TRC Final Report

Volume 3

Chapter 4

Subsection 2

Homelands

9 Two homelands were established in the Orange Free State: QwaQwa in the northeast and, about midway between Bloemfontein and Maseru, a small portion of Bophuthatswana incorporating the village of Thaba’Nchu. (The remaining fragments of the latter homeland were scattered in the Transvaal and northern Cape.)

10 QwaQwa was concentrated around Witsieshoek, near the meeting point of the Orange Free State, Natal and Lesotho. It was originally designated as the homeland for the Southern Sotho people of South Africa, but only a small percentage of its intended citizens lived there. The territory covered only 183 square kilo-metres and was noted for its social hardships, including overcrowding and poverty, soil erosion and a lack of natural resources.

11 QwaQwa became a self-governing territory in October 1974, with a Legislative Assembly consisting of twenty traditional leaders (chiefs and headmen) appointed by the two tribal authorities, and twenty elected members. In the first QwaQwa elections, in April 1975, nineteen of the twenty seats were won by members of the Dikwankwetla (strong men) National Party (DNP). The leader of this party, Mr Kenneth Mopeli, went on to become Chief Minister.

12 The DNP dominated official political life in QwaQwa throughout the 1970s and 1980s, though a splinter group left to form the National Party of QwaQwa in 1978. The leader of the new party, Mr JM Mohlahli, challenged the DNP to hold elections to prove its credibility, efficiency and competence. Five parties nominated candidates for the elections, held in March 1980, but opposition parties accused the ruling DNP of various forms of electoral malpractice and threatened to have the results declared invalid. In the event, Mopeli and the DNP won all twenty seats and all opposition candidates lost their deposits.

13 Numbers swelled in the territory as many people were forcibly removed to the homeland in the mid- to late seventies and many others were compelled to leave urban areas because of lack of employment. The resettlement township of Phuthaditjhaba at Witsieshoek was developed to accommodate families of migrants who commuted daily to work in Bethlehem or Harrismith. In October 1974, more than 2 000 families were relocated to Tseki at Witsieshoek. Most of them had been ordered out of Kromdraai, Bophuthatswana, by the homeland authorities there; others were evicted from farms. Tseki lacked any health and education facilities, even basic necessities like clean water. The people erected rough corrugated iron shelters and dug pit latrines. No local employment opportunities existed. Chief Minister Kenneth Mopeli campaigned vigorously throughout the 1970s for more land to be allocated to the territory, but only a relatively small area of adjoining land was added.

14 In the 1970s and 1980s, a police force and a defence force were established in QwaQwa to see to law enforcement and to protect the homeland from internal opposition. The homeland security forces also assisted the South African Defence Force (SADF) in local and regional military operations against the opponents of apartheid. QwaQwa defence structures formed a vital part of Pretoria’s defence system, especially in view of the homeland’s proximity to the South African border with Lesotho. QwaQwa security forces joined the South African Police (SAP) in skirmishes with insurgents of the liberation movements. It should also be noted that the Lesotho Liberation Movement, the armed wing of the Basotholand Congress Party, which was forced underground after the abortive 1970 general elections in Lesotho, established a command in QwaQwa, where it received increasing support from the South African government and security forces.

Botshabelo

15 Between May 1979 and January 1980, an estimated fifteen to twenty thousand non-Tswanas (excluded by ethnic background from the nearby Bophuthatswana homeland) were resettled on the farm ‘Onverwacht’, some sixty kilometres east of Bloemfontein, near Thaba’Nchu – and some 330 kilometres from QwaQwa, of which it was designated to become a part. The farm, later renamed Botshabelo, had been acquired by the South African government for the purpose of ‘relocating’ people from white farms and from the deproclaimed townships of the Orange Free State. The terrain consisted of rocky, barren veld on which plots were marked out by tin toilets. Employment opportunities were few. Residents were forced to travel the ten kilometres to Thaba’Nchu or the sixty kilometres to Bloemfontein if they were lucky enough to have a job. Schooling and health facilities remained totally inadequate.

16 Botshabelo became the largest single relocation area in the country. Most of its residents were Southern Sotho-speakers who came from the Kromdraai squatter area near Thaba'Nchu, where they had been rejected by the Bophuthatswana authorities. Children who were not Tswanas had been barred from attending schools in Bophuthatswana.

17 A report of the South African Council of Churches (SACC) noted that Botshabelo amounted to no more than a rural slum from which three stakeholders stood to benefit. QwaQwa stood to gain additional territory – although separated by three hundred kilometres from the homeland centred at Witsieshoek; the Bophuthatswana authorities were able to evict the thousands of non-Tswana squatters who had refused to accept Bophuthatswana citizenship, and the central government was able to consolidate its policy of ethnically based homelands.

18 Although Botshabelo had been earmarked for incorporation into QwaQwa almost from the outset, the process was dogged by misinformation and rumour. All moves towards incorporation were vigorously opposed by Botshabelo residents, particularly students, who protested and boycotted schools. The issue became a further cause for conflict between the DNP and its opposition. In February 1987, Chief Minister Mopeli, apparently in an attempt to avoid exacerbating student protests, issued a statement denying rumours of incorporation. In the same month, however, the New Nation reported him as telling a DNP meeting in Excelsior that he would “act mercilessly” against anyone opposing incorporation.

19 In July 1987, the DNP party organised a ‘secret ballot’, getting people to sign a petition stating: “We the residents of Botshabelo want to be incorporated into QwaQwa homeland of peace this year”. When, in spite of DNP efforts to keep them in the dark, high school students came to hear about the petition, they boycotted school in protest. Further rumours of incorporation set off a series of protests, some of which became violent.

20 Those who signed the petition, mostly senior members of the party, said that they had been given to understand that a refusal to sign might put their pensions in jeopardy. Chief Mopeli claimed that 11 000 people had signed a petition in favour of incorporation, which was favoured by most Botshabelo residents. A Human Sciences Research Council survey found, however, that most were opposed to it.¹

21 Botshabelo was incorporated into QwaQwa by presidential proclamation in December 1987. In response to a court challenge by Botshabelo teacher Gauta Lawrence Lefu, the Bloemfontein Supreme Court found in August 1988 that the incorporation had been invalid. The proclamation had not been authorised by the statutory powers on which the State President had purported to rely when he issued it. Justice JP Malherbe said that the incorporation did not accord with the intention of the legislature as expressed in the enabling provision of the its Constitution Act of 1971, as it did not promote the political development of Botshabelo residents in their national context. While 70 per cent of Botshabelo residents were indeed Southern Sotho, their culture and way of life differed radically from that of the inhabitants of QwaQwa, which had no historic claim to Botshabelo. QwaQwa had progressed through the various constitutional stages attached to homeland status, whereas Botshabelo had been established as a town with little development of political structures and had undergone very different political processes.

22 The State President and the QwaQwa administration appealed against this decision, and Botshabelo remained incorporated into QwaQwa until, on 2 March 1990, the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court upheld the earlier judgement and declared the incorporation invalid.