BLBA Annual Reports for the year 2010/11

The Bafokeng Land Buyers' Association held their Annual General Meeting at Mokgatlhe Lodge on the 28th August 2011. Here are the Chairperson's and the Secretary's 2010/11 Reports.

Temporary justice not celebrated in Chaneng and Robega

-by Joseph Magobe

On Monday of 25 July 2011 the Chaneng and Robega human rights activists while waiting to be tried at the Tlhabane Magistrate Court, were shocked by the prosecutor’s announcement that their case has been “withdrawn”.

The accused had been waiting for 10 months to vindicate themselves as the case had been constantly remanded on account that “the State is still investigating”.

On 18 June, probably due to high stress levels caused by heavily armed police arrest, court proceedings, pains and illness, Kgomotso Rammutla was buried. The death of this young heroine invigorated Chaneng Youth Organisation to reaffirm their march against economic and environmental injustices, and their continued support for the human rights activists’ trial.

Kgomotso was one of the eight accused of public violence of 08 October 2010. She died untimely without tasting ‘freedom’, which has not been realized. ‘It could have been better if she died not a crime suspect’, sobbed a mourner.

Unfortunately the reasons for the 08 October 2010 protest have not been resolved and this ‘begs for no question that more revolutionary action by Macharora is coming’.

Update on the Mafikeng High Court case 999/08

All Respondents but the Baphiring Community have finally submitted their Answering papers, opposing the Bafokeng chief’s Application to have the land transferred and registered in Royal Bafokeng Nation’s title. Due to the passing of their legal representative Durkje Gilfillan, the legal guru who pioneered the current Bafokeng communities’ land claims, the Baphiring have had to reconstitute their legal team. They are expected to file their papers soon.

Copies of the communities’ Opposing papers can be accessed at www.bafokeng-communities.blogspot.com.

The Bafokeng chief’s failed 2020 Vision under the spotlight

-Writes Thusi Rapoo 

Many of the ‘Bafokeng’ communities that bought land from the boers in the mid 19^th century had two common objectives in mind, to steer off white oppression and to provide for their livelihoods using their indigenous traditional systems practiced at the time.

The current Bafokeng chief’s determination to destroy Bafokeng communities’ traditional systems has been questioned. Who has given him authority to corporatize and urbanize the Bafokeng? Who is actually ill-advising him?

The Bafokeng communities are rural ‘communist’ settlements, peaceful, united, with no need for the chief’s urbanization programmes. Millions of rands have been spend and wasted on the failed 2020 vision, the utopian Bafokeng Master Plan and now the distant 2035 Plan which only seeks to shift goal posts further away from beneficiation. The plans are likely to create dual economies for the haves and the have-nots within the Rustenburg-Bafokeng region, with the former, a small minority of crooked local elites, earmarked to be the ultimate beneficiaries of the Bafokeng accumulated R30billion wealth.

Chaneng activist Joseph Magobe summed it well that ‘the corporatization and urbanization of the Bafokeng into a cold capitalist machine at the expense of the poor and their local indigenous knowledge systems will bear devastating effects to local livelihoods. We have said before that if the chief was elected and not born, he would not have been re-elected on account of poor performance, wasteful spending, condonation of ecocidal practices by foreign multinational companies, disgraceful ignorance on the importance of green economy, poor economic and political foresight, lack of service delivery, western tendencies, and his dictatorial and indifferent Khama/Mangope/PW Botha style of leadership’.

Some people are adamant that the Bafokeng chief’s leadership is reckless and irresponsible, and could be charged and disposed in the court of law for violating (customary) laws.

 ‘Who wants 2035 when most of the concerned Bafokeng elderly would already be dead by 2020?’ Pointing to Ms Gillian Kettaneh and Nial Caroll in the Bafokeng report, Magobe lamented, ‘ comrades… 2020 Vision, the Masterplan, 2035 Plan are simply the World Bank’s grand plan to keep us quite and waiting while they loot our platinum wealth. The poor kaffir kaptein is most probably not even aware of it!’

Alienation of the disputed Bafokeng Communities’ land by the Royal Bafokeng Nation

The Bafokeng Land Buyers’ Association is concerned about the continued illegal alienation of disputed land by the Bafokeng tribal authority (alias Royal Bafokeng Nation) with the blessing of both the Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform and the Minister of Local Government and Traditional Affairs. The land in question is in dispute in the ongoing legal cases at the Mafikeng High Court and the Land Claims Court.

‘The implication is that all productive claimed land under dispute will be alienated to whoever wants it without the claimants’ consent’, said Lucas Mekgwe, chairperson of the Bafokeng Land Buyers’ Association. He cautioned that as parties to the legal dispute in Mafikeng, ‘the State, who is also the titleholder of the claimed land should be subpoenaed before the Courts for the deliberate flaunting of the claimants’ constitutional rights to land restitution and just administration’.

Tshasa August 2011 is out

Your Tshasa August 2011 is out. It is a compilation of articles that appears on http://www.bafokeng-communities.blogspot.com/.

Slowly and quietly, Adolph Zietsman is arming his Bafokeng security company

Under the erstwhile command of the former koevoet operative Adolph Zietsman, it has always been expected that sooner or later, the well financed Bafokeng security will have to be heavily armed. It was a surprise though to see the Bafokeng chief feeling insecure amongst ‘his people’ at the recent Dumela Phokeng meeting held in April at Luka village.

Surrounded by heavily armed Zietsman’s security, all located at various strategic points, it is clear that the chief is threatened and fearful of ‘his people’. ‘He is isolated and disassociated. If he thinks he is safe within his covert security force, he is wrong, he is highly vulnerable. His safety can only be guaranteed when he is with and amongst his people. It is them that will give him protection. Not the security force or a small number of the rich who will be quick to abandon him when there is trouble. It is the very security force that will deal with him..’ warned Phistus Mekgwe, organizer of the Anti-Bafokeng Repression Campaign.

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING OF THE BAFOKENG LAND BUYERS’ ASSOCIATION

The Bafokeng Land Buyers’ Association will hold their Annual General Meeting on the 28^th August 2011 at Mokgatle Lodge, at 10am. Members are expected to be seated by 9:30am and are therefore encouraged to arrive early for registration. Attendants are further requested to bring R30 for braai.

Bafokeng singing pina-a-tshwene at the Kgotha Kgothe meeting

The voice of the voiceless people of Bafokeng has noticed the increasing numbers of newcomers to the intriguing Bafokeng Kgotha-Kgothe meetings. More and more frustrated, out of work young people, attend the Kgotha-kgothe meetings to air their views on poor Bafokeng administration and its feudal leadership.  

What many of the ‘newcomers’ do not realize is that the concerns they raise have been told a zillion times before by their ancestors in the same Kgotha Kgothe meetings. ‘If you say we are going to vote, how did you determine the quorum in this meeting?’ asked Terry Bogopane. The reported case of Bogopane vs Mokgatlhe (+1955) questioned the Bafokeng chief’s abuse of authority to take decisions with only a handful of people attending the Kgotha kgothe. In more recent times, many organizations and interest groups have been formed within the Bafokeng to raise the very same concerns. When a group of disgruntled people tried to disrupt the recent Kgotha Kgothe of the 18^th June, they were in fact repeating what had happened in around 1922 when a group of rebels took over Kgotha Kgothe proceedings from chief August Mokgatle.

The point is that ‘newcomers’ must be aware that the royal family, with years of attendance to these meetings, knows exactly the issues that will be raised, and now sees these Kgotha-kgothe meetings as venting sessions, a therapeutic exercise for hungry, poor ‘new grumblers’. ‘Ke kgwele se se mofatlheng..o nkutlwile..i feel better now’. Without addressing the real concerns raised, the family goes back to their usual business...exploitation.

'The best option for Bafokeng Kgotha-kgothe newcomers is for them to join and strengthen existing dissenting organisations advocating legitimate concerns within the Bafokeng bantustan', advised Thusi Rapoo, secretary of the Bafokeng Land Buyers' Association.

Koko Semane is back from retirement

Koko Semane Molotlegi, the Queen Mother of the Bafokeng as the media and others likes to call her, returned from retirement to open the Dumela Phokeng meeting at Thethe High School (Luka) and the follow up Bafokeng Kgotha-kgothe at the Phokeng Civic Centre.

People grumbled when she threatened at Luka that anyone who dare talk about succession to the Bafokeng’s chieftaincy, ‘o ta se bona’. She quickly clarified that she is not a witch as others will want to interpret that statement.. ’mara, o ta se bona’, she reiterated. She said that people must not bother her son, the Bafokeng Chief, with their land claims. She informed the people that her son does not own the land under claim in the current Mafikeng High Court case, but that he is only holding the land for their rightful owners and that it is the Courts that will determine who the rightful owners are.

At the Phokeng Kgotha Kgothe, her first salvo was that some people are spooks (ba tsamaya ba sule). She encouraged the meek and the powerless to learn from the biblical story of David and Goliath,  that David did not have to mobilize support to bring down Goliath. She advised people to stop mass demonstrations if they had issues. That they should approach ‘Goliath’ in their individual capacities and address issues in their mother tongues. She intimated her dislike for kids who could not communicate with their mothers in Setswana. In the end she instructed the poor Bafokeng people to start paying for their water supplies, starting in August.

Mariga a tlile abe a laela..goodbye winter, hello spring!

Climate change has caught up with us! We shall experience severe drought or rainstorms this coming spring/summer.

When it is this cold, people usually hibernate from the streets to the comfort of their homes. Media houses and journalists have Julius to thank for making their lives easy, keeping costs down and profits soaring. Have a look at this past weekend’s papers..all journalists wrote about Julius from the warmth of their homes!

The voice of the voiceless has also been in hibernation due to this climate change, caused by amongst others, the Bafokeng Tribal Authority and their mining bosses (Anglo Platinum, Impala and Xstrata).

We should therefore not be apologizing for being away.. it is not us who caused this climate change! We should however thank you for your warm understanding.

Besides our ongoing court case in Mafikeng, we should have at least reported on the Dumela Phokeng visits by Kgosi Molotlegi during April 2011 and the follow up Kgotha Kgothe of June 2011. We are also planning for our Annual General Meeting for the 28th August 2011, 10am at Mokgatle Lodge. Keep logged as we publish those reports during the course of the week.

Mogono, Chaneng, Tsitsing, Photsaneng/Bleskop Opposing Affidavit

Find the Opposing affidavit of Mogono, Chaneng, Tsitsing, Photsaneng/Bleskop Communities' in the list below the home page. Your attention is drawn from page 52. or directly here https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B72gJZ75Jz7tZmI1ODE4ZWQtNzgxZC00NWM2LWE5MjMtYjlmODM3ZTViYmY5&hl=en_US

Bafokeng Communities' files their Opposing Papers

Find in the page 'Bafokeng Communities' Opposing/Answering Papers' below the 'Home' tab various parties' filed opposing papers to the Bafokeng's Application in case no. 999/08, Mafikeng High Court. 

Greetings to the “Durkje we love and miss you” family

It is seven days since Durkje bid us all farewell. At last we have bid Durkje farewell.

It was one of the most beautiful farewells one could ever imagine. So many contributed, every contribution was precious.

This was a memorial to the life, the achievements of Durkje but also an expression of overwhelming love for Durkje. Our thanks and gratitude must go to you Chris Langeveld.  You channeled our love for Durkje into a celebration of a life spent selflessly for those that needed it most, the dispossed and the wronged.

Durkje is a diamond of many facets (I still cannot get myself to use the past tense). Sister to Imme and Janneke, Mother to Henry and Charles, Grandmother to Meagan and Grace, Mother in law to Rina and Naomi, care giver and champion to untold numbers of people. Every person at the service departed with a shared experience of this gift to the country she loved and made her own.

The time line followed was of her service as an attorney.  The Legal Recourses Centre (LRC) office in Pretoria is where the Law of Land became her specialty. None were surprised at her appointment as a Land Claims Commissioner. Many more were saddened when it became clear that the three year contract was not to be renewed. Testimonials there were aplenty from communities she had served in Limpopo and Mpumalanga and those of her Pretoria LRC days in Northern Province and North West.

With the staff she so carefully recruited, a foundation was laid and lines of action were thrashed out that simply did not exist. The research they did and the results they achieved in but three years clearly demonstrated that they were on the right track, that progress in rural land reform was possible but, by its very nature, will be slow and difficult. Undaunted she returned to the LRC, this time in Johannesburg, to continue with her passion, Land Reform, as an attorney for communities that needed their claims taken forward. With no limitation on the communities she may assist, she answered calls from close to home to the far reaches of Northern Cape, North West Province, Limpopo and Mpumalanga.

Cases that she had worked on before she was Commissioner came back to her still unresolved.  Three days before admitted to ICU with double pneumonia, she was in Piet Retief taking forward claims she had nurtured  as Attorney of Gilfillan du Plessis, after she retired from LRC. Her colleagues kept alive the hopes of many communities whose claims were still in progress. Standing there in the ICU cubical she had occupied for more than eight weeks, with her now cold body, I grieved for these precious colleagues and the communities whose hopes they had kept alive believing, as did we all, that it was but a question of time. For us as family it is a grievous loss, but we will recover. For they that desperately hoped for her recovery, that she will continue the work that is interrupted, I found her passing particularly cruel.

But there were others at the memorial service that remembered another Durkje, the political activist, the municipal candidate, with her picture plastered across the ward she contested. (It was no surprise she did not win. The surprise came from a person of “the other side”. His words to me were “you wife did remarkably well”). They recognized, if not the face then the name. They so wanted Durkje to succeed. For our sons it was “that is our mommy”. They knew of this women that welcomed to our home, for a get together, the Delmas trialists (largest of the so called Delmas trials transferred to Pretoria) out on bail. When I and friends visited Pretoria Central Prison, with food parcels, the three denied bail, Durkje befriended their families, keeping open house for those that came from far.

I recall a young boy, totally absorbed singing to himself, placing one after the other, the toy cars, trucks, trains, whatever he found in the cupboards of our sons, in a line that snaked down the passage and into the lounge. Now a not so young man I wonder if he remembers those moments of tranquility away from home, with father awaiting trial in Pretoria Central Prison.

Others at the service recall our visits to the townships to observe and report on acts of violence against individual activists and communities, to MP’s of the Opposition in the White Parliament. These MP’s were the protective umbrella we used to bluster our way through tight and potentially dangerous confrontations with the system. Still others recall Durkje’s work in the Pretoria Black Sash, and the relationships we developed with representatives of foreign Governments. A dear friend, and Chair of Black Sash, was detained at the beginning of one of the states of emergency of the 1980’s. A visiting foreign minister, of a leading Western Power, was asked by a small delegation, at a meeting in the embassy, to intervene on her behalf (he did just that, to be chocked off for interfering in the affairs of RSA). Imagine the amazement as he emerged into the full glare of TV cameras, followed by the delegation with Durkje and then I in tow!

When was Durkje so heavily involved politics and unrest monitoring? When as housewife and mother she was studying law by correspondence. Henry was once asked “what work does your mother do”. The innocent young boy retorted “my mother doesn’t work”.

Representatives of another land claim, that has been with Durkje for some time, were present at the Memorial service but, for lack of time, did not come forward to speak. I quote from a letter written by Durkje to the community representative. “Through research I am sure I have found the legal answer to enforce transfer of ……. (your communities) rights.”  -Chris Gilfillan

THE MEEK SHALL INHERIT THE EARTH, NEVER ITS MINERALS

Truly a people that do not learn from their errors are surely doomed to repeat the same.  The wisdom of the past still rings true to this day. Though decried and not technically savvy or “civilized” as some of our mis-educated intellectuals today, our forebears were able to conceptualize immortality and eternity in the face of changing “truths”.

Motsogapele o rile: Bopelonomi bo bolaile Mmamasilanoka. Phokoje e sola bowa mokgwa ga e o latlhe. What does these supposedly obsolete proverbs in the age of cretinism have to do with anything?

1. Our kindness has metamorphosized into love for our deceivers and hatred for self and kind.  2. The deceiver’s mission has not changed and his skillfully masqueraded modus operandi continues.

It was the deceiver’s intention to rob you of your being and possessions from the moment of first contact to this day. The deceiver led many to believe that a state of defeat is blissful and rewarding, whilst he defrauded you of your wealth.  Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth declares the sacred writ. One who has knowledge of self will quickly notice that this saying is against the natural law of survival and self preservation. Meekness denotes one who is weak, docile, compliant, spiritless, defeated etc. This is psychological weapon of war designed for perpetual self defeat.

Many of our ‘indigenous’ people inhabit lands which are rich and replete with mineral resources that are the envy of the imperialists. Why are people therefore conditioned to a state of perpetual need and want in the midst of abundant wealth? Policies and laws governing the raping and looting of our indigenous lands are not in any way legislated for the benefit of the rightful owners but are instead extremely skewed to benefit the looters.  Inheritance has indeed become the very earth upon which one walks with no access to the true wealth of mineral resources underneath.

There are some who in the defense of the Cretins (which themselves have become) and their policies of dispossession will forsake their own. Meek and defrauded of the mineral resources of the land through a promise of inheriting the earth, what is the worth of such inheritance? Squalor and poverty.

Bodiba ba go ja ngwana wa Mmago, ere o feta ka bone o bo sikologe. Nature’s law has no respect for those who strive not to preserve self and kind. The meek indeed shall inherit the earth but never its minerals. The meek  are defeatists unworthy of any real reward. -BB