The Trust for Community Outreach and Education (TCOE), the Rural Women’s Assembly in South Africa together with the Mopani Farmers Association in Limpopo, are deeply disturbed by reports of serious land rights violations of smallholder producers in some areas in Limpopo. During a visit in April 2024, we met with affected smallholders who had either been evicted or were in the process of being evicted from their land in the Greater Ba-Phalaborwa Local Municipality.

[LEFT] Mohale farmers dispirited and discouraged in front of Mopani Farmers Association’s Bakkie and ready for interviews with Ngula ya Vutivi delegates from SABC Television

The affected landholders say that Chief Mlungisi Ntsanwisi has evicted them from land along the perennial Letaba River which provides uninterrupted access to water for the producers. Once smallholders are evicted, the land is allocated to white commercial farmers.

Some landholders say they were violently evicted with their crops and equipment destroyed. Many of the landholders have provided evidence of their legal rights to the land in the form of Permission to Occupy (PTO) certificates. In one case, a couple who have been farming on about 50 hectares of land along the Letaba River for the last twenty years, was threatened with eviction in March 2024. Yet, the family is in possession of a twenty year old document from the very same Chief granting the couple permission to farm the land.

[RIGHT] The tracks of the bulldozers after destroying the farm and its produce.

Chief Mlungisi Ntsanwisi has stated publicly that he has embarked on a large-scale agricultural project which will result in the development of black farmers, the local economy and jobs for locals. But he omits that this partnership with commercial farmers is at the expense of black landholders being, often violently, evicted and displaced. Moreover, the Chief has raised funding through loans and grants for the project under the false pretext of promoting black economic empowerment and farmer development. By evicting black landholders, the Chief’s agricultural venture will turn the landowners into labourers as has happened in other agribusiness ventures on communal land such as Nombanjana in Centane in the Eastern Cape.

The unilateral decisions the Chief takes about the land are contrary to various court judgments which show that Chiefs cannot implement decisions over land without the consent of the residents. The Xolobeni and Ingonyama judgments confirm this. These judgments have also clarified that traditional authorities are the custodians and administrators of the land, not the owners of the land.

During May 2024, members of the affected communities and landholders, wrote a letter to the Majeje Traditional Authority. The letter requested that the land the Chief has appropriated from landholders and residents be returned. The letter also explained that the evictions have undermined the farmer’s job creating initiatives and self-organised structures in the area. The Chief has not responded to the letter.

Since Chief Mlungisi Ntsanwisi did not respond to the letter, the community voted in favour of a resolution that he be removed as Chief – effectively disowning him.  The community is now looking to the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA) to assist with taking matters forward.

As land movements, we will not stand by quietly while the constitutional rights of smallholders to land and dignity are being violated. We call upon all members of Inyanda National Land Movement, Rural Women’s Assembly, the associations of local producers such as Mopani Farmers Association, Mahale Farmers Cluster and Davano to mobilise to stop the land grabs.  Silence will be a betrayal of the sacrifices of the countless rural people who died protecting their land. Land grabs mean that rural citizens are losing the 13 per cent of land they have been squeezed into since the promulgation of the 1913 Natives Land Act.

ISSUED BY THE TRUST FOR COMMUNITY OUTREACH AND EDUCATION (TCOE), RURAL WOMEN’S ASSEMBLY IN SOUTH AFRICA AND THE MOPANI FARMERS ASSOCIATION