CANDICE SOOBRAMONEY and JOLENE MARRIAH
THEIRS was a three-storey English style colonial house on an acre of prime land in Morningside.
Young children played outside the Macken Mistry home, as they did on the streets of Cato Manor, climbing mango trees or enjoying a game of make-believe in the life-size doll house.
But the innocence of youth was cruelly snatched away when the Group Areas Act struck home. Now, many decades later, there is some closure for a painful past.
Sixteen Durban families who were uprooted and shunted to other areas, only because of the colour of their skin, received financial compensation from the KwaZulu-Natal government last night (Tuesday).
Agriculture and Rural Development MEC Cyril Xaba handed out a total of R9.7 million – one of the larger amounts settled upon by the Land Claims Commission.
Significantly, the payments were made a day after the nefarious act, which destroyed communities and shattered dreams, was passed on April 27, 1950.
But for Indira Macken Mistry, whose childhood home in Clarence Road was not only taken away, but demolished in 1968, the money will never lessen the pain.
“I was in the midst of my matric examinations when we were forced to pack our belongings and leave the place we called home,” she recalled. “It was painful to watch our house being demolished. It was a crime. Our home had the most beautiful architecture.”
Her family relocated to their beach cottage in Desainagar.
Macken Mistry, 63, who went on to become a successful doctor, said that if she had had the choice, she would have liked to have the house back.
However, a block of flats now stands in its place.
The mother of one said it was a pity her late parents – her father, Dr K Macken Mistry, and mother Gloria – could not witness the “bitter-sweet” victory of compensation, which came as a “surprise” more than 18 years after she began the land claims process.
Another recipient is Anna Maria Phuthini, an 83-year-old grandmother of one, who had lived in Mkhumbane (the traditional name for Cato Manor).
“It was 1952 and I was 20 years old. I was living in a cottage with my husband and baby. One day, a white man came to our home and told us we had to move. He left and after some time he returned and demanded we leave.”
Phuthini said she was taken to KwaMashu and was forced to live with other black families, who were in a similar situation, for about two months.
“There was nothing we could do. We were living under the apartheid government,” she said. “My husband and I were later taken to another section in KwaMashu and we were given a two-bedroom home.”
Phuthini later applied for and received a larger four-bedroom house.
“I am happy with the money. I want to use it to build a nice home for me and my grandson, Thando, in a rural area. I want to spend my days there among the greens,” she said. “I am looking forward to this.”
She could not recall when she had put in a claim. “I had forgotten all about it until someone called and told me I would be getting money. Just when I had lost hope.”
The head of the commission in KZN, advocate Bheki Mbili, said the initial period to lodge claims ended in December 1998, and that his office was doing everything in its power to prioritise other settlements.
According to reports, an estimated 80 000 land claims were lodged nationally during that period.
Mbili said a new five-year window was opened last year and claimants had until June 30, 2019, to lodge claims.
“I am very excited about this settlement. I think we are on the right track and we are doing everything possible to prioritise and fast-track the process. We will be settling other claims,” said Mbili.
MEC Xaba said the KZN government was committed to non-racialism and reconciliation and last night’s event was a celebration of this.
He said families were finally getting redress after losing their homes and not being fairly compensated as a result of the apartheid act.
In Durban, members of the Indian community were particularly hard hit and had to give up their homes across the city to move into racially segregated townships, Xaba said.
He added that the event also highlighted the work being done by the commission in KZN in assisting all communities with their restitution claims.