E EPISCOPAL CHURCHPEOPLE for a ~REE SOUTHERN AFRICA . C 339 Lafayette Street, New York, N.Y. 10012·2725 S (212) 4n-0066 FAX: (212) 979-1013 A #105 15 December 1990 'Confession and forgiveness necessarily require restitution. Without it" a confession of guilt is incomplete. ' - The Rustenburg Declaration, November 1990 'The land must be returned to the people. The land cannot be owned by the . few and worked by the many. ' - The Rev Dr Khoza Mgojo, president, South African Council of Q1Urches 'A new just society must be based on a just redistribution of land or bitterness will continue haunting this country for many years. ' - The Rev Dr Frank Chikane,· general-secretary, South African Council of Churches 'De Klerk says we should have a free market" that we have to b1,.ty the land. Why should we buy the land which was stolen from us in the first place?' - African delegates at a Transvaal Action Corranittee conference, December 1990 The Land. Nothing is IIDre at the heart of the struggle under way and yet to come in South Africa. The issue of control of the land and its resources is widely discussed and passionately felt. The long-time fonnula of white CMIlership 87% - African 13% is due to change - what will follow? White extremists vow they will fight any taking of It: ~ir' land. A referendum in the Transvaal resulted in 95% of 16,000 white fa.rm:rs wanting sole control of the land. Blacks are fervently ccmni.tted to drastic change. Three and a half million Africans have been forcibly uprooted :frum their homes and farms since 1960 and until very recently Pretoria was clearing out 'black spots' in I whites only I areas. Half the 28 million Africans in South Africa live in rural dis­ tricts, nine million in the bantustans and five million on white farms. A government scheme advises that five million acres Pretoria had bought fran whites be made part of the bantustans. Another proposal is that bankrupt white farms be sold to Africans. A scant step. Where do impoverished Africans get IIDney or credit? One small but sensible use of land: The vast African townships built up around the white cities are su.rruunded by open spaces - free-fire zones Pretoria created to con­ tain the ever-feared black uprising. Civic Associations in the tCMIlShips propose to municipal and provincial administrations that oorrmunity trusts be granted use of the open spaces for oonstruction of housing and acoompanying facilities - electricity, water, sewage disposal - to accoIIllIDdate at least same of the residents of the crarrmed tCMIlships and the steady flood o:f people from the overpopulated and increasingly bar­ ren bantustans. The influx of Africans into South Africa's cities is and will be enormous. DeIIDgraphic surveys forecast a doubling of population by the end of the 90s. By 2010 the Pretoria-Johannesburg-Vereeniging triangle will beccme virtually a single city of 16.5 million. Cape Town and Durban will swell to seven million each by 2000. Non-profit community trusts face the surge of free enterprise forces aiming to 'devel­ op I land for housing to sell or rent to Africans desperate for a better life for them­ selves and their children. What chance the not-yet-established corrmunity trusts vis-a­ vis the well-financed entrepreneurs? _¥, THE INDEPENDENT: -: Saturday'1 December 1990 , f OBSERVER SUNDAY 9 DECEMBER 1990 A' l'.no'-,"- -:-r .,:,.-,.~~<C'........-,,,...::.. .,:.~ SA township ru~.~, stepS~~\1 .shows way pressure for:~ri~w 11 deal on reform "BACK HOME, no money", This is the explanation that here, as in aU of South Africa's black protest is what the ;esistance townships, the men at the single· Johannesburg movement ha' always done sex hostel give for abandoning to unity· best. It serves the dwrl purpose their women hundreds of miles of dramatising the ANC's away in the rural areas and opting THE African National Congress demands and r'ving its follow­ for a life ol squalor and frustra­ John Carlin found'the Atteridgeville has set in motion a two-pronged ers a sense 0 invohenent in tion. They send money back to strategy aimed at revening what is a remote and confusing their families and they visit at hostel-dwellers at one with the ~ommunity what it sees as a loss of political process for most of them. More Christmas but, year after year, initiative in 'sta11ed' negotia- street demonstrations are to fol- domestic life is no more private, tions on South Africa's future. low. ' l and probably more cramped, The answer to the question why tation by forces - the state, It launched a 'mass action' This week the ANa will hold than it is for the foreign troops at this should, so exceptionally, be Inkatha. or whoever - who wish campaign last week to put pres- an important consulutive con­ the desert camps in Saudi Arabia. the case sheds light on a conun­ to sow chaos. So long as the hos­ sure on President F. W. de ference attended by llSOO dele­ As for danger, most of the hos­ drum which provokes much tel men remain township "(ep­ Klerk to revive the negotia- gates, including its ailing tel-dwellelli in the Johannesburg heated debate and wbich threal- ­ elli", violence will always loom. tions, and shifted its ground on president, Oliver Tambo, who area have experienced far more ens to undermine the procesS of Work in Progr= sppke as if this sanctions to try to regain some will return home on Thursday. of it than any soldier stationed in negotiation and political, change was a problem which needed to initiative on the international It will focus· on deuands that the Gulf in recent IIJOlJlhs. Eight on wbich Nelson Mandela and be addlZS&Cd in every township. front. the ~t sheuld stop hundred were killed in clashes be­ 'F W de K1erk have embarked, To Not so in Atteridgeville, which tiations tween hostel inmates and town­ this day Mr Mandela blames the has already acted on the Iogit As South Africa's year of stalliDs on the neao , ship residents in August and Sep­ townships war of two months ago proposed by the article in ques­ change draws to a close, the bring tile poljce under· control tember. Dozens more have died on agents provocateurs within the tion, proving that tbe logic works. organisation hopes the com- and eud.. vigilante:. violence. in sporadic incidents since. state security apparatus. He, and David Malema, a hefty man bined effect of its moves will Above all, the ANC,wants an Eleven men were chopped to the ANC, also blame lnkatha, the whose very bearing inspires reo push De .Klerk into taking 'interim govemment\ installed pieces in the township- of right-wing Zulu political party. specr, is tbe leader of tbe Atteri­ another reformist leap when he to supervile electiooI for a con­ Katlehong on Monday. With reo Inlcatha and the police say it takes dgeville hostel-dwellen. Five opens the 1991 sessionofparlia- stituent aaaembly to drafta new venge simmering. just below the two to tango, and pin the blame in years ago he, and by extension all ment on I February, as he did constitution. i:''I. surface, there' is widespread in­ large meallure on ANC militants. his 16,000 fellow inmates, joined when he announced the unban- The other'ProaI of;the strat­ flammable potential. With refreshing candour, a the Atteridleville resideRts' ass0­ Ding of the ANC and releue of egy, the settiDgofcooclitions fOl' But it does not -exist every­ pro-ANC political journal, Work ciation, .wgely l! pro-ANC body. Nelson MandeIa while opening lifting ~ will,lthe ANC where. Atteridgeville; 3Q miles in ~ss, put forward the no­ The aaeociation's purpose is to the 1990 session. hopes, bring intaDatienal pres- north-west of10hannesti\irg, has tion that "the democratic organi­ battle, if necessary fight, to im­ This hope is baed on a belief sure to beeOft thegovernment a hostel population of 16,000. All sations", meaning ANC affiliates prove tbe material conditions of that nothing the Pretoria gov- to--meet the· COIIditions. This the black. tribes are represented: in the townships, had to shoulder the township. With a corrupt, ernment does steIDl from any policy shift stems from a recog­ Zulu, Xhou. Sotho, Pedi and part of the responsibility. The ar­ Pretoria-imposed black local innate desire for change, but nition by the ANC that local othelli. But there is no inter-tribal ticle made the point that because council in place and pitifully inad­ oo1y from a bowing to internal and internatioDal developments conilict, nor is there any animos­ of the appalling conditions in equate water, electricity, roads and international pressures. mean sanctioDa are inevitably ity between tbe hostel men and which the hostel dwellers live, and and housing, there has been Ease the pressures and the on the way out, and rather than their townshiF neighbours. Can­ more especially be~ they are much to battle for. reformism flags. fight a futile rearguard action to versatiolll with various people on marginalised from' toWnship life, "We figured back in 1985," Mr De Klerk has won interna- preserve them, the ANC should both sides of this ugly apartbeid long-accumulated resentments Malema said. "that our interests tional acclaim since February, take control oftheir dismantling fence revealed as much. " ~ leave th~ people ripe for exploi- would best be setVed by joininl gaining a breathing space, and and turn the process to its -------------~~---"':""'=====~~-------Ithe ANC feels he is now playing advantage. ,. 1 - games with it, stalling on nego- Nelson Mandela wrote to EC tiations while allowing the leaders last week asking them to police and vigilante groups to maintain sanctions for another forces with the residen18' associa­ fan violence in the townships.