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22-Oct-2003

Breakthrough for South Africa's indigenous groups

by: Sam Mwangi/Survival International

South Africa: In October 2003, the constitutional court of South Africa ruled that a group of indigenous people had both communal land ownership and mineral rights over their ancestral land from which they were dispossessed in the early 1950s.
The court case involved 3000 Rictersveld people who live in Northern Cape Province and are from the Nama subgroup of Khoikhoi peoples, who lived in the area until the 1950s when they were evicted to make way for diamond mine which is now owned by the South African government. Five years ago a group of indigenous people took the both the government and the mining company to court, claiming ownership rights over the 85,000 hectares of land and its resources, but they lost the case.

However the latest decision by the constitutional court states that people who own land under unwritten law retain their rights despite other legal systems, which are subsequently imposed by the state.

The judgment has been welcomed by the group and has very important implications for countries like Botswana, which also operate under the same “Roman –Dutch” legal system and where indigenous Bushmen have been discriminated against by the dominant Tswana tribe and are now begin forcibly evicted from their ancestral land in the central Kalahari to pave way for future diamond mining in defiance of international law related to land rights.

During his recent trip to London the Botswanan foreign minister, General Mopati Merafhe admitted that his government has relocated the Bushmen “where we want the them to be”.

Further information http://www.survival-international.org/enews.htm

Contact Miriam Ross Tel (+44) (0) 20 7687 8734.

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Source: survival-international