Steve Kretzmann – 15 October 2022
A bitter battle is playing out in the Western Cape High Court over who can speak for a First Nations tribe in the controversial R4.6 billion Amazon development in Cape Town.
The development, at the confluence of the Black and Liesbeek Rivers where Khoi people were first dispossessed of their grazing lands, has been fiercely opposed by the Goringhaicona Khoi Khoin Indigenous Traditional Council with litigation led by Tauriq Jenkins.
But in court this week, lawyers said that Jenkins did not represent the council and that it was in fact in favour of the development…
Speaking outside the court, Danab Fick said he and the other elders had wanted to let the judges know they had not been consulted about the development, an issue at the core of Goliath’s judgment. He said they had been “brought like small little children” or “slaves” to the front of the court only to be told they cannot speak. “The judgment is about us, about those people who were not consulted.”