{"id":248485,"date":"2023-01-27T19:22:08","date_gmt":"2023-01-27T17:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/forcibly-removed-60-years-ago-simons-town-land-claimants-return\/"},"modified":"2023-01-27T19:22:08","modified_gmt":"2023-01-27T17:22:08","slug":"forcibly-removed-60-years-ago-simons-town-land-claimants-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/forcibly-removed-60-years-ago-simons-town-land-claimants-return\/","title":{"rendered":"Forcibly removed 60 years ago: Simon\u2019s Town land claimants return"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"article_body\">\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Lucas%20Nowicki\/luyolo__0752.jpeg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/forcibly-removed-60-years-ago-simons-town-land-claimants-return.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">The view from the ruins of Luyolo township in Simon\u2019s Town where people were forcibly removed in the 1960s. Photo: Lucas Nowicki<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Lucas%20Nowicki\/luyolo_0671.jpeg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/forcibly-removed-60-years-ago-simons-town-land-claimants-return-1.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">The street in Gugulethu where the Luyolo community was moved to in 1965, and where many descendants still live today. Photo: Lucas Nowicki<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt class=\"leave\" height=\"1\" id=\"gu_counter\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/forcibly-removed-60-years-ago-simons-town-land-claimants-return.gif\" width=\"1\"><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>60 years after they were forcibly removed to Gugulethu by the apartheid regime, families are returning to Simon\u2019s Town.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>About 100 land claimants will receive RDP houses in the Dido Valley Housing Project.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>However, about 773 Luyolo township claimants have accepted compensation instead of land over the years.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Broadhurst Cona was 18 when he and his family were forcibly removed under apartheid\u2019s Group Areas Act from their home in Luyolo Location, Simon\u2019s Town, in January 1966.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was the end of the world for us,\u201d says Cona. \u201cWe never even knew where we were going.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Each day about 20 families, with all the belongings they could fit, were moved by truck. Cona and his family were one of the last to lose their homes.<\/p>\n<p>The trucks took them from the slopes of Simon\u2019s Town overlooking the sea to a barren street in Gugulethu, where the families were provided with small, two-bedroom houses. Many of the Luyolo community and their descendants still stay in these houses.<\/p>\n<p>Now, nearly 60 years later, Cona, who is 75, is set to be a beneficiary of the Luyolo Land restitution claim, which forms part of the Dido Valley Housing Project behind Anchor Bay Mall in Simon\u2019s Town. The housing project will have 600 units, 500 for residents from the Redhill informal settlement and 100 for the Luyolo land claimants.<\/p>\n<p>Mayco Member for Human Settlements Malusi Booi said that if all goes according to plan the first units should be handed over to Luyolo claimants in March or April this year.<\/p>\n<p>The first 33 Redhill units have already been completed and will be handed over once electrification is done, said Booi.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Lucas%20Nowicki\/luyolo__0634.jpeg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/forcibly-removed-60-years-ago-simons-town-land-claimants-return-2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">One of the houses for a Luyolo land claimant being built, taken in December 2022. Photo: Lucas Nowicki<\/p>\n<p>Luyolo was a small vibrant township formed on the mountain slopes at Simon\u2019s Town in 1901 by labourers brought from the Eastern Cape to work on extending the railway line from Kalk Bay to Simon\u2019s Town. After the railroad was completed, many workers remained and found work at the dockyard in the Simon\u2019s Town naval base.<\/p>\n<p>At the time of the forced removals, Luyolo had about 1,500 predominantly African residents.<\/p>\n<p>Lungiswa Somlota, secretary of the Luyolo Land Restitution Committee, was born two years after her parents were forcibly removed from Luyolo in 1965.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey were forced to relocate, but they couldn\u2019t leave their jobs as they had to put food on the table,\u201d says Somlota.<\/p>\n<p>Her father continued working at the naval dockyard, waking up at 4am to take the bus to Simon\u2019s Town from Gugulethu. She grew up hearing the stories of Luyolo community life.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe community lived as one big family. No one would go to bed on an empty stomach. There was self-reliance. People could go and fish,\u201d says Somlota.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Lucas%20Nowicki\/luyolo_0732.jpeg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/forcibly-removed-60-years-ago-simons-town-land-claimants-return-3.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Broadhurst Cona looks out at the Dido Valley housing project with its view of False Bay. Photo: Lucas Nowicki<\/p>\n<p>Cona grew up next to the sea as a young child and fell in love with long distance swimming. However, after being forcibly relocated to Gugulethu, he had nowhere close by to go and swim.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLater I started going to Camps Bay, where I joined some of the long-distance [sea] swimmers,\u201d says Cona.<\/p>\n<p>Cona started playing rugby and got picked by local club Flying Eagles in Nyanga in the 1970s. This started his professional rugby career. He would go on to play for the Leopards (the black rugby team during apartheid under the South African Rugby Board) against France and he played abroad in Italy.<\/p>\n<p>At the same time he was working night shifts as a labourer. \u201cBefore I slept I had to go to train alone, because I couldn\u2019t go to the main practice, so I had no teamwork. Only one week [a month] I had time for teamwork. I nearly quit because it was so taxing on me,\u201d said Cona.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Lucas%20Nowicki\/luyolo__0642.jpeg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/forcibly-removed-60-years-ago-simons-town-land-claimants-return-4.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Lungiswa Somlota overlooking the valley behind the Dido Valley Housing Project. Photo: Lucas Nowicki<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"subheading\">The long path to restitution<\/h2>\n<p>In the early 1990s Cona was listening to the radio when a government official outlined the process for instituting a land claim. Cona then went and met with an official in Athlone.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI took down every detail in the meeting, and then I campaigned in our community for Luyolo descendants to come and claim. I called a meeting and fortunately the community came in droves,\u201d says Cona.<\/p>\n<p>However, after this initial period of excitement and hope, bureaucracy started dragging the process out.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou come back [to the Department of Land Affairs] and there is a new commissioner, and the new one won\u2019t start where the other left off; he will do his own thing,\u201d says Cona.<\/p>\n<p>Another major obstacle was how to deal with the issue of financial compensation. Land claimants are given the choice of taking a set amount as a form of compensation, or they can choose to follow the land restitution process. In the early 2000s there was a debate in the community about which to pursue \u2013 compensation or land.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe people were so disillusioned. They thought they would never go back, that it was a pipe dream. We tried to convince them that taking the money was not worth it. It was peanuts, about R22,000 at the time. You know they use money as a weapon, and that\u2019s where we lost,\u201d says Cona. \u201cIt was a disaster for us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In total, 773 Luyolo land claimants have chosen financial compensation since 1998, according to Dr Wayne Alexander, Chief Director of the Western Cape Regional Land Claims Commission.<\/p>\n<p>Only about 130 chose land over financial compensation.<\/p>\n<p>The land restitution project slowly gained momentum and it is now nearing completion. However, Cona has mixed feelings about it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was so excited and very happy, because I could see the progress. I am happy for the legacy of going back, that we were forcibly removed, and now we have claimed and are going back. But the excitement is gone,\u201d said Cona.<\/p>\n<p>Spirits are somewhat dampened. Cona questions the size of the plots they will receive and also that they never had a say in the construction process.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe expected a restitution project, not RDP houses,\u201d says Cona.<\/p>\n<p>Somlota, who is completing her final exams for an LLB at UNISA, said she is excited for the return of the Luyolo community. \u201cWe are happy that we are still alive to come and see this day, with the hope that we will see the final efforts of our commitment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Lucas%20Nowicki\/luyolo_historical_info_and_photos_from_twitter.jpeg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/forcibly-removed-60-years-ago-simons-town-land-claimants-return-5.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">A commemorative plaque with photos from the Simon\u2019s Town Museum of historical Luyolo. Photo: Graeme Raubenheimer<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"article_copyright\">\n<p>\u00a9 2023 GroundUp. This article is licensed under a <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nd\/4.0\/\" rel=\"license\">Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and GroundUp, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.<\/p>\n<p>We put an invisible pixel in the article so that we can count traffic to republishers. All analytics tools are solely on our servers. We do not give our logs to any third party. Logs are deleted after two weeks. We do not use any IP address identifying information except to count regional traffic. We are solely interested in counting hits, <b>not tracking<\/b> users. If you republish, please do not delete the invisible pixel.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/forcibly-removed-60-years-ago-simons-town-land-claimants-return.jpg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/\">Source: GroundUp<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The view from the ruins of Luyolo township in Simon\u2019s Town where people were forcibly removed in the 1960s. Photo: Lucas Nowicki The street in Gugulethu where the Luyolo community was moved to in 1965, and where many descendants still live today. Photo: Lucas Nowicki 60 years after they were forcibly removed to Gugulethu by [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":248486,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9928,3247],"tags":[28001],"class_list":{"0":"post-248485","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-groundup","8":"category-news","9":"tag-groundup","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/forcibly-removed-60-years-ago-simons-town-land-claimants-return.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248485\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}