The Richest Tribe in Africa: Platinum-Mining and the Bafokeng in South Africa's North West Province

bibliographic database
Line

Periodical article

Title:	The Richest Tribe in Africa: Platinum-Mining and the Bafokeng in South Africa's North West Province
Authors:	Manson, Andrew Mbenga, Bernard
Year:	2003
Periodical:	Journal of Southern African Studies
Volume:	29
Issue:	1
Period:	March
Pages:	25-47
Language:	English
Geographic terms:	South Africa Bophuthatswana
Subjects:	Bafokeng land law mining law bantustans civil procedure Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Development and Technology Economics and Trade Law, Human Rights and Violence Ethnic and Race Relations Politics and Government
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/3557408
Abstract:	The Bafokeng are a Setswana-speaking community long settled near present-day Rustenburg. This article focuses on their protracted legal battle with Impala Platinum in recent times to improve their royalties. It also analyses the interconnection of this struggle in the 1980s with the political consequences of Bafokeng incorporation into the apartheid 'homeland' of Bophuthatswana under Mangope. The injustices of the Mangope era endured by the Bafokeng are detailed extensively here. Subsequent Bafokeng court action against the powerful mining conglomerates made legal history. The final outcome in 1999, very favourable to the Bafokeng, changed forever the relationship between mineral owners and holders of mining rights in South Africa. Notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]