A significant demonstration unfolded in the streets of Cape Town this week as members of the Khoi and San communities marched to the seat of Parliament, demanding formal and practical recognition as the First Nations peoples of South Africa.
The protest centered on a set of longstanding grievances, including ancestral land rights, the rejection of colonial-era racial classifications, and a call for the government to comply with constitutional and high court rulings that affirm their sovereignty.
Protesters delivered a memorandum and a declaration to Parliament, insisting that the legal identity, heritage, and territorial rights of the Khoi and San be recognized in practice, not just in theory. The action comes amid escalating tensions over land dispossession and perceived state inaction. The communities are forcefully rejecting the apartheid-era “coloured” label and reasserting their status as the country’s original custodians.
Larry Varrie, Senior National Commissioner of the Greater Aboriginal Community Council of Southern Africa, who led the march, detailed the specific demands laid out in the memorandum in a subsequent interview.
“The state is a constitution delinquent,” stated Varrie, accusing the government of “maliciously… obstructing our constitutional rights.”
The demands include the immediate recognition of the Khoi and San as the first indigenous people of South Africa and the restoration of their land rights under principles affirmed by the Constitutional Court. Varrie specifically referenced the 2003 Richtersveld ruling, a landmark case where the court affirmed the community’s rights to ancestral land.
Further demands call for the government to cease all practices that continue the “apartheid legacy of trickery, erasure and dispossession” and to immediately revoke the current form of the Traditional and Khoi-San Leadership Act (TKLA), save for its recognition clauses.
The memorandum also demands the devolution of law-making power to include Khoi and San representation at all levels of the state—national, provincial, and local. Varrie emphasized that this change requires “no constitutional amendment, only compliance.”
When asked about the importance of the specific term “first indigenous people,” Varrie pointed to archaeological and DNA evidence. “Our presence in South Africa is no less than 100,000 years… The Bantu people came here about a thousand years ago. How do you compare… first nation with a difference of 100,000 years?” he stated.
Efforts to get a response from the government were unsuccessful. A request for comment from the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Thembisile Nkadimeng, was not answered.
