishing small “homelands” for the black population 21 years ago, it has removed an estimated 3,500,000 Africans from the main part of the country, officially regarded as “white,” and dumped them there. Now Bophuthatswana, one of four “homelands” that Pretoria has given nominal independence, is apeing its creator with a removal policy of its own. It is trying to force out Africans who are not members of the Tswana tribe, for which Bophuthatswana was established.

Many of those threatened are people whom the white government “endorsed out” of nearby Pretoria and parts of the Witwatersrand a few years ago. If they are forced back into “white” South Africa they will be subject to arrest and endorsement out to a “homeland” once again. Thousands of non-Tswanas are being arrested, imprisoned and fined, according to members of the Development Studies Programme at Johannesburg’s Witwatersrand University who have been doing research in Bophuthatswana for three years. The programme’s chairman, Professor Jeremy Keenan, says attenjpts by the Bopirpthatswana

Government to harass non-Tswanas into leaving have included the stopping of deliveries of baby food and medical supplies to clinics in the area where they live. Bophuthatswana has gained a reputation as the one comparative success story in South Africa’s otherwise derided attempt to defuse the Black.demand for political rights by giving blacks their

own little tribal states. It has a suave and skilful leader, President Lucas Mangope, a former schoolmaster, who has impressed white businessmen and encouraged a number to invest there. The “homeland” has developed to the point where only six per cent of its revenue comes in direct assistance from Pretoria. Its constitution contains a Bill of

Rights and Mangope likes to boast that Bophuthatswana is a refuge for blacks from South Africa’s apartheid laws. He has written a book about it called “A Place For All.”

In terms of the constitution, anyone can • become a Bophuthatswana citizen after five years’ residence. In fact, only members of the Tswana

citizens. The South African Act of Parliament which gave the “homeland” nominal independence six years ago automatically made all Tswanas citizens, whether they live in the territory or not. Other residents must apply for citizenship. Few have done so. Citizenship of a state that no country in the world recognises other than South Africa is not something to start a gold rush, aside from which few Africans in rural areas understand such niceties. Now the Bophuthatswana Government is foreclosing on these non-citizens. It claims that they are “squatters,” even though most have been there since long before the “homeland” was declared independent. Some are landowners, whole clans who bought land in special freehold areas north of Pretoria 30 or more years ago. Others settled there over the years to be within commuting distance of jobs in Pretoria and the heavily industrialised Witwatersrand. Many were born there. Professor Keenan says that all these people, who number nearly a million, have been subjected to harassment by the Bophuthatswana Government for several years. He contends that, despite its reputation among Whites, Mangope’s administration is increasingly unpopular among blacks and that it is turning on the nonTswanas as scapegoats. When initial harassment failed, says Professor Keenan, the Bophuthatswana Government passed a new land law last August prohibiting all non-citizens from occupying any land or premises in the

“homeland,” except with special permission which they had to get within 30 days. Few got the permission, he says, and when there was a scramble by the non-Tswanas to apply for citizenship, they met with bureaucratic obstruction. Now, says Professor Keenan, people are being arrested indiscriminately under the new law. The “homeland’s” Minister of Lands and Rural Development, Mr D. C. Mokale, referred to those arrested in a speech last week when he said that the Government’s patience with the squatters had run out Following the passing of the land law, said Mr Mokale, the Government had devised a strategy which would lead to the prosecution of the squatters and the “purging” of the “infested” areas. "The situation in some areas is total anarchy,” Professor Keenan told a press conference called to publicise his studies programme. “People are being arrested willynilly and abuses are rife. The authorities are exploiting the people’s illiteracy and their lack of understanding of legal processes to make them pay fines when they think they are paying bail.’ “Many have been kept in prison for up to two weeks -before being brought to court Relatives and defence lawyers have been given false information, names and court rolls have been altered to confuse those charged and their lawyers. “Some people have been fined and then immediately rearrested as second offenders. Many are now fleeing to escape the harassment,” Professor Keenan added. — (Copybright — London Observer Service).