Valdezia residents demand land from Evangelical Presbyterian Church

The residents of Valdezia, near Elim, led by service delivery convener Sipho Masuka, handed a memorandum of concerns to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of South Africa on Sunday.

The community considered this march to be successful because the the EPCSA's representative, Rev CB Mahlaule, accepted the memorandum.

The church leadership had initially refused to receive the very memorandum in an earlier march a fortnight ago, because the march organisers had not communicated with them beforehand. Even though the church had accepted the memorandum, the general secretary, Rev Daniel Sombhane, said that he could not give any substantial comment at this stage.

“We are based in Midrand and we delegated a representative in Valdezia to receive the memorandum,” he said. “We may only comment after we had studied the contents of such a memorandum.”

The memorandum mainly concerns the request for the referral or transfer of the Valdezia land to local residents. The land, which consists mostly of small farms, is the property of the church and was acquired by the Swiss missionaries in the 1870s. Since early 2002, some residents, led by Masuka, had been trying hard to claim ownership of the land.

In the memorandum, the “Valdezia community” demand the land back, and that, says the memorandum, can only be achieved through the church's selling of the land to the government, who will then give it to residents. They also demand that the church stop taking away buildings belonging to the community, and that the church stop deciding issues that affect the residents without involving them. Another concern is that the bluegum trees, which are seemingly everywhere in Valdezia, are using the underground water.

“Why is the EPCSA taking away buildings belonging to the community – such as the clinic, community authority offices and Matimu Training Centre?” said Masuka. “The above-mentioned buildings were built or renovated with government funds.” He added that it was not fair for the church to take control of all those buildings.

Masuka believes that the previous church leaders, the late Rev “Ngove and Rev Mobbie” had unfortunately passed on while trying to find the best possible ways to solve the church and residents' differences.

The “Valdezia community” believes that, if the land is given to residents, the very residents will start farming projects and create employment for hundreds of them. “The community will have proper land-use management,” the memorandum says.

The last line in the memorandum reads: “Failure to respond positively to our demands within 14 days, expect a rolling mass action in the form of petitions to your church by the residents of Valdezia.”

News - Date: 14 August 2015

Tshifhiwa Mukwevho

Tshifhiwa Given Mukwevho was born in 1984 in Madombidzha village, not far from Louis Trichardt in the Limpopo Province. After submitting articles for roughly a year for Limpopo Mirror's youth supplement, Makoya, he started writing for the main newspaper. He is a prolific writer who published his first book, titled A Traumatic Revenge in 2011. It focusses on life on the street and how to survive amidst poverty. His second book titled The Violent Gestures of Life was published in 2014.

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