Cape Town - More than 20 years after lodging a claim and waiting for the return of the land they were forcibly removed from in Constantia, there’s no indication when a settlement will be reached for the Kherekar family.
In March this year, the Land Claims Court ruled in favour of the Kherekar Family Trust, and ordered government to transfer the land within three months and to determine what land or alternative restitution was to be provided in respect of the portion of land where the M3 Freeway was established.
None of the Western Cape Land Claims Commission or National Land Claims Commission officials were present in court for the ruling.
Despite several attempts by the Kherekar Trust through their legal representative to engage the commission on steps following the court order, the Land Claims Commission has yet to respond.
The 20-year-long process has been characterised by meetings between the family and Land Claims officials that produced few concrete outcomes and much in the way of bureaucratic incompetence and bungling.
While waiting for a settlement, a family member, Ebrahim Kherekar, died in 2016, aged 81 years - without witnessing or taking hold of the land again.
Life for the Kherekar family on the Sillery Farm, Constantia, held promise of a bright future before 1967.
The 11 children and their parents, Abdullatief and Fatima Kherekar, lived in a big house built on their 20000m² piece of land which had basic services such as electricity, water and ablution facilities. The family grew vegetables and table flowers, which they sold at the Cape Town market for a living.
Seventy-six-year-old Hoosain Kherekar takes up the story: “Life on the farm was peaceful. There were no racial and religious barriers. We lived in harmony with our neighbours of different races. All the children helped with the farming activities.”
However, the life was to be disrupted when, in 1965, the family, along with other black families in Constantia, started receiving notices from the then city council of an impending relocation as the area had been declared “whites only”.
“This was a very stressful time for my family as my father was proud of what he had achieved in developing the farm and we were able to sustain ourselves and our children from it,” Kherekar said.
Families across Constantia who were targeted for removal mobilised a campaign to try and stop the action but the authorities went ahead with the forced removal in 1967, shortly after the Group Areas Act was legislated in 1966.
“Our father advised us to leave the farm and make our lives elsewhere. Our family then split up with some moving to Grassy Park, Lotus River and Wynberg.
“The conditions were different. Some of us found ourselves in places where there was no electricity and had to use a bucket toilet. Others were cramped in a small house.”
“Our removal was extremely painful. Not only was it made clear to us that we were regarded by the state as lesser beings who were not welcome in Constantia, but we were also deprived of our livelihood. Everything that my father had worked for, for his family and his children, was gone forever. Our lives would never be the same,” he said.
With the advent of a new democratic government in 1994 and the promise that it would look into the land issue, the Kherekars were optimistic that they would get their land back, however their hopes were soon dashed.