San wait for a 'gate' back to their old lands
October 31, 2004 Edition 1
Christelle Terreblanche
"There will never be reconciliation," Oom Dawid Kruiper, 69, said with conviction. Not until he had "a gate" to the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, that is.
The traditional leader of the Khomani San was sitting on a red dune outside his Witdraai Kalahari homestead at sunset, smoking a zol and talking about forgiveness.
"What you took away you can just give back and that will be serious reconciliation for me," Kruiper said about his unwavering dream of returning to his birthplace, the park.
"Then there will be peace and that is what I want. It is just that pain, the sadness about the park."
He said he had forgiven the Germans who had indentured his forefathers, but would only reconcile when he had unfettered access to their graves in the park.
Five-and-a-half years after an extended Khomani San group received six Kalahari farms (about 40 000 hectares) to settle their land claim for eviction from the park in the 1970s, and two years after a further 25 000 hectares inside the park was added, he felt no closer to his original dream of roaming the park freely again.
"We have a symbolic right to go into the park," Kruiper said. "I don't want those rights. I want to go in on my own at my own gate, a joint gate for us to the San land and our families' graves. We want to visit them."
The original land restitution claim by Kruiper and his father, Regopstaan, was for the park itself, and at first the compromise of farms at the edge of the park seemed a triumph ending centuries of exploitation and dispossession of the San.
"Now there is just this small problem," Kruiper said. He was referring to the westernised Khomani San families who were brought in to enlarge the claim and seemed to have hijacked the traditionalist's plans, threatening to turn the land deal into a tragedy.
Kruiper is fond of telling how President Thabo Mbeki had warned him at the signing ceremony in 1999 that he should "beware of the vultures circling".
This week he told the Human Rights Commission (HRC) that further efforts to reconcile his traditional clan with the extended "westernised" Khomani San group were in vain.
The HRC's hearings in the Kalahari were sparked by the January murder of master tracker Optel Rooi after a spate of complaints about police harassment from the Ashkam/Andriesvale area in the heart of the farmland the Khomani San received.
But they also focused on the deteriorating internal relations and serious allegations of government neglect.
It became clear the strife and the westernised group's virtual takeover of the Communal Property Association (CPA), set up to manage the land, have jeopardised and confounded access and use of the park for the traditionalists in line with a 2002 agreement. This deal gave the San relative freedom to carry out ecotourism ventures and cultural practices, hunt and collect bush foods.
"I just want the gate to go in freely when I want and come back again," Kruiper exclaimed once more.
"The park can be the park, with its tourists, but the people must come to me for trackers, to people with the nature and knowledge. They can come to the campfire and sit and listen to nature and they would be protected."
The park was proclaimed in the 1930s largely to protect the San, but their rights were not enshrined and they soon found themselves as cheap labour in the park, although most of the elders have fond memories of working peacefully with the park management until they were forcibly removed, precipitating years of roaming and poverty.
"In the park it is very quiet. There you can teach the children to respect each other and the wild animals. As it is now, they don't listen," said Kruiper on the dune.
"The pain and the pride and the sadness all lies within the park. Our plants are not here. They are there."
An elder, Ouma Khuna, said there was a river of blood all the way under the sand to the park where they belonged. Elia Festus, 42, said he heard for the first time at the hearings that they could hunt in the park.
"I just want to pick up my bow and arrows and do as I want," he said. "Now we the Bushmen are a threatened species in the park. If we can't be accommodated in the park, we don't belong in South Africa."
In February, the traditional Kruiper clan released the Welkom Declaration (named after a town bordering the park), which stated that the Khomani San were bitterly dissatisfied with the manner in which they had been treated for the past five years.
They said they felt like strangers in the park while they only wished to follow in their elders' footsteps and transmit traditional knowledge and culture to their children.
The original agreement made provision for 50-50 use of the farms for traditional and farming purposes. But the CPA acknowledged to the HRC that they had sold much of the game on the traditional farms to cover debts, although allegations still persist that much of the money went into personal pockets.
One of the policemen on trial for Rooi's murder was permitted by the CPA to shoot 300 springbok and 50 gemsbok in one year, the commission heard.
Henriette Engelbrecht, a spokesperson for the park, said "there is no such thing that they don't have access, but they have to follow regulations to enter. We are more than 100 percent ready to give them a chance to do their own thing".
The park confirmed the "gate" was provided for in the agreement, but it would have to be manned by members of the community to eliminate irregularities and poaching.
The CPA members meanwhile concluded an agreement without the traditionalistsâ consent for a Samewerkings (Co-operation) Lodge in the park to jointly benefit the Khomani San, the adjacent Mier community and the park.
It will open in December, when Kruiper and his clan will still most likely be waiting for "the gate".
