OP-ED: Why the ANC is bent on conferring colonial and apartheid-era rights on rural chiefs By Peter Delius
One might imagine that a government deeply discredited by State Capture would wish to prevent any new opportunity for corruption and collusion. Quite the reverse: While lamenting looting in the upper echelons of the state, it is rushing bills through Parliament that will throw the doors wide open to new State Capture.
Race was once the crucial determinant of your fortunes. Now it is whether or not you are one of about 17 million black South Africans who live under the sway of traditional leaders in the former homelands. The other difference is that the new bills give considerably greater power over land and law than traditional leaders held under apartheid.
Conquest and colonial control changed this system, profoundly, with chiefs increasingly used as instruments of control. Authority and power were deemed to flow from the Governor General who was vested with huge powers, far exceeding those of pre-colonial African rulers. Issues of succession were now resolved by white officials armed with a simplistic understanding of the rules, and influenced by which contender was most likely to do the government’s bidding.
Leaders in exile also often had less direct experience of the new order created by the rapid implementation of Bantu Authorities. They did, however, have first-hand experience elsewhere in the region, such as in the Mozambique civil war, of how disenchanted chiefs could be mobilised to foment conflict and revolt. The civil war in KwaZulu-Natal and the bellicose pronouncements of the Inkatha leadership also loomed as a threat to a fledgeling democracy in South Africa.
The New Order Mining Rights introduced by the Mineral Resources Development Act of 2002 has set in motion a scramble for mineral-rich areas. BEE regulations favour community participation, but as the recent Xolobeni case has shown, communities can be troublesome if a mining operation threatens their land. Traditional leaders who claim overall ownership of the land and who claim to speak for their subjects are much easier partners.
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