AP News, October 9th, 2007
An impoverished tribe on Tuesday won back diamond-rich land confiscated by a government mining company more than 80 years ago, ending South Africa's longest running court case.
The Nama lodged their claim to the coastal plain in 1997, three years after the end of white rule, saying they were forced out after mineral rights were awarded to Alexkor Ltd., a state-run diamond mining company set up in 1927 in the town of Alexander Bay as a work program for poor whites.
The goat-herding community was relocated to harsh desert dozens of miles away, where they were beset by unemployment and social problems like alcoholism.
On Tuesday, the government agreed to restore the 330-square-mile northern coastal strip to the tribe and pay $28 million compensation as well as millions more in development funding. The community had sought up to $329 million.
"I am overwhelmed with joy. I can't hold back my tears," community leader Willem Diergaardt told the South African Press Association. "To wait 80 years for your land is not easy."
The deal comes at a time when the government is trying to speed the return of land to communities evicted from their ancestral homes during white rule. In this case, it was the state that stood accused of frustrating a claim.
"The community is entitled to a better life, and this court order puts that within their reach," said Judge Antonie Gildenhuys of the Land Claims Court.
The Nama lost an initial Land Claims case after Alexkor successfully argued that the land was originally confiscated by British colonialists, not the apartheid government, and so was not subject to restitution rules implemented by the African National Congress government to right the wrongs of apartheid. Both the state and Alexkor also maintained that the benefits of diamond mining should be for the good of the country and not just a small community.
But in 2003 the Constitutional Court, the highest in the country, ruled that the 4,500-strong Nama community was entitled to the land, called the Richtersveld.
Legal wrangling continued over the amount of compensation that should be paid by Alexkor for diamonds _ with a reported value of some $2.7 billion _ removed over the decades.
Under Tuesday's package, to which all sides agreed, all Alexkor's obligations _ including rehabilitation for decades of environmental damage _ are now underwritten by the state.
Alexkor and the community will enter into a joint mining venture, in which Alexkor will hold a 51 percent interest, SAPA said. The mine-owned town of Alexander Bay will be transferred to the community.
