Giba claimants get land back
24 November 2003
About 500 families of the Giba community in White River, Mpumalanga on Saturday became the new owners of Burgers Hall farm when the provincial land claims commission handed over the land from which they were removed about 50 years ago.
The handing over of Burgers Hall farm was the first step in the resolution of a land claim that will eventually see 1 645 hectares of land returned to the community, at a cost of R29.23-million.
Xolani Luthuli, the communication officer of the Regional Land Claims Commission, said the claims lodged by the Giba people met all the acceptance criteria and requirements of the commission under Restitution of Land Rights Act of 1994.
Luthuli said the area produces bananas, ginger, and litchis, and that the claimants, who are scattered around Hazyview, Bushbuckridge and Mahush, were eager to return to the land and start commercial farming activities.
He said this was the most desirable settlement from the
RLCC's perspective as it "provides tangible redress to the ravaging effects of racial dispossession".
He said many of the current land owners had been willing to sell their land, and the claimants were willing to consider other forms of compensation for land which could not be restored to them.
The RLCC, according to Luthuli, has engaged the services of professional practitioners, the Boyes Group and the South African Farm Management, to assist the community to develop the necessary management and marketing skills to sustainably run their land.
The Giba people are historically part of the Matsebula nation. They arrived in the Hazyview area in about 1814 after being driven out of Swaziland, and occupied the area which was later to become Burgers Hall farm and surrounding farms.
This occurred before the land had been registered in any way by the state; the first formal title to the land was granted to a Mr Alois Hugo Nellumpius in 1876.
As more and more
white people moved into the area the Giba people slowly saw their rights to the land being whittled away - first through enforced labour tenancy contracts, and then, between 1948 and 1978, by being physically dispossessed and displaced.
Regional land claims commissioner Nceba Nqana said he was proud to see the resolution of this claim. "It brings us closer to achieving a restitution legacy that all South Africans can be proud of," he said.
Source: BuaNews
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