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Salient. Victoria University Students' Newspaper. Volume 39, Issue 10. 24 May 1976

Ripping Families Apart

Ripping Families Apart

Just a month before I visited South Africa Mr Harlem Msini, a crippled African factory worker of Wellington. Cape, was informed that his wife and four children could not continue to live with him, after she had been convicted and fined R30 for being in the area illegally. The couple had lived in Paarl for 10 years but in 1966 Mrs Msini was endorsed out of Wellington to Dordrecht, where she was born, on the grounds that her husband needed to serve 10 years in continuous employment before he became a "qualified" resident in the urban area.

When the 10-year period was completed, Mrs Msini returned, in the belief that they now qualified for permanent residence. By leaving Dordrecht, she forfeited her right to return there and because a displaced person.

Appeals to the government were rejected, Dr Koornhof, then Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration, saying that although he had the greatest sympathy for Africans in such situations, there could be no condonation, as this would open the door to more such cases He said: "If all Bantu men are freely allowed to marry women who do not qualify... and are allowed to enter the territory, the numbers of Bantu will more than double ....."

Subsequently. Mrs Msini was given a temporary permit to live in Dordrecht, where she could live with her children, apart from her husband.

Also reported in the South African press just before my visit, was the news that about 10,000 Zulus were to be removed from their ancestral lands in the Richards Bay area, Natal, to make way for the development of the proposed oil port. The traditional lands of the Mandlazini tribe, covering 4,856 hectares, and called officially Reserve No. 6, Lower Umfolosi, were deproclaimed by the Minister in February 1970, and made part of the "white" area of Richards Bay.

The Minister designated a new home for the tribe 125 miles to the north - 3,635 hectares of "unsurveyed state lands" on the border of the Ndumu game reserve.