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181 The ≠Khomani San Land Claim against the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park Requiring and Acquiring Authenticity William Ellis This chapter tracks the progression of the ≠Khomani San land restitution case affecting the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park, beginning with the initiation of the claim, to the present postsettlement activities of some of the claimants.1 The chapter examines the manner in which “authentic San identity” was deployed before and after the settlement in order to capture benefits. The land restitution package resulted in the return of a total of 68,000 hectares of land, including 25,000 hectares inside the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park and the remainder outside the park. The ≠Khomani San were also given cash to purchase more land, as well as grants to cover the cost of their relocation to the restituted land. Through the analysis of the activities of the claimants, the chapter explores the tensions, synergies, and power plays that existed and how those involved interpreted the unfolding events. As is shown later, at the core of the different interpretations lay an interpretation and reinterpretation of San identity, whereby San authenticity was either required or acquired in the process. The chapter discusses how this controversy influenced or was influenced by the restitution package, local livelihoods, outsiders working with the local people, and local politics. 182 William Ellis Background to the ≠Khomani San Land Claim Conceptualization and Framing of the Claim During the early 1990s Regopstaan and her son, Dawid Kruiper, approached Roger Chennels, a lawyer for the South African San Institute (SASI), about lodging a land claim on behalf of “the San of the Kalahari” for land lost in the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park (hereinafter KGNP or the park). Late in 1994 the Southern Kalahari Land Claim Committee was formed and comprised former residents living on a Northern Cape farm by the name of Kagga Kamma, along with several of the remaining speakers of the supposedly extinct N/u language and their relatives. The San claimants and their lawyers chose to focus on the establishment of the KGNP in 1931, whereby the San of the southern Kalahari were confined to certain sections of the park, denied access to other areas they needed for livelihoods, and not allowed to hunt with guns or dogs (Cleary 1989). The proclamation of the park in 1931 initiated a process of dispossession that would culminate in the removal and relocation of the last San residents from the area, to the town of Welkom, eight kilometers south of the park, in 1976 (Wildschut and Steyn 1990). Not only were the San confined to an ever-smaller territory before physical removal from the park, but they were also prevented from engaging in their traditional foraging practices. Therefore, the claim of the ≠Khomani San was not solely for “ownership of land” but for “traditional ‘use’ (hunting and gathering) rights” (Chennels 1998). Initial Resistance to and the Resolution of the Claim The submission of the land claim in 1995 brought the ≠Khomani San into conflict with several other stakeholders, including the “coloured” residents of the Mier rural area, the Mier local government officials and the South African National Parks (SANParks). At the time SANParks opposed land claims against national parks (Poonan 2002). The Mier local government wanted to defend their interests as current owners of part of the land under claim—land that is located directly south of the KGNP within the Mier rural reserve. They thus saw the land claim as a threat to the existing land use in Mier, especially the game camps, which are a major source of revenue for the Mier local government. With the support of the Bastervolk Organisasie and Mier Residents Association , the Mier local government decided to lodge a land claim in direct The Khomani San Land Claim 183 contest to the ≠Khomani San claim. The Mier claim was based on several instances of dispossession, two of which are related to land inside the boundaries of the park and the others to Mier communal lands that were dispossessed by the state under war measures during World War I as well as land that was privatized between 1960 and 1990. Mier wanted restitution for the removal of “Basters” (literally “bastards”) from farms in the southern part of the park after its proclamation in the 1930s (Kloppers 1970). Further rights to other tracts of land in the south of the park were lost in the 1960s when the park’s southern border was fenced and land that had been used...

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