A hardscrabble patch of South Africa disputed between black farmers and tribal leaders working with platinum mining interests is legal ground zero in a battle to loosen the chiefs’ grip on communal lands. Land rights are a hot-button issue ahead of elections in 2019 as the African National Congress (ANC) moves forward with a constitutional amendment aimed at a more equitable distribution of land, including possibly expropriating land from whites without compensation. That prospect, evoking the chaotic land grabs that wrecked the economy of neighbouring Zimbabwe, has grabbed headlines and alarmed investors despite repeated pledges by President Cyril Ramaphosa that things will be different in South Africa. A related issue is also sensitive for the ANC, however: the plight of poor blacks vulnerable to forced evictions in tribal lands because of a system of property rights that dates back to the colonial era, before apartheid. The “Homelands” make up only 13 percent of the land but are home to a third of the population, 17 million blacks, mostly subsistence farmers working tiny plots. Tribal councils control these areas, often determining who gets to farm or where cattle is grazed but also access to resources like water and minerals. Transfering that control to those who occupy or work the land would have major repercussions both for companies who have been negotiating mining rights with the tribal chiefs for decades and for politicians who count on the chiefs to deliver the local vote. “The implication is that such communities should be the negotiating body rather than traditional councils,” said Johan Lorenzen, a lawyer at leading human rights firm Richard Spoor Inc Attorneys. “That would create significant legal risk for all the deals already struck with traditional councils,” Lorenzen said. It may be an idea whose time has come, as protests spread and support for the ANC steadily declines in tribal areas. At issue in the case before the Constitutional Court is a deal agreed with the council of the Bakgatla tribe to allow Pilanesberg Platinum Mines (PPM) to evict farmers in order to expand its open-pit mine onto tribal land. Activist David Pheto, one of the claimants, told Reuters the community was not fighting mining, but forcible evictions. “If mining must take place we need consultation and consent because we are the owners,” he said. The court is expected to rule on the case late this year. Game-changer The platinum wealth below Wilgespruit farm, 160 km (100 miles) northwest of Johannesburg, is clearly more valuable than what’s on top – tangled thorn scrub with almost no grass, a sign of overgrazing often seen on communal lands, set against the backdrop of jagged hills. Published in Daily Times, August 8th 2018.