The Physical Setting

Leaders of the homelands have recently been informed of the future extent of the land resources of their territories. The latest consolidation proposals neither alter by very much the arable land and other natural resources available to Bophuthatswana and KwaZulu nor affect their limited access to South Africa's roads, railways, power systems, or seacoast. Moreover, the implementation of these plans will take at least ten years.^[10] In the interim the governments of Bophuthatswana and KwaZulu will face difficulties in planning, and homeowners, businessmen, and farmers threatened by removal may be reluctant to invest in or even to maintain their properties.

The basic structure of the consolidated homelands is ruled by four principles: adherence to the total area set aside by the land acts of 1913 and 1936 as distributed to each of the homelands; desire to reduce the number

[7] Quoted in Roux, "Land and Agriculture," 174.

[8] See Survey of Race Relations, 1974, 181.

[9] See e.g. ibid., 183.

[10] For the latest proposals, see Republic of South Africa, House of Assembly Debates (14 May 1975), cols. 5926–5937 (hereafter cited as House of Assembly Debates ).

of parcels to as few as possible; maintenance of corridors for the Republic's rail, road, power, and communication lines; and continuance of control over existing and planned ports. If present policy is sustained Bophuthatswsana and KwaZulu will remain fragmented. They might gain somewhat more farm land, but existing industries and mines in the new areas would remain indefinitely controlled by whites.

The homelands have limited access to the outside world. Bophuthatswana is far from the sea but it is close to large urban areas, with an arm of the territory reaching to within thirteen miles of Pretoria. Some of its sections also share a border with Botswana. Much of KwaZulu lies along the Indian Ocean and the government of that homeland naturally covets good access to the sea. But the Republic currently plans to limit that access and to maintain the more developed and developable stretches of the coastline (and corridors along the main rail lines) in white hands. Accordingly, only near Umkomaas in the south, near Richards Bay in the center, and in the extreme north might the homeland be permitted direct access to the sea. Richards Bay would remain part of the white-controlled section of Zululand despite KwaZulu's insistence that Richards Bay is and should be its natural port. without it, although KwaZulu shares potentially valuable land frontiers with Swaziland and Moçambique, the homeland's leaders consider their country virtually landlocked.

In addition to limitations of resources and uncertainties having their origin in the policies of the dominant political system, there are other important structural constraints (discussed at greater length in ch. 6). Residents of all the homelands are dependent fiscally and monetarily on the Republic. They import and export through the Republic and derive most of their consumables from the same source. They are employed prominently in the white sector of the Republic, at least 1.25 million Tswana and 2.0 million Zulu residing there. All the homelands depend almost exclusively upon the Republic for capital and technical assistance. Most of all, the homelands exist without many of the policy options open to former colonial territories. Collectively they are an integral part of the Republic's program of separate development. The segregation of the larger economy—with all of its obviously limiting consequences for growth—is theirs too. In addition to their individual deficiencies, whatever the character of independence each homeland will bear the burden of political and social inequalities.

As potential producers of cash and subsistence crops, both Bophuthatswana and KwaZulu are poorly endowed. Spread over three provinces, Bophuthatswana, the largest of the homelands, captures much local variety within its borders. Bophuthatswana nonetheless is for the most part flat, dry, and unsuited for mixed homestead farming. Most of the homeland lies in a zone of deficient soils, low and unreliable rainfall (twelve to twenty inches over

five months), and high temperatures. Around Kuruman, in the west, the land is near desert, and, accordingly, sparsely populated. The heart of the region — near Taung, along the border with Botswana, and north of Rustenburg and Pretoria — receives light rainfall adequate for grazing and on-and-off cropping, but insufficient for settled farming. In fact, there is a close and probably not coincidental association between the northern and western edges of the Republic's maize belt and the southern and eastern bounds of Bophuthatswana. (The small Thaba 'Nchu fragment of the homeland, which is surrounded by the Orange Free State, is better suited to agriculture and herding than most of the homeland.) The homeland's territories are crossed by several rivers (the Great Marico, Molopo, Hartz, Kuruman, and Notwani), but their flows are irregular and do not provide much potential for irrigation. There is a small amount of irrigation at Taung, and in the Bafokeng and Odi II districts springs and streams provide some dependable water. Elsewhere the ground water potential is poor. A number of earth dams and some windmill-fed stock tanks provide water for livestock. The major crops are maize, wheat, vegetables, groundnuts, tobacco, and fruit.

There are nineteen tracts of Bophuthatswana. If and when this number is reduced by consolidation, most Tswana will still find themselves without immediate access to road, rail, telephone, and power facilities. In 1974, for example, there were 397 miles of main roads, only a very small part of which were paved, and several thousand miles of minor roads and paths. Railways cross sections of Bophuthatswana but were designed to serve whites in centers of population rather than Africans in the countryside.^[11] Those homeland Tswana who reside in the areas of dense habitation near Pretoria, Rustenburg, and minor towns can depend upon limited bus service, but their rural compatriots must do without. Telephones are few and electricity is virtually nonexistent. Although the most well arranged of all the homeland growth centers is located in Bophuthatswana's Babelegi, near the main highway north from Pretoria to Pietersburg, internal industrial development is still in its infancy.

Bophuthatswana straddles the rich mineral-bearing rock formations of the Transvaal. The Impala and Union mines, near Rustenburg, produce large quantities of platinum. Chrome is mined nearby, and elsewhere in the homeland there are smaller worked deposits of vanadium, asbestos, iron ore, limestone, granite, manganese, salt, and calcite. Prospects for the discovery of exploitable gold and diamonds are good, a major gold-bearing reef having been discovered in 1975. For the most part the present and potential mines are all situated on African lands, but the homeland government has received

[11] Republic of South Africa, Bureau for Economic Research re Bantu Development (hereafter cited as BENBO), Bophuthatswana, Economic Revue, 1975 (Pretoria, 1976), 15–17, 64–65.

no direct benefit from them. Mineral rights are vested in the particular local Tswana-speaking groups (like the Fokeng in the case of the mines near rustenburg) that control the favored area, in white individuals or companies, or in the Bantu Trust, an agency of the Republic. Exploration and development are regulated by the white-directed Bantu Mining Corporation.^[12] Thus homeland governments have received none of the revenues from mining and exercise no control over mineral leasing or exploitation. If there were a transfer of mineral rights to the homeland governments, for Bophuthatswana the resulting income could appreciably improve the standard of living of its inhabitants and provide much of the capital needed for development.

KwaZulu's physical profile is virtually the opposite of Bophuthatswana's. KwaZulu is the most fragmented of all of the homelands, being composed of twenty-nine major and another forty-one minor enclaves scattered widely over Natal. It thus reflects the diversity of that geologically and climatically complex region. Much of KwaZulu is hilly or mountainous and best suited for use as pasture or forest.^[13] Temperatures are moderate in winter, except at the highest elevations, and warm to hot in summer. Rainfall is dependable, averaging from thirty to forty-five inches in most of the homeland, and is well distributed throughout the year. Yet the combination of steeply sloped terrain and often heavy showers means that much of the land is susceptible to erosion, especially in those areas where overgrazing and overcultivation have been forced upon the population by increasing numbers.^[14] However, the Pongola, the Tugela, the Mzimkulu, the Mkomanzi, and a number of minor rivers and streams provide potential for irrigation.^[15]

[12] But see C. P. Mulder, "The Rationale of Separate Development," in Nic J. Rhoodie (ed.), South African Dialogue: Contrasts in South African Thinking on Basic Race Issues (Johannesburg, 1972), 54. "Mineral rights," says Mulder, "belong to the group in whose area the minerals are found. Already gold and platinum have been discovered in Bantu homelands, and belong to the Bantu nation in question, in this case the Tswana, who draw the mining royalties." Mulder's statement is not accurate in relation to current practice; it may be a statement of objective. See also below, 129, 216.

[13] Union of South Africa, Summary of the Report of the Commission for the Socio-Economic Development of the Bantu Areas within the Union of South Africa (Pretoria, 1955), 50 (hereafter cited as Summary of the Report ). The commission, usually referred to as the Tomlinson Commission, estimated 58 percent of the African areas of Natal were unsuited to agriculture.

[14] "Statement Summarizing Major Points Emerging During the Proceedings of the Conference: Toward Comprehensive Development in Zululand" (1972), Durban, University of Natal, Institute of Social Research, mimeo., 2. See also Gatsha Buthelezi, "Kwa-Zulu Development," in B. S. Biko (ed.), Black Viewpoint (Durban, 1972), 50.

[15] For an examination of the resources of the Tugela Basin, see E. Thorrington-Smith, Towards a Plan for the Tugela Basin (Pietermaritzburg, 1960). For an appraisal of irrigation generally, see L. P. McCrystal and Catherine M. Moore, "An Economic Survey of Zululand" (Durban, 1967), mimeo., 22.

The northern section of the homeland, between the Indian Ocean and Moçambique and Swaziland, consists of very lightly populated, sandy, reputedly unhealthy coastal flats. Smaller segments are located west of Pietermaritzburg in the foothills of the Drakensberg mountains, where there is some farming and cattle grazing. In the hilly central Tugela River region cattle and light cropping are the mainstays of subsistence. An expansion of irrigation here would permit more intensive farming. The belt of rolling terrain just inland from the coast includes some sugar cane holdings (most of South Africa's sugar estates are owned by whites) and offers conditions of greater agricultural promise. In some places in the lowveld of northern Zululand cotton can be grown. In addition parts of KwaZulu are suited for producing vegetables for urban markets. In the coastal strips and the southeastern region between the coast and the Drakensberg, pineapples, avocados, and bananas are grown. The mistbelt of the area supports plantations of black wattle, from which tan-bark and tanning extract are produced. There are small African pine and bluegum timber plantations, some experimental sisal and phorium tenax (flax, a jute substitute) estates, and limited fish farming. On dry lands the Zulu now grow corn, sorghum, beans, peanuts, white potatoes and sweet potatoes, tobacco, bananas, and pulses.^[16]

KwaZulu's mineral wealth has not been fully surveyed, but is probably limited. There are known deposits of coal, gypsum, limestone, and kaolin. A small tourmaline mine is operating. In 1972 leases were granted for the mining of kyanite and magnetite, and the Bantu Mining Corporation has searched for vanadium and assisted a sand-extraction project near Pinetown. A major coal deposit was found near Nongoma in 1975. An industrial park has been established near Isithebe, north of Durban. Several small fabricating firms have located at this growth point, but there is room for many more.

Like all of the homelands and many less developed countries, KwaZulu has a poorly developed infrastructure.^[17] This, as much as any single cause, hinders the development of agriculture and industry in the homeland. Major rail and road arteries run along the coast and north from Durban through the white corridors. A new highway and a new railway bisect KwaZulu from Richards Bay to Vryheid, but both were designed to serve the economy of the Republic. There are 958 miles of road in KwaZulu, of which half are main roads with gravel or tar surfaces. In 1966 Natal had 22 road miles per 100 square miles of territory, but Zululand had only 7 road miles per 100 square miles of territory, figures that are unlikely to have been much altered in the last ten years. There are thirty-seven miles of standard gauge rail lines, not

[16] For geographical material, see Monica Cole, South Africa (London, 1966); Summary of the Report; BENBO, KwaZulu, Economic Revue, 1975 (Pretoria, 1976), 16–19.

[17] D. Hobart Houghton, "Apartheid Idealism versus Economic Reality," in Rhoodie, South African Dialogue, 292.

including the new Vryheid-Richards Bay line, which runs for sixty miles through the homeland.^[18] Most of KwaZulu is not yet connected to the national power grid. Few of the population centers within the homeland have extensive telephone service.