We have now reached more than 11 000 signatures in 8 days. That is incredible and a huge statement of support for our position - that this destructive development is not what the people of South Africa want, nor what our supporters around the world will accept.

And our campaign is really gaining force. We know that because the developers have now resorted to having a “First Nations Collective” speak for them to try to persuade the public that Khoi indigenous groups support his project. Nothing could be further from the truth. What is true that some Khoi groups have come out in the last year to state their support for the River Club development. But they speak for a limited set of interests and have only appeared on the scene after the River Club developers were admonished at an HWC Appeal Tribunal in October 2018 for failing to consult indigenous groups. There is a broad range of First Nation Indigenous groups who are deeply opposed to the development and angered by others claiming to speak for them. Don’t be taken in by the claim that “the Khoi” support the River Club development.

Let’s go back to how this proposal to develop the River Club first appeared. As a major development, it must be authorised under the National Environmental Management Act (NEMA). In September 2016, a Draft Scoping Report under the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) was released and comments were invited from the public. A public meeting was held at the River Club in January 2017. Part of the OCA’s comments at that time was that the area held high heritage significance for the Khoi and San peoples and that any development should respect this history. We were told the Heritage Impact Assessment (HIA) would ensure that was done.

A year later, the NEMA regulations changed and the process was now no longer an EIA but a Basic Assessment Report (BAR). Under the BAR, the developer’s HIA consultant approached the OCA in February 2018 to present his draft heritage report and get feedback. We were treated to fantastic graphics of a re-created river with riverside walks and pathways, drooping willows and joggers enjoying nature. However, when it came to the indigenous history, we were dismayed by the narrative emerging from his report that only the river itself deserved any attention as a heritage resource.  When asked about the history of the land itself, the importance of the confluence of the rivers and habitation of the area by Khoi pastoralists, the response went along the lines of (a) well, the land has been degraded anyway so there is nothing to preserve in the landscape and (b) there was Khoi habitation all along the Liesbeek up towards its source in the mountains, so the Liesbeek floodplain was not of any singular significance. We know, now, of course, that these assertions, are simply untenable and have been trashed by the final comments of the Impact and Assessment Committee of Heritage Western Cape.

But amazingly, when asked in the meeting whom they had consulted for drafting the report, the consultants could not name one indigenous Khoi group with whom they had consulted for the report. That was February 2018. Shortly after that, in April 2018, Heritage Western Cape’s Council proclaimed the River Club site provisionally protected under section 29(1)(a) of the National Heritage Resources Act. They did because of the evidence that the Two Rivers Urban Park, which includes the River Club, was an area worthy of Provincial Heritage status and that the River Club, therefore, needed to be formally graded. A provisional protection order means that no development on site could proceed until the formal grading was complete

That set off a flurry of appeals – by the Developer, joined by the City of Cape Town, the Department of Transport and Public Works and the Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning. A Ministerial Appeal Tribunal was set up to hear the appeal. Note the last Department is the decision-maker in the authorisation under NEMA for which the BAR is required. We don’t believe it correct that the decision-maker in a NEMA process should be appealing a Heritage Protection Order affecting a decision they have to make.

The Tribunal’s first meeting took place in October 2018. That meeting was packed with first nation leaders who were all adamant in opposition to the development.  So vehement was the opposition that one leader even called for the River Club to be expropriated under the incoming policy of land expropriation without compensation! In response, the River Club’s lawyer acknowledged that the River Club needed to consult with First Nation leaders going forward. Although he did not state the words, it is clear that the developers realised this was a fatal weakness in their case and they needed to engage with Khoi leaders on the proposal and, if possible, win some Khoi leaders over to show support for the application.

Note that in October 2018, there was not one single Khoi leader present in the Boardroom of HWC who expressed support for the development. This included Kai Bi'a Hennie van Wyk, seen pictured above, alongside other Khoi leaders and civic activists at the end of the first day of the Tribunal meeting, celebrating the clear message given to the Tribunal that the first nation leaders were united in their opposition to the development. There was no sign of the Chief Zenzile Khoisan at the Tribunal meeting and no mention of the “First Nations Collective,” whether at the meeting or in the HIA report for the meeting. Kai Bi'a Hennie van Wyk didn’t mention it. We can only infer that it did not exist at the time of the Tribunal meeting in October 2018, nor did it appear at the continuation meetings of the Tribunal through the November and December 2018. 

Fast forward to 2019 and the Tribunal’s follow-up meeting where it considered the matter, informed by a revised Heritage Impact Assessment, and its accompanying ‘First Nations Report’ done by AFMAS Solutions. Suddenly, we are presented with a ‘First Nations Collective’ claiming support for the development from a range of Khoi leaders (including Kai Bi'a Hennie van Wyk who was present a year ago opposing the development).

There is no public description anywhere to be found of the ‘First Nations Collective’ other than in the AFMAS report. The Collective has no website, no address and no account of how it was formed and what its terms of reference are. Its only public presence is to declare its support for the River Club development. It appears that this ‘First Nations Collective’ did not exist until the LLPT was in need of a seemingly authentic indigenous voice to counter very strong criticisms of their application from authentic and recognised First Nations leaders.

Of course, support for the River Club development is anyone’s democratic right, but the ‘First Nations Collective’ is not presented as just one voice amongst many. It is presented by the developers as THE (i.e. only authentic) voice for the Khoi people, ignoring the very substantial opposition from mainstream Khoi leaders.  Chief Zenzile Khoisan, in supporting the development, presents himself as a victim of cultural silencing. But the AFMAS report, at the instigation of the First Nations Collective, launches an unprecedented and one-sided character attack on a Khoi chief resolutely opposed to the development and describes a failure to engage with the developers under the Collective as a ‘self-imposed exile.’ The AFMAS report also surfaces a false narrative that the TRUP and River Club area belong to only one of the various Khoi groups who habited the area in pre-colonial days.

So, while it is completely true that Khoi and San presence has been largely written out of our modern South African history, and that redress of such injustice is urgently needed, it is ironic that Chief Zenzile Khoisan seeks to silence other Khoi and San voices who are opposed to the development. A persistent and deep historical injustice cannot justify suppressing the voice of other First Nation leaders.

Let us be clear. Chief Zenzile Khoisan’s position on the River Club is his view and perhaps the view of a few other groups. However, there are 13 Khoi and San groups, representing the mainstream of first nation entities, who have come out to call for the grading of the Two Rivers Urban Park as a Provincial Heritage resource and who opposed the River Club development. Despite this very substantial opposition, the developers, their heritage consultants and their Khoi supporters persist in this fiction that this development has the support of the Khoi leadership.

It is true that the revised plans include an eco-corridor and memorial and media centre for Khoi heritage. However, this can’t substitute for celebrating the heritage attached to the landscape and views. Creating a facility “where the First Nations will be empowered, to permanently collate and curate our heritage, to meaningfully practise our culture and tell our own stories while training our own people” can be achieved without destroying the valley or inviting Amazon to put up a 44 meter building to tower over the memorial site and block the views of the mountain. Heritage Western Cape has described the recreated river course and the memorial/museum as inadequate because it is ‘designed to create meaning rather than … enhance identified heritage significances…’  They further argue that ‘the site is of sufficient significance within itself and does not need to be imbued with meaning. The bulk and mass of the development does not respond to the site as a living heritage.’ These views are echoed in the submissions of first nation groups to HWC.

I will, no doubt, be savaged for being a white person trying to appropriate the voice of the Khoi. I hear that criticism. But as the Civic we have worked over the past few years with many Khoi leaders who know that there are many people who are genuine in their support for the struggles of indigenous people. They would not want truth to be silenced in the face of power. And the power lies in the hands of people with billions of Rands to invest in this project. So, I make no apologies for speaking the truth. As pictured above, we were together in the boardroom of Heritage Western Cape in October 2018 and we remain together in our opposition to the development in February 2020.