TRC Final Report

Volume 3

Chapter 5

Subsection 1

Volume THREE Chapter FIVE

Regional ProfileWestern Cape

■ OVERVIEW OF THE REGION

1 The region referred to as the western Cape for the purposes of this report comprises the western part of the old Cape Province – that is, the areas now covered by the Western Cape and Northern Cape provinces. In the past, the northern regions contained some of the larger fragments of the ‘independent state’ of Bophuthatswana. The region has international borders with Namibia and Botswana. For the remainder of this chapter, the term ‘western Cape’ is used to include what is now the Northern Cape, unless otherwise specified.

The Western Cape province

2 According to the 1995 government statistics, the province now known as the Western Cape has a population of 3.7 million people, comprising 9 per cent of South Africa’s total population. The major languages are Afrikaans (62.5 per cent home language), English (20 per cent) and Xhosa (15.3 per cent). The 1995 figures also reveal that the majority population group in the region is coloured (at 57.1 per cent), followed by white (23.8 per cent) and African (18.2 per cent). Relatively few Asians are present in the province (0.9 per cent). The Western Cape has the second highest degree of urbanisation (86.5 per cent) of all provinces. While it has the highest Human Development Index (HDI) in the country, the region is marked by extreme inequalities. Three sub-regions can be distinguished, namely the Cape Peninsula, Boland and surrounds, and Southern Cape.

3 Around 68 per cent of the population of the province (2.5 million people) live in the Cape Peninsula area. There is little heavy industry, mainly light industries such as garments, textiles (employing over half a million) and food processing with small factories. Only 57 per cent of the labour force is engaged in the formal sector; the remainder work in the informal sector, or are self- or unemployed.

4 The Boland and surrounding areas include the Breede River area, the winelands, the Overberg and the West Coast. The Breede River area consists of rural farmlands and agricultural towns of which Paarl and Worcester are the largest.

5 The main towns in the Southern Cape are George, Mossel Bay, Oudtshoorn and Beaufort West. The region includes the Little Karoo and the Central Karoo. A substantial migration of coloured families out of the Karoo desert to urban areas has led to a population decline in Karoo towns.

The Northern Cape province

6 The Northern Cape is the largest province in the country and also the most sparsely populated, comprising 1.8 per cent of the total South African population. The main home languages are Afrikaans (65 per cent) and Setswana (22 per cent). The annual population growth rate lies far below the South African average, indicating a steady outflow of people. Like the Western Cape, the majority population group is coloured (53.5 per cent), followed by African (29.9 per cent), white (16.3 per cent) and Asian (0.3 per cent).

7 The major city is Kimberley; larger towns are Upington and De Aar. The main economic activities are mining (diamonds, asbestos, copper) and farming, mainly cattle and maize. Industrial and commercial activity is limited to areas around Kimberley, Kuruman, Sishen and Postmasburg. Migrant labour comes mainly from the former Bophuthatswana, Transkei and Ciskei. The largest African settlement in the province is Galeshewe near Kimberley, accommodating almost half the African population of the Northern Cape.

8 The Northern Cape has a long history of land dispossession and forced removals. Africans were removed mainly to Bophuthatswana, often making way for South African Defence Force (SADF) military camps. Later in the 1980s, independent communal farming settlements such as Leliefontein, Steinkopf and Richtersveld in Namaqualand were privatised by the House of Representatives, leading to impoverishment and protest.