Land claims in Namaqualand: the Komaggas reserve

Abstract

The recent transition to democracy in South Africa has raised expectations about land redistribution. Although much will be done in this regard over the next few years, there will be many claims for the return of land of which people were dispossessed that fall outside the practical guide‐lines laid down by the new state. Since many of these claims will not be frivolous or opportunistic, there is a serious question about how they should be handled. It is not easy to make generalisations; rather, it will be necessary to deal with specific instances on their relative merits. One cannot arrive at a series of ad hocsolutions without regard to their wider implications and the precedents they may set.

This article examines one instance of a claim for the return of lost land. It looks at the land claims advanced by people in Komaggas, one of six communal reserves inhabited by coloured people in the Namaqualand district of the Northern Cape province. One aim is to show that people in Komaggas have a long‐standing, and entirely reasonable, claim to land beyond the current boundary of their reserve; another aim is to illustrate how, and why, people in Komaggas have struggled, and struggle still, to present their claim in a form to which there can readily be a positive response.