Bela-Bela land claim (Paperback)

This book chronicles, through desktop and interview research methodology, the experiences of the Mabula area community in the full spectrum of the dispossession of their land by Whites during the erstwhile apartheid government era in the 1960s, and subsequent successful reclaim under the post-1994 democratic government. Situated within the Waterberg District in the Limpopo Province (then Transvaal), the Mabula community was uprooted from the farms Cyferfontein 434 KR, Droogersloot 476 KR, Olievenfontein 475 KR and Rietspruit 527 KQ, in the Bela-Bela area, and dumped on barren areas in the Moretele district in the former Bophutatswana Homeland. Meanwhile, the land they left behind was turned into agricultural haven for White farmers and the well known money-spinning wild life tourism destinations, such as Bonwa Phala and Mabalingwe Game Parks. On 28 April 1998, the late Mr. Matsaremane Andries Mabuela officially lodged a land claim on these farms with The Commission of Restitution of Land Rights. After Mr. Mabuela’s death, the process was carried forward through the formation of the Bela-Bela Community Property Association (BBCPA), led by Mr. Lefa Barrington Mabuela, his son, as chairperson. The most remarkable aspect of the BBCPA’s struggle for the retention of their land was the rational and reconciliatory manner in which it was conducted; such that it could serve as a beacon or model for other successful land claims.