Handover of over R14 Million to St. Francis Xavier claimants
MEC for KZN Agriculture and Rural Development, Mr Cyril Xaba, presided over a celebratory event in the Durban City Hall where over R14 million was handed over to claimants who lost their land on the Bluff in Durban. In his address to the gathering MEC Xaba pointed out that ironically, the community who had lived near Brighton Beach had provided land to the Missionaries who arrived in Durban.
In the end, the Durban City Council gave the Church the land while evicting the original occupants. MEC Xaba commended the community for preserving their oral History and said that all of this needed to be written down for future generations. He said the community could trace their claim to the land way back to before the arrival of the missionaries. The land was tribally owned by Inkosi Joe Moli who gave the Roman Catholic Church permission to establish a Mission station. This was so that his people could benefit from the schools that were built. He added that the eviction of the St. Francis Xavier Community took place in the 1940’s before the introduction of the Group Areas Act.
It was as a direct result of the Durban City Council’s own plan to racially divide the city. According to MEC Xaba, the community suffered a double blow when they were moved twice. Once financially independent with their own cultivated land and large herds, they lost everything when they were evicted and received no compensation. First, they were moved into a transit camp in Glebelands and then into other areas of Umlazi when it became a township. MEC Xaba also touched on the history of Umlazi saying that ANC leaders at the time including Chief Albert Luthuli and Mr AWG Champion, pleaded with the Council and protested the conversion of the Umlazi Mission Reserve into a township.
Their pleas fell on deaf ears. He said the leaders saw that people were being dispossessed of their land and placed in townships where they became, in the words of Champion, “reservoirs of cheap labour,” for the factories in Durban. According to the KZN Land Claims Commission, the total cost of the settlement is R14 647 024.00 that will go to 152 households made of 912 beneficiaries.
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