The Stop the Bantustans Campaign does not oppose the formal recognition of the Khoi and San people and their leaders.
The challenge to the Traditional and Khoi-San Leadership Act is rooted in the frustrations felt by traditional communities in rural South Africa. Stop the Bantustans Campaign advocates for accountable legislation, transparency in land administration, good governance of communal property and upholding rural democracy.
Stop the Bantustans Campaign supports and recognizes traditional leaders and customary law that reflects the existing consensual and transparent nature of how traditional communities self-govern and self-regulate natural resource allocations.
In June 2019, rural communities and allies marched to the Union Buildings, Pretoria to demand that President Ramaphosa must StopTheBantustans – up to 1200 people participated in the march. At the Union Buildings, the rural communities handed over a memorandum to the Presidency to StopTheBantustanBills.
In 2021, the StopTheBantustan partners met and agreed that we need to revisit the campaign because the President has signed the Traditional and Khoi-San Leadership Act. And the current Traditional Courts Bill which is being debated in Parliament does not include the ‘opt-out’ clause. Rural democracy is under attack and this campaign is our way of making sure that rural voices, especially women, are heard and centred in land laws and land policies.
Rural communities, joined by the Alliance for Rural Democracy, Land Access Movement of South Africa, community organizations and individuals are now taking the fight to the Constitutional Court to StopTheBantustans and will be challenging the constitutionality of the Traditional and Khoi-San Leadership Act.