Monitoring Paper Part I: Land Occupation in South Africa
November 20, 2003
This paper discusses the state of land occupation, its social origins, composition and dynamics in South Africa. The focus is on the social, political and geographical issues that have influenced land occupation during the 2Oth Century while paying special attention to patterns of gender, political alliance and NGO linkage. Finally, the authors consider the varying impact of economic class and the material conditions that landless South Africans continue to face in the continuing struggle for land.
1.0 INTRODUCTION
For a long time, the land issue and in particular, land occupation has been smoldering beneath the limelight of more glaring issues such as: housing, employment creation, infrastructure, etc. It took the blazing headlines of the politicized Zimbabwean land reform and the Bredell land occupation conflict to bring the issue of land occupation to the forefront of research.[1] Adding impetus to the research concerns are recent sensational headlines highlighting, “land grabs,”[2] “Zimbabwe-style land invasions,”[3] “landlessness and desperation;”[4] and “Hunger for land.”[5] Perhaps, the highlight of this sensation is the warning headlines of the New African magazine (Commey: 2002) which stated that ‘the South African Land issue is a ticking bomb.’
As such, land occupation (LO) has been happening since the 1980s without much political clout except a few spurts of reactions. It took the widely publicized Bredell land invasion in 2001 to fire the opening salvo. The government rushed in with a stern intervention to curb a sporadic occurrence of similar incidences. But the economically hard-pressed blacks increasingly occupy vacant land in the peri-urban areas (as well as in farms) in order to access job opportunities and better facilities (Commey: 2002). This has confirmed that a new wave of collective conscientiousness is emerging from various grassroots communities to tackle the historical scourging issue of landlessness.
Thus, the objective of this paper is to discuss land occupation as a concept and its social origins, composition and dynamics. The focus will be on the social, political and geographical issues that have influenced land occupation over the decades and identify the land occupiers as well as their gender patterns, alliances and linkages. The paper will also look at their economic class, their material possession and the reasons motivating land occupation. The paper will conclude by drawing key issues and lessons for the future.
2.0 CONCEPTUAL AND METHODOLOGICAL BACKGROUND
What is widely recognizable is that land occupation is conventionally referred to, as land invasion is South Africa. Invariably, it is also referred to as ‘squatting’ ‘land seizures,’ or ‘land grabs.’ Moyo’s (2002) interpretation of land invasion in the context of Zimbabwe is that it denotes a negative view of politically organized ‘trespass’ of farms lead by war veterans. Squatting is used to refer to invasion in the past (before politicization) and now refers to the illegal stay of people on a piece of land. More widely used recently is the term land seizure (especially in the media) to mean a variety of phenomena including outright repossession of land through armed liberation struggle and conquest in Zimbabwe.
In the procurement of LO, Moyo (ibid) identified various dimensions to it namely: the symbolic,[6] intimidatory,[7] physical seizures,[8] social mobilization,[9] political campaign,[10] and legitimate compulsory acquisitions.[11] Depending on the method of procurement and its facilitators (public or covert) the form of land occupation can be determined. In the final analysis, the conceptualization of any form of LO is irrevocably political.
In South Africa, LO is widely referred to as land invasion, an apartheid borne concept that sought to politically despise the conceited effort by disposed blacks to acquire land that was taken from them. The concept creates a negative impression that those who occupy land informally warrant to be dealt with rough-handedly. Yet, the informal occupation of the streets does not warrant the same treatment. Moreover, when the imperialists took land through unscrupulous means from the native people, it was not seen as land invasion but land occupation and/or ‘European occupation’ of the ‘dark continent’ (Davidson: 1968).
Therefore, land invasion is a racist concept to demonise the efforts of the black people to get access to land. Unfortunately, the post-apartheid government flippantly inherited the land problem with its conceptual malaise and has used it as well. Thus, it is used in a negative sense to despise any form of land acquisition. However in retrospect, LO is the only way by which poor blacks that are economically marginalized acquire land in order earn a living and access their inalienable right to land in a situation where the system denies timely access to it. It refers to the physical utilization of a piece (s) of land by an individual or a group of people in order to fulfill their economic, social or political needs.[12]
A historical analysis of the different forms of LO shows that they are various economic, social and political factors, all simultaneously related, that shape up the forms. These forms of LO are not mutually exclusive. One form may lead to the other, co-exist or even exist in a complex combination of varying degrees. Broadly, all the forms can be located in a broader framework of a triangle of various motivating factors that are political, economic and social.
The form of LO inside the triangle can be seen to be constantly moving bearing a dynamic influence on each one of the corners. Each corner can influence, intersect, or even run parallel to the economic, social or political conditions of another in terms of its approach, mechanisms, players and relationships of each other LO in the triangle. In other words, the mix of factors that result to a particular form of LO should be seen to be always in a state of flux.
The different forms of LO are identified as follows:
2.1 Ethnographic LO refers to tribal occupation of land by virtue of their ethnic right to access the land. Such land is usually held under communal ownership. The ownership is vested in a community not an individual and the chief or traditional leader is regarded as trustee with power to allocate the use of land to individual heads of families. This takes a symbolic dimension in Moyo’s maxim in that traditional leadership or peasants facilitate it.
2.2 Colonial LO is the fundamental form of occupation that led to the displacement of black people from their native areas or ethnographic occupation. Apartheid epitomizes the model example of colonial displacement through forced removals and subsequent occupation of the land by white people. Various laws were promulgated to institute the inequalities of apartheid in terms of land occupation. The examples of the laws include: Native Land Act of 1913, Native Administration Act of 1927, Development trust and Land Act of 1936, Asiatic Land Tenure Act of 1946, Group Areas Act of 1950s and 1966, etc.[13]
2.3 Commercial LO proceeds by lease, sale, quitrent or other form of commercial agreement. This is done formally and informally. While clear leases, sale or quitrent can be done formally especially where a government agent is involved, there are cases where land occupation proceeds to different ownership through ‘informal’ (outside any form of legislation or procedure) sale or rent by traditional leaders, civic committees, etc.[14]
Some of the leaders in rural areas in many parts of South Africa are known for corruption. They sell land to people in a way that is not approved by neither civic nor traditional law. A lot of informal land occupation in various informal settlements is accessed through the payment in terms of lease, sale or rent to the ‘traditional leader,’ ‘a landlord’ or ‘a gate keeper.’ This practice has been associated with Pan African Congress (PAC) officials in South Africa and some the local governments (Shale, 1997 pg5-7).
2.4 Political LO is notable where a political party mobilizes a group of people or support a community to occupy a piece of land in pursuit of the political ends of the party concerned. In such circumstances, the motivation to annex or take control of a piece of land sits in line with the ideology or agenda of the political party or even government.[15] The Bredell case, as reflected in the media had some political bearing to mobilization by the PAC.[16] Similarly, the Zimbabwean case epitomized LO under a state political agenda.
2.5 Indigenous LO occurs where indigenous owners of the land are reclaiming land. Usually, the occupiers have been on the piece of land for many generations. The motivation for occupation is generated by physical evidence in such areas e.g. graveyards, olds shrines, artifact remains, etc. Indigenous groups include: the Khoisan, Hottentots, etc.[17]
2.6 Negotiated LO happens where an owner or overseer of the land enters into an agreement or treaty (formal or informal) that govern terms and conditions of occupying the land. There are numerous negotiated settlements that occur especially in the urban areas where the shortage of land is very acute. LO on white farms, backyard shacks and informal settlements are solicited under such arrangement often with daring agreements.[18]
2.7 Military LO refers to forceful removal of people from a piece of land so that others or something else is located instead whilst maintained by militant forces. Notable examples can be found in various cases of colonial incursion by imperialist agents and countries e.g. the manner in which France took claims of land in ancient Ghana, Mali and Songhay (Davidson: 1968). The Zimbabwean Land Reform had cases of military LO (Mail and Guardian, May 1994).[19]
3.0 ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND POLITICAL CONTEXT OF LAND OCCUPATION
The different forms of LO are located in a long history of waves about dispossession.
3.1 The First Wave of Land Occupation
The first wave can be traced back to pre-colonial societies where land occupation was based on the fundamental principle of collective ownership. The community had allodial interest in the land (the highest interest identifiable in the customary scheme of interests) and the entire community had a hold on the land. The Head of the community, either a chief, head of clan or head of family however, exercised authority and acted ownership on behalf of the community. The head was therefore enjoined to manage and administer the land in a fiduciary capacity with the advice, consent and concurrence of his councilors or elders (Bentsi-Enchill, 1964).[20]
Currently, most societies in rural areas have these forms of land occupation especially provinces with the largest number of poor rural inhabitants e.g. Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Northern Province (Martin et al: 2000). In the former KwaZulu area in KwaZulu-Natal, 85.5% of land fell under the traditional communal system in 1996 (Marcus et al: 1996, p153).[21] This is where a chief or a traditional leader leads the land occupier broadly practice this form of LO. However, there are ‘traditional leaders’ as well in certain informal settlements who are either ‘self-made’ or sheer landlords that are characteristic of the same setup e.g. Mr Ngwenya at Etwatwa, Barcelona was perceived as traditional leaders since he led land invasions in the early 1990s and people paid money to him in order to erect shacks in the area.[22]
3.2 The Second Wave of Land Occupation
The second wave takes us to Davidson’s (1968) infiltrating exploration of Africa by white merchants, missionaries and settlers in a devoted detail all over the continent showing how European imperialist agents engendered European land occupation.[23] In the process, various institutions, churches and stations were established on the native lands through numerous unscrupulous deals and treaties (Davidson 1968). The climax of imperialism occurred through colonial incursions. Britain, France, Germany, Belgium as well as Italy, Portugal and Spain set out to define an effective agreement on land partitioning at the Berlin Colonial conference in 1884-5. Through the invasion (France of Algeria, Britain of Lower Egypt and Red Sea,) establishment of Anglo-French control of Egypt, Colonial subjection of tribes and countries (France of Morocco, Britain of South Africa, and its protectorate), Portugal of Angola and Mozambique (the German of Cameroon, Togo and Tanganyika), colonial land occupation was assured. Davidson (1968, p244) asserted that the European powers proceeded to detailed penetration and subjection of the lands to which they had thus assured each other of effective occupation.
When the first European settlers landed on the tip of South Africa in 1652, they saw a vast, unclaimed land, never mind the Khoisan, Hottentots, or Xhosas. In the European eyes, they didn't own the land in any "proper" sense. They built Dutch East Indian Company, which was nothing but a refreshment station. But they were very advantageous because they owned houses and guns, and consequently the Khoisan were dispossessed of their land. The process of white expansion and blacks dispossession went on from this point. Some of them were dispossessed through military conquest.[24] Poor chiefs thought they were granting grazing right, not the total alienation of the land and exclusion of themselves and their people (Independent Teachers’ Center 1981pg9-20). Any revolt by natives was met by suppression, often with brutal incursions into their land.
This caught South Africa with the second wave of LO through colonial LO. Its land occupation took shape after the Anglo-Boer war of 1899-1902 when the British conceded all powers of government to the white population and established the Union with Cape Province, Natal, Orange Free State and the Transvaal subtracting the protectorates of Swaziland, Basutoland and Bechuanaland. The establishment of the Union through colonial power created the formidable problems of being landlocked for some of the protectorates that have a strong bearing to the current land occupation patterns in South Africa.[25] It set a clear stage for colonial exploitation of black societies both inside and outside South Africa through a divide and rule situation that fostered processes of land shortages which have sophisticated and become complex over time to give rise to the recent spate of land occupation, so-called land invasions.
3.3 The Third Wave of Land Occupation
The third wave is located in the post-colonial era. The important thing to note about the post-colonial era is that it brought about various elements of nationalism that became a facilitating factor in the nationalization of land in many African states. Nevertheless, the fruits of nationalism did not benefit the majority of the people. In South Africa, post-colonialism (in terms of gaining independence from Britain) was typically white nationalism which sought to secure and safeguard land occupation interests for the white population. This process saw huge tracks of land being transferred into state control and subsequent white private control at subsidized rates in order to promote white supremacy.
It has been estimated that 3.5 million people were displaced to accommodate the white government’s discriminatory laws. Among these as many as 1.2 million blacks were affected, 670 000 “black spots” removals took place and 834 000 people were displaced under the Group Areas Act (Kassier and Groenevald: 1992). Mabin (1991) indicated that the 1936 Act provided for the restriction of blacks to have a right to own land and substantial areas were added to the reserves defined in the 1913 Act to eliminate various forms of black tenancy that occurred outside them.[26] The National Party replanned rural areas by concentrating people in closer settlements in what was called betterment planning.[27] This was seen to be good for the people in as far as the liberals were concerned. But, it proved to be beneficial to a few people who kept access to land and it was negative for the majority who, through the process lost what was limited access.
One of the main ways in which the Nationalist Party government tried to bring about alteration in rural areas was by restructuring labour relations. The state sought to eliminate, first squatting on white owned land and secondly, rent payment tenancy which it began to call squatting, despite the payment of rent. Thirdly, the state began to eliminate African labour tenants whose right to live and produce on white-owned land depended on providing a certain amount of labour to the white farmer every year. In the process, it encouraged wage labour. By 1950, racial restriction on access to land and housing was non-negotiable. The National Party passed the Group Area Act that affected Blacks, Indians and Coloureds. They were all forced to and removed to live in segregated areas. And they were not allowed to occupy land outside areas assigned to them (Melville, 1987). In 1951, the Prevention of Illegal Squatters Act was passed and it gave power to remove people without notice and to demolish their places. In 1953 Reservation of Separated Amenities Act ensured the reservation of public amenities for the use of persons belonging to a particular race.
The outcome of these laws nationally was that an estimated 3.5 million removals to the homeland or between them from 1960 to 1980 took place (Platzky and Walker 1985). In KwaZulu-Natial,12 ½ % of the surface was allowed to 700 000 Africans as against 87 ¼ % to Europeans in an unjust way. The Province experienced 165 black spots by 1950, 97 000 people were removed from the Bantustans between 1960 and 1970 and more in the 1980s.
Between 1948 and 1982, 105 000 people were removed from 109 African freehold areas and 14 missions. Between 1960 and 1970, 340 000 labour tenants and 753 000 squatters were estimated to be removed and 300 000 people were evicted from farms between 1948 and 1982 (Harley and Fotheringham 1999, p38-42).
3.3.1 Political Resistance to Forced Removals: Players and Modus Operandi
It is within the third wave that social resistance begun dramatically to oppose apartheid.[28] The Liberal party, later known as the United Democratic Front reacted with a spurt of social mobilisation against forced removals. It, together with churches was among the first forms of resistance that was initiated by groups with close links to the communities that were being moved in the 1960s. These social groups aimed at publicizing what was happening in particular communities where peoples’ land was being possessed against their will.
It used a number of methods such as its traditional silent vigils to highlight the removals and express outrage. Many concerned citizens within the white community expressed opposition to the removals either individually or through citizens’ organizations and groups, for example the Citizens’ Action Committee (CAC).[29] They aimed at raising awareness about removals. Also concerned citizens formed the National Citizens Association (NCA) in August 1968. The NCA rose out of an ad hoc committee formed by a number of individuals and representatives of churches and other organs.
In the 1960s much of church opposition to removals was done in conjunction with broader campaigns and churches played an integral role in the activities of the liberal Party, for example the prayer meeting in September 1963 and the appeal by Prominent citizens the year after. The churches produced publications on issues of removals, for example Father Cosmos Desmond; a Priest wrote a book called “The Discarded People”, which aroused Public condemnation of removals both nationally and internationally. In 1974 the national conference of the South African Council Of Churches (SACC) passed a motion calling on the constituent members to give their full support of aid to those refused to move. According to the SACC, removals were acts of violence.
Unfortunately, resistance of communities to removals was largely unsuccessful because of the government’s relentless determination. Nevertheless, very few communities did not attempt to resist removals in anyway they could, for example praying, refusal to demolish houses, refusal to accept compensation, violence in some cases, letters of appeal to government and opposition groups.
In the 1980s, the struggle against removals began to be subject of a legalistic and human rights debate. The United Democratic Front (UDF) called for the stop on the demolishing of shacks with immediate effect. It believed that basic rights are shelter for all human beings and it is in human to destroy a person’s shelter without providing suitable alternative accommodation.[30] The UDF called on government to announce that communities still under threat of forced removals are entitled to remain permanently where they are. Also tenants who had not paid their rent could not be evicted. They also said that there should be consultation with the representative organization before any action could be taken. (Land Update no3 August 1990 pg7). All calls for the government to immediately suspend punitive sections of the Preventive of illegal squatting Act, which mandated local authorities to demolish shacks (Land Update no3 August 1990 pg7).
3.4 The Fourth Wave of Land Occupation
This set up came under pressure in the 1980s as the adoption of neo-liberal policies associated with Reaganism in the USA and Thatcherism in the UK began to affect South Africa and the region at large. These policies imposed by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank advocated for a minimalist state and a reassertion of the power of market forces in economic management. At the heart of these institutions was the notion that, “Government increasingly recognises the need for more restraint and for taking ‘market friendly’ step to deal with problems” (World Bank: 1992, p6). This meant that the apartheid state could no longer exercise the strong command on the economy. It was now faced with an ever changing and volatile economic environment that could no longer be mastered by the regulatory and institutional mechanisms of apartheid.
Related to this condition was the growing political opposition to apartheid and to racial segregation, which intensified the difficulty of managing the city in the 1980s. There was the rise of civic-based resistance to apartheid policy and administration. Education, rent and services boycotts, land invasions and resistances to removals (as well as outside pressure) were developed as strategies to overthrow the apartheid regime (Bremner: 1994, p39).[31]
Apartheid authoritarianism suffered a deepening crisis in resistance. Democratization was increasingly difficult to resist and the world was moving towards plural democratic governance. That meant, apartheid could no longer perpetuate the Big Lie. Since the 1980s, an intensifying demand for a democratic society meant that the apartheid state could no longer impose planning solutions. Spatial and regulatory planning together with forced removals were no longer an option, instead a more progressive approach was necessary.
Under these circumstances, the fourth and the most remarkable wave of land occupation began to occur driven structurally by the austerity economic conditions. Hendler (1992) noted that although more than 150 per cent of the land (measured in hectares) declared for African residential development between 1980 and 1980 was set-aside during 1987…. From 1989 until June 1991, a further 20 200 hectares were declared as land for the development of African townships, with a balance of 23 500 hectares still to be allocated.
Thus from the mid 1980s, the quantities set aside for township establishment increased so rapidly that by the turn of the decade more hectares had been allocated for township development that had originally been envisaged in the guide planned for the turn of the century (Hendler: 1992, p67).
A more revealing indicator of growth was in the Free State. Impelled by agricultural restructuring and redundancies on the mines, the population of Tweespruit nearly doubled between 1991 and 1994 to 7 250 residents. The rise in Dewetsdorp was even higher. Tembalethu, outside George in the southern Cape was established in the mid-1980s. In 1991, its population was a little over 14 000, it became estimated at 40 000 (Marcus, et al: 1996, p29).
The rampant land occupation took place rapidly in response firstly, to the falling away of apartheid laws as FW De Klerk conceded to remove all the apartheid laws unconditionally. This sparked a massive movement of people into South Africa not only to urban areas but also into rural areas especially from neighbouring countries. In the urban areas, the move was motivated by the RDP promissory note to provide access to land (RDP:1994, p20). To some extent, the flexible stance of government to squatter settlement i.e. the engenderment of informal settlement upgrading and green field settlement support motivated various processes of land invasion.
3.5 Institutional vacuum and urban crisis: What further motivated rapid land occupation especially in the early 1990s was the institutional vacuum in government. Notably, the period between 1990 and 1994 was depicted by Harrison and Mabin (1997:37) as crisis ridden, uncertain and an inauspicious context for planning. They argued that the effectiveness of government structures had declined precipitously, bitter and often violent conflict at local level derailed many planning initiatives. Exacerbating the situation is the fact that there was a policy vacuum. Even the image of planning was dull as the general public associated planning with apartheid forced removals. South Africa found itself trapped between a concerted security clampdown and an increasingly disruptive and organised rebellion. Far from urban restructuring, the media coverage of the period captured, .... “The economy was in decline and unemployment and urban crime were rising fast” (Mabin and Smit:1997, p213).
4.0 NATURE OF LAND GRIEVANCES, DEMAND AND STRATEGIES -MOTIVATION FOR LAND OCCUPATION
4.1 Apartheid poverty :These developments were linked to the fact that the colonial land occupation in South Africa gave rise to patterns of land distribution that are racially skewed and inequitable causing overcrowding in urban areas and the countryside and poverty. About 3.5 million South African in urban and rural areas lost their land and rights in property through forced removals (DLA, 1995). In 1995, the population of South Africa was projected at 42.8 million. Approximately 13.5% of all households (1.06million households) live in “freestanding” squatter settlements on the urban peripheries and in backyards of formal housing units (RSA 1994). The large and increasing housing backlog was due to low rates of formal housing provision, coupled with an increasing number of people accessing land informally- in informal settlements, backyard shacks, in overcrowded conditions in existing formal housing and most contentiously, through land invasions (Royston, 1998). In particular, land distribution patterns reflect grim statistics with approximately 55 000 commercial farmers having access to 102 million hectares of land, whereas 11.2 million black households have access to 17 million hectares in the former homelands (Marcus et al: 1996, p97).
The enormity of the apartheid’s housing backlog posed one of the most significant challenges to reconstruction and development. Intensifying this pressure was the fact that democratizing raised high expectations. Yet, the people who were waiting patiently for delivery of the RDP promises could no longer, instead took matters onto their own hands and started invading land.
In 1994, there were about 2.6 million formal housing units. An estimated 1.7 million households around 7 million people were living in shacks on un-serviced sites, and over million people were in 620 000 shacks on serviced sites. A further 100 000 serviced sites were not occupied they were in the wrong place provided the wrong facilities or were unaffordable. An astonishing 2.1 million people lived in hostels often with a family to a bed, and sometime with additional friend or family squatting outside (NHF 1994). It was estimated that, there were approximately 300 informal settlements in Gauteng in 1995. Some were located on government owned land and were either the product of transit areas or “shack farming” operation by land-owners.
In the rural areas, the broader democratization processes made South Africa to be a greener pasture in comparison with the neighbouring states. Some were coming back from these states to their land following their forced removals. In some cases, they came back with others who were not necessary part of the forced removals but had social relations with them. The added advantage was the need to get the pension money for the aged or retired which was not available in the neighbouring states. Also, the proportion of rural households with access to formal income is generally much higher in South Africa than in neighbouring countries. May (1996) reported a value of 94.9% for South Africa as a whole. Comparative figures from Namibia (Caprivi) and Zimbabwe are 20% (Ashley and LaFranchi 1997) and 43% Bradley and Dewees 1993) respectively. Many areas in Mpumalanga and KwaZulu Natal, which are neighbours to Mozambique and Swaziland, are part of this process.
4.2 Neo-liberal policies: One of the fundamental explanations for land occupation derives from the major interjection of the austerity policies in the 1980s that shrank the role to the state and state revenue destroying the patron-client relationships that favoured small farmers with subsidies. Bryceson and Bank (2001, p13) noted that African peasant farmers were squeezed by rising cost of agricultural inputs including fertilisers, improved seeds and insecticides while cash crop incomes fluctuated and often declined. They observed that market liberalisation from the perspective of the rural consumer, tended to expand choice but at an arms’ length, for much of the tantalising merchandise came with unaffordable prices. Consequently, rapid migration was spurred by the falling prices in agricultural products and adverse competition engineered by the neo-liberal policies. This is signified by the drop in Agriculture’s share of the GDP from 17% in the 1950s to around 4% in the 1990s (Department of Agriculture: 1995). Commensurately the number of people employed in agriculture has declined from a high of more than a million and a half in the 1970s to less than 1 million in the 1990s (Mather: p151)
Since the urban areas have high land rates and bare adverse formalities of urban planning, bureaucracy and market related financial responsibilities, most of the people swooped the peri-urban interface as a survival strategy (Holm in Becker and Pedersen: 1992, p245).
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This paper continues with Part II ###
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