The amaThuli (Luthuli) clan, who live in Umnini on the KZN south coast, say their legal right to the land was taken away when the Ingonyama Trust was established. Now the Legal Resources Centre is helping the community claim back the land and hopes to lodge papers in court in 2019, says New Frame.

'In the application, we are saying the land they occupied was transferred to Ingonyama Trust and that land was not meant to be transferred when Ingonyama took over,' says the LRC's Thabiso Mbhense.

Ingonyama Trust board chairperson Judge Jerome Ngwenya said: 'Proof of ownership could be verified through a deed search at the deeds office. I suggest, before we get trapped into the fake news environment, just do a deeds search for those who accuse Ingonyama Trust.'

Luthuli elder Nhlanhla Luthuli said the clan was given the title deed by the English after they helped Dick King and his horse hide in the Bluff area. 'Later, the English asked to build the Durban Harbour and relocated us to a place called Umnini. It was decided that we be given a title deed so that we can never be removed.'

Neo Lekgotla laga Ramoupi, a senior history lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand, said: 'It's common cause that in 1855, the right to land of amaThuli tribe was established, creating the Mnini Trust in 1858. With that, a system of trusteeship was adopted by which the colonial government granted the Umnini tribe some 7 977 acres of land.'

Aninka Claassens, director of the Land and Accountability Research Centre at UCT, who was also a member of the high-level panel led by Kgalema Motlanthe, added:'The Ingonyama Trust is arguing that it owns the land outright, rather than holding it in trust for the Umnini people as the rightful owners.'

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