3.15 Forced removals  (Page 2/3)

A set of principles will be agreed on at the meeting, including dispute mechanisms.

The valuable vacant District Six land still in the hands of the Western Cape provincial government and the Cape Town City Council is expected to be placed in a trust.

About 45 ha of vacant land, some of which is in private hands, is believed to be available for redevelopment. Negotiations over the land will take place with private owners.

Wallace Mgoqi, regional land claims commissioner, said the common vision found by the different parties for District Six constituted a breakthrough.

“It is a milestone in the protracted struggle which has been going on since the commencement of the claim,” he said.

Money for the redevelopment would be sourced from the Government as well as from local and international donors, said Mr Mgoqi.

Anwah Nagia, chairman of the District Six Beneficiary and Redevelopment Trust, said fears that the area would become a slum were completely unfounded.

“Nobody wants to encourage the building of a slum in District Six. We are not building houses that are uninhabitable.

“We will be looking at erecting affordable housing, not sub-economic housing,” he said.

The plan was to present claimants who wished to return to District Six with title deeds to property, he said.

However, Mr Nagia said he did not believe that white landlords – whom he felt had been well compensated when they left the area and had not been forcibly removed – should be given priority in the redevelopment.

Mr Nagia, a former resident of District Six, said he personally would not lodge a claim as he already owned a house in Walmer Estate and he would prefer to see those less fortunate being given homes.

Many former residents are not sure whether the spirit of District Six can be recreated after so much pain and suffering. The area was reduced to a windswept landscape after residents were forcibly evicted in terms of the Group Areas Act.

Mr Ebrahim said: “That’s the million-dollar question.”

“But we believe restitution must also be about restoring the dignity of our suffering.”

He said his father, Jamallodien Ebrahim, died a heartbroken man after he was thrown out of District Six, where he owned nine houses and two shops.

Mr Ebrahim said he hoped to see the restitution of this land if possible, but he would be prepared to consider accepting alternative state land in the area or financial compensation instead.

Another alternative would be for stakeholders to be given shares in the rebuilding of District Six, he suggested.

Mr Ebrahim was 24 when his family was thrown off their land and moved into a two-room flat in Gatesville. From being a businessman running his father’s general dealer company, he became “a beggar” overnight.

“Landowners have to be given fair and just compensation. As shopkeepers, most of us lost not only our businesses but our livelihood.

“I became a beggar and it was only because of the support of my family that I survived,” he said.

Mr Ebrahim said he saw the signing of the three-way agreement between representatives of evicted residents, government and local authorities as a breakthrough in the restitution process.