Ellen Mhluzana, 84, from Nonaliti village in Middledrift sums up the rationale for the Vulamasango Singene campaign very clearly : We lost our lands and our homes through betterment. Now we want what’s due to us.

The restitution programme as we know it may be coming to an end, in line with the targets set by the President, but there is still unfinished business that we are determined to keep on the table until it is resolved. Unfortunately, at the time of a crucial phase of its implementation, namely lodgement (which spanned the years 1995 to 1998), there were some outdated, misinformed and discriminatory notions that were very much in play. The mindset that held sway during those crucial years was that the purpose of the restitution process was to make right the wrongs of dispossession that occurred in former ‘white’ South Africa. It was naïvely believed that any dispossession that took place in the former homeland areas of the country could not have been racially-discriminatory. Consequently, government policy specifically excluded betterment dispossession from the restitution programme. There is clear evidence that the Eastern Cape Land Claims Commission implemented this policy consistently from at least 1996 onwards. The effect of this is that less than 10% of claims relating to betterment dispossession were lodged before the end of 1998.

Apartheid suppressed people and it excluded them from mainstream socio-economic activity, confining them to poverty-stricken homelands. To date the restitution programme has failed to overcome the dichotomy and chasm between the former homelands and former white South Africa, between black and white, between the second economy and the first economy. Instead, it has entrenched the divides.

Our call is simple and straightforward:
Government, give people living in the former Ciskei and Transkei who were dispossessed through betterment a chance to lodge restitution claims, just like those people who live in the former ’white’ parts of the Eastern Cape enjoyed in the period 1995 – 1998.

Vulamasango Singene! Open The Door, So That We Can Come In!

Our campaign was launched in 2002 and it will continue to grow and gather momentum until our call has been favourably answered.