PHINEAS Maake died with a broken heart after waiting for seven years for a landmark Constitutional Court judgment returning his ancestral land to be implemented.

Now two years after his death, his son Ali Maake is still battling to have the judgment implemented.

Retired Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke's judgment allowed members of the Popela community in GaSekgopo, Limpopo, the right to live on their land freely.

Maake said it has been a miserable nine years for the community since Moseneke handed down the judgment in their favour in 2007.

Sadly for Maake, his father, who led the community's struggle to claim the Boomplaats farm, did not live to enjoy the fruits of their victory.

"A lot of people were frustrated and seven, including my father, died waiting for the implementation," Maake said.

In the judgment, Moseneke awarded the land back to the nine households whose connection to the farm can be traced back to the 1800s.

Records of the case show that the community was systematically robbed of their land rights and forced into becoming labour tenants.

Maake said they hoped that after the judgment people would be able to fulfil their dreams of cultivating crops and keeping livestock.

The marked graves of Maake's great grandfather, and his grandfather Popela Maake, who died in 1942, bears testament to the community's heritage.

In a moving written account of their struggles, Maake explains how he had to ask for permission from the white land owners to bury his father on the land of his birth.

He was deeply moved by the Constitutional Court's ruling and looked forward to the day when he would return, in the golden years of his life, to the land of his ancestors and of his youth.

"My father never anticipated that it would take the commission more than seven years to return the land that the government has recognised as rightfully ours to our community," Maake said.

"Unfortunately, my father never realised his dream."

He said people had begun to lose faith in the Land Claims Commission due to the injustices they suffered under apartheid and now under a democratic dispensation.

During our visit to the family's home this week, we found Maake's 73-year-old mother Mmamokoto, stirring a pot of thick pap on an open fire outdoors.

She recalled how her husband fought from the time the land claim was initially instituted in 1996 up until it reached the Constitutional Court.

"He never wanted to leave this land. He used to say that he would die here," Mmamokoto said.

She also remembers how they were forcefully dispossessed of their land and how they ended up being mere labourers on the farms of the white man.

"It happened gradually. They told us to sell our cattle and we were also told to stop ploughing our maize fields," Mmamokoto.

"You see, there were no trees over there. We used to plant crops on that land. But they stopped us," she said, pointing to a thicket in the distance.

Because the ownership of the land has not been officially handed over to them, the community cannot make any developments including installing electricity and running water.

There is a pile of wood in the yard that was collected by Mmamokoto for cooking and to heat the water for bathing.

"We feel the pain. We want to farm on this land again. They must release it so that we can be free," she said.

mahopoz@sowetan.co.za