CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS
4.1 The history of internal displacement in DIFFERENT PROVINCES OF South Africa 36
4.1.3 Gauteng/Transvaal
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under the South Sotho Central Committee,Mopeli took the initiative of relocating those people from Kromdraai to a neighbouring farm called Onverwacht, which was later known as Botshabelo (Twala and Barnard, 2004). The South Sotho people were removed from different villages around Thaba Nchu like, Kromdraai, Bultfontein, freehold farms, Meloendrift, trust villages, and Dipudungwaneng (Mosoetsa, 2004). The removal of these people people to Botshabelo began late in May 1979 and was completed by December 1979. Botshabelo is about eleven kilometres from Thaba Nchu and during this period, about 64 000 people were removed from the above-mentioned areas under difficult and trying conditions though. Twala and Barnard (2004) give a detailed analogy by Dr V Blakie, a medical doctor from Thaba Nchu who recalled the exodus of the people from Kromdraai to Botshabelo in the manner that, it happened during winter time when they ferried in government trucks. Further, in Botshabelo they were vulnerable to cold since they were settled in tents. Hence, old people and young ones died like flies. He mostly treated them for diarrhea, malnutrition and other related illnesses.
Botshabelo was now created, but the problems of the South Sotho people were far from over in their new ‘independent state’ since they were still harassed by the Bophuthatswana government. On the one side the establishment of Botshabelo was nothing else that the policy of apartheid which promoted divisions among the people of the country, may it by race or ethnicity. The Bophuthatswana territory of Thaba Nchu, however, maintained its purity, since South Sothos were all relocated to Botshabelo.
4.1.3 Gauteng/Transvaal
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Party as well as the fertile environment for black culture (Baines, 2005). The area became a centre of resistance against the state and the authorities were not impressed by that (Ladd, 2012). Such behaviour precipitated the removal of black people from Sophiatown. According to Stadler (2008) the notion is that between 1950 and 1952 each motion about the destruction of Sophiatown and the resettlement of the community in Soweto was defeated during voting.
However, to fulfil its objective of removing Africans from Sophiatown and settling them in Soweto, the NP established its own local authority. Hence, the Native Resettlement Board (NRB) was formed (Kristin, 2005). This was to counteract the resistance from the black residents of the Western Areas such as Sophiatown, Martindale and Newclare (Baines, 2005).
Finally, the destruction materialised in 1955 and the removal was affected. The destruction of such area bears testimony to the harshness of the apartheid in inflicting forceful removal on the indigenous people. Moreover, on its ruins, the apartheid state constructed the white working class suburb of Timol (Stadler, 2008).
Black people again got yet another setback of being removed from Sophiatown, a place they were now calling home. This shown the uncertainty about the permanent place of residence in the country of their birth. They did not occupy the area of Sphiatown illegally. In fact, they were resettled in the area by the authorities who removed them from the Johannesburg city centre (Kristin, 2005). That is, the destruction of Johannesburg’s inner city slum yards saw the significant growth in Sophiatown’s population (Kristin, 2005). The next decade saw the growth of the Sophiatown’s population. According to Stadler (2008), the relaxation of the influx control regulations. Baines (2005) asserts that initially, Sophiatown was best suited for single male migrants, while families had to find accommodation in locations like Orlando where houses of up to three rooms were on offer.
Soweto
It lies 15 kilometres southwest of the city of Johannesburg. Soweto was a gradual creation, almost a collage of African residential areas created at different times and in different places in response to different needs (Baines, 2005). According to Pohlandt-McCormick (2006) the process of Soweto construction first started in 1904 with the establishment of Klipspruit. She goes further to inform that the creation of Soweto ended only with the final removal of all Africans from the Western Areas, that is, the freehold townships of Sophiatown, Martindale and Newclare. However, during the times of African removals from the Sophiatown areas, houses were not ready yet in Soweto. Therefore, Dr. H. F. Verwoerd, then minister of Native
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Affairs, established 33 000 plots on which temporary shacks were erected while their owners waited for the construction of permanent houses by the City Council (Baines, 2005). Pohlandt- McCormick (2006) gives the following analogy on the housing construction pace in Soweto, that is, in 1954 the city's housing division built 1,421 houses; in 1955, 3,020. The township by then had no name. Parts of the township included Moroka, Pimville, Klipspruit, Orlando East, Dube, Mofolo North and South, Central Western Jabavu, Molapo, and Moletsane. Firstly, the naming of the township was aiming at 'Toweso' and 'Sowesko' which are two concoctions extracted from the South Western Townships (Ladd, 2012). Reason being that the name should not favour one of the main language groups over the other. But because of the notorious system of apartheid of which the present government glorified, the name 'Partheid Townships' was also tried (Pohlandt-McCormick, 2006). In the end, however, the name for the townships southwest of Johannesburg was somewhat of a composite hence, Soweto (Ladd, 2012). The irony with the Soweto name is that it created some humour around its citizens, which were only black by the way. Jokes like "So-where-to" were plashed around by Sowetans themselves about the place they lived in (Pohlandt-McCormick, 2006:10). The anecdote was a symbol of the uncertainty on their future going forward because of the forceful removals that were always prying on them wherever they settle.
The creation of Soweto by the City Council came with many challenges though. That is, the influx of Africans to the city for work purposes created housing shortages which the Council could not cope with. The trend of moving to the cities affected the whole world, which was caused mainly by labour demands of the First World War and again by the Second World War (Baines, 2005). However, in Johannesburg and other parts of South Africa, the influx to the cities was mainly pushed by the poverty of the African reserves which were later called the Homelands (Baines, 2005). That housing shortage later led to the sprawling in informal settlement around the city of Johannesburg. As Africans were prohibited to stay in the cities by the Group Areas Act, they had to cram into the informal settlements which make them prone to diseases. Pohlandt-McCormick (2006) asserts that the awful slum conditions produced by overcrowding were compounded by the city government's indifference to the general quality of life for Africans. However, Africans did not passively accept all these changes. That is, for many years, they had found ways to organise themselves, in mounting many small, often unseen protests (Ladd, 2012). Therefore, the outright resistance which followed was nothing new. For example, the township experience fierce resistance in notable moments such as the
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Defiance Campaign and the Women's March (Sharpeville 1960) (Ladd, 2012). Such discourses became part of the law of the township and the consciousness of the people. Moreover, these defiance campaigns of the townships became a living habit to the Africans. In fact, some of the black people resisted to be removed from Johannesburg city centre areas and be settled in Soweto. Stadler, (2008) states that by 1933 almost 43,000 Africans from inner-city residential areas had become "illegals" after Johannesburg had been declared white in accordance with the 1923 Native (Urban) Areas Act. They wanted to stay closer to their places of work, instead of moving to the relatively distant new locations. To prove their point, during this period the approximately 600 empty houses of the new Western Native Township were spurned (Pohlandt-McCormick, 2006). They instead move in numbers to Johannesburg inner areas.
Hence, the period of 1944-47 shows that Africans, under the guidance of James Sofasonke Mpanza organised themselves and moved onto municipal lands as squatters (Ladd, 2012). The aim as he puts was to prove themselves of being entirely capable of forcing the hand both of the Johannesburg City Council and of the central government in the form of the then Native Affairs Department to desist in removing them. In fact, Africans had always disregarded attempts to keep them away from the cities. Besides the distance from the townships and the places of work or cities, unlike the well serviced cities, life in the township was far below standard, poorly serviced to be precise. Hence, in 1957, the residents of Dube Hostel reacted to their deteriorating circumstances and attacked a funeral procession on its way to Doornkop Cemetery (Pohlandt-McCormick, 2006). The City Council conducted some investigation into that appalling behaviour, and found that men behind that attack were those who had been removed from Johannesburg under the "locations in the sky" legislation two years earlier (Ladd, 2012).
The Nationalist government became impatient with the City Council's failure to implement removal and segregationist policies (Kristin, 2005). According to (Stadler, 2008), two processes were introduced as a gesture of willing to intervene directly in the control of the African townships. Firstly, to centralise control over Africans, that is, in 1973, the government transferred administrative and financial authority over the townships from the city council to the newly established (Bantu) Administration Boards. Secondly, it was to stem out the influx of Africans to the cities and to reinforce the doctrine of the temporary status of those who already lived there. And this resulted in the gradual erosion of African land rights and African ownership rights. The point of note is that the freehold rights had disappeared with Sophiatown
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(Stadler, 2008). That is, in 1949 they were replaced by a thirty (30) year leasehold plan.
Africans were already getting dispossessed of their land. Because the 30-year lease policy states that Africans who qualified for housing permits were allowed to own homes for the duration of the lease (Kristin, 2005). The abuse and violation of human rights on the indigenous people persisted. Hence, in 1968, the Department of Bantu Administration and Development rescinded even these meagre rights. The ruling was that, houses could henceforth only be rented and that those already owned could no longer be handed down to heirs (Ladd, 2012). But again, in 1975, it seemed as if the government was prepared to ease these limitations when it reintroduced the thirty (30) year leasehold scheme for certain areas. However, the cynical implications of its generosity became clear when it tied such leases to the possession or acquisition of a Homeland citizenship certificate (Ladd, 2012). This was just in keeping with the larger project of legislating black South Africans out of their citizenship and into the homelands. Indigenous people had to endure such dehumanising gestures from the colonisers because of power and control. (Pohlandt-McCormick, 2006) states that the newly established West Rand (Bantu) Administration Board took over the reins to Soweto from the Johannesburg City Council and its Non-European Affairs Department. That is, all urban African matters henceforth fell under its control. The Boards were all-white institutions, appointed by and directly responsible to the minister of Bantu Administration and Development, M. C. Botha in 1976, and his department (Pohlandt-McCormick, 2006).