Dignified reburial for North West farmworker

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Pretoria – A North West farmworker, who was buried on the side road of a farm after he was evicted, is to be exhumed and reburied as part of a provincial event to celebrate Human Rights Day on Thursday.

Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform Gugile Nkwinti and Premier Thandi Modise will be part of the programme for the exhumation and dignified reburial of the remains of Maruping Serole.

The ceremony will be held from 9am outside Liliespan farm near Lichtenburg and later in the morning at Buffelsdoorn farm outside Potchefstroom.

Modise says Serole’s case highlights challenges related to the socio-economic conditions of communities living and working on farms, such as employment and wages, housing, education.

“It also highlights underdevelopment, inequality and a need for land reform for both settlement and production for the benefit of the landless and dispossessed,” said Modise.

The Department of Rural Development and Land Reform had, since the incident in February 1999, acquired a farm measuring 21 hectares and relocated 20 evicted households from Liliespan to the farm in August 2000.

Subsequent to this, the department had assisted the community to form a legal entity called Baitshoki Communal Property Association to administer and manage land on their behalf.

The reburial ceremony and the unveiling of a memorial plaque will commemorate the centenary of the infamous 1913 Natives Land Act and affirm the rights of farmworkers and the dispossessed. - SAnews.gov.za