Squatters without rights
Nicholas Ashford
Pretoria About 20 miles north of Pretoria, South Africa's neat and verdant capital, there is a 'city' whose name will not be found on a map. It is called Winterveld and it is home for between 300,000 and 800,000 people. (no one knows the exact figure) who are officially designated as 'squatters'.
Winterveld is situated in one of the six parcels of territory which comprise the so-called independent republic of Bophuthatswana, the 'homeland' of the Tswana-speaking people which was given its independence by South Africa in December 1977. It is a bleak and ugly place. Roughly-made houses, constructed from mud and wood with zinc roofs, stretch as far as the eye can see. There are virtually no basic services such as piped water or sanitation, few shops, only a handful of churches and schools, and four doctors. Unemployment is rife and the general misery of the place is accentuated by a constant fear of eviction by the Bophuthatswana authorities.
About 40 miles away, in another segment of Bophuthatswana archipelago, a new 'city' is being created which is likely to find its way on to most tourist maps soon. It is called Sun City, and will consist of a vast pleasure palace designed to attract wellheeled whites from nearby South African cities whose puritanical government denies them the pleasures of gambling and girlie shows.
According to its creator, Mr Sol Kerzner, head of a flashy South African hotel chain, Sun City will offer its clientele 'glitter, fantasy, escapism and diversion'. There will be a casino which will be larger than Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, a 700-seat theatre, five restaurants, a 90,000-acre game park, tennis courts, a championship golf course and the largest swimming pool in the southern hemisphere. The total cost will be not far short of £20 million.
In the few months since it was announced. Sun City has probably had more publicity than Winterveld has in the two decades since people first started squatting there. Both South Africa and Bophuthatswana would be happy to keep it that way, as Winterveld is a cause for shame and a problem which neither government knows how to resolve.
Winterveld, like the Crossroads squatter settlement in Cape Town, is a direct result of the South African government's apartheid policy. It came into existence during the Fifties when Africans who had been displaced from white areas settled on the black-owned farms there.
Some came from black areas in cities like Pretoria which had been re-zoned 'white' and for whom there was no accommodation available in the officially-designated black townships nearby, such as Mabopane and Garankua. Others came from what were known as 'black spots' — African farms which happened to fall within the 76 per cent of the land area of South Africa which has been declared white. Still others came from white farms where increased mechanization had made them redundant or where they found they could not survive on the pitifully low wages paid to rural workers. There has been a steady influx since then, mostly of people hoping to find work in the surrounding area. What makes Winterveld different from Crossroads, however, is that the original squatters went there at the South African government's instigation. The government was determined to put its segregationist policy into effect but realised that it could not possibly provide homes for all the people it was displacing. So it asked the local black farmers whether these people could be accommodated on their land. Most of them agreed and they soon found that 'tenant farming', whereby they charged 'squatters' rent to stay on their land, was a lot more profitable and less arduous than growing maize or beans. The South African government never intended the squatters to settle permanently at Winterveld. They were to be resettled as and when housing became available. But as each year passed the South African government got further and further behind with its black housing programme while the population of Winterveld grew steadily larger. Bophuthatswana inherited Winterveld and all its associated problems when it became 'independent' in December 1977. Winterveld and the surrounding black townships are part of a master plan whereby blacks are made to live in their own 'homelands' by night and commute to work in white areas by day where they are treated as foreigners rather than South Africans. It is a sophisticated way of discriminating against people on the basis of their nationality rather than the colour of their skin.
Winterveld posed a dual problem for Bophuthatswana's leader, Chief Lucas Mangope. First, it was a huge burden to impose on a state which is unable to support itself and has to rely on South African handouts. Second. the vast majority of the squatters are not Tswanas but belong to other ethnic groups such as Zulus, Shangaans and Sothos. And despite many avowals to the contrary, Chief Mangope is determined that Bophuthatswana should be a predominantly Tswana state. Chief Mangope has been showing signs of impatience and his police have taken to carrying out South African-style night-time raids to evict illegal squatters. Those who cannot prove they have the right to be there are fined and told to leave the territory, and the landlords are also fined for harbouring illegal immigrants. Few of them actually leave the area, because they have nowhere else to go, except for a sizable group of Ndebeles who have moved to a reserve about 80 miles away only to find there is no work for them there.
Chief Mangope has denied that he is putting pressure on the squatters simply because they are not Tswanas. The Bophuthatswana authorities have said that anyone who can prove he has been living legally in Winterveld for over five years is entitled to apply for Bophuthatswana citizenship. However, many inhabitants simply do not have any documents to prove how long they have been there while many others do not want to take out citizenship of a 'homeland' as this would mean forfeiting their right to South African citizenship.
Mr Joseph Mbinga, headmaster of Phomolong Primary School, has little doubt that non-Tswanas are being discriminated against. His privately-run school caters predominantly for children who are not eligible for government schools because they are not Tswanas. The school manages to survive by charging the 1,600 pupils fees of £2 a year and through a small grant from a foreign embassy in Pretoria. Winterveld does not exist in isolation. It is a symptom of a process that is occurring throughout South Africa, where huge numbers of blacks are being made to suffer so that the white man can preserve his privileges and his identity.
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