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The Khoisan men who walked more than 1000km from Port Elizabeth to Pretoria have refused the government’s offer to fly them back home, where President Jacob Zuma would meet them in the new year, and opted to camp out waiting for him at the Union Buildings.
“We walked for 18 days to meet President Zuma and we have been waiting for just over a week already and there is no way we’re going back home without having met him,” said one of the men, Christian Martin.
“Government officials have in the past days taken our names and ID numbers so they could organise our flight tickets.
"They called us again on Tuesday, checking if we have changed our minds but we made it clear that we will stay on in Pretoria even if it means if it means spending festive season away from our families.
“We’re already the laughing stock back home, with people saying they knew President Zuma was not going to make any time for us. There is no way we’re going back home until we’ve been listened to by the president and we’ll wait for him for as long as it takes.”
The group of four men, clad in animal skins, said Minister in Presidency Jeff Radebe asked them on Tuesday to go back home and “that the president will come see us there”.
Radebe told them Zuma could only see them in the first two weeks of January.
“We are willing to wait until then, right here at his office at the Union Buildings,” Martin said.
Led by Chief Khoisan SA, Martin, Brendon Billings and Shane Plaatjies left Port Elizabeth on November 13.
Since their arrival in Pretoria on November 30 they have been camping in small tents close to the towering Nelson Mandela statue at the Union Buildings.
They said this site would be their homes until Zuma or his deputy Cyril Ramaphosa met with them.
The group is demanding the Khoisan people “to be restored as the First Nation of South Africa” and be recognised as Khoisan or Bushman.
They also want the Khoisan language, which appears on the South African government coat of arms, recognised as an official language.
The word “!ke e: |xarra ?ke”, written in the Khoisan language of IXam people, means “diverse people unite” in English.
“We’re a peaceful nation, and therefore, not fighting anyone or forcing the president to see us but merely requesting just a few minutes of his time.
"He can come see us in his own time... what we’re saying is after trying for many years now to get government to listen to us through messages and memorandums left with people working under the president, which yielded no results, we’re not leaving this time until we talk to him in person,” said Chief Khoisan SA.
Meanwhile, the Khoisan group have this week started fasting as part of their prayers to have either Zuma or Ramaphosa meet them.
“We travelled a long distanced, endured days of extreme weather through the rain; hail, cold and hot weather to meet Zuma and later revised this to say it can also be Ramaphosa.
"We want no one else but the two gentlemen so we can later hold them to their word and undertaking if they make any to us,” Martin said.
“We have gone through a lot already for us to decide to give up now.”
On Tuesday, a group supporting Khoisan civil rights marched through Pretoria to the Union Buildings in a bid to put pressure on government and Zuma to give the men some attention.
The group included at least three men who identified themselves as Khoisan chiefs from around Gauteng.
