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From: Lehmkuhl <>
Subject: [ZA] Eastern Cape’s archives ‘in crisis’
Date: Mon, 01 Sep 2003 11:36:43 -0400

The Herald newspaper
Monday, 01 September 2003

Eastern Cape’s archives ‘in crisis’
By Gavin Stewart

East London – The Eastern Cape Historical Legacies and New Challenges
conference ended at the weekend with a plea to the provincial government to
save irreplaceable records from a “gaping hole”.

Documents covering crucial periods in the history of the region are in
danger of being lost or destroyed because there are no proper repositories
in King William’s Town or Umtata, at a time when the province hopes to use
its history to attract visitors.

“With the exception of the Port Elizabeth depot the archival system in the
province is in a state of disaster,” Fort Hare history lecturer Luvuyo
Wotshela said in a conference paper, “Archiving without a repository: The
current nature and status of the Eastern Cape archives in Bisho-King
William’s Town”.

His concerns were echoed by many of the delegates, including Lungisile
Ntsebeza of Fort Hare University, William Beinart of Oxford University, and
conference organiser Leslie Bank of Rhodes-Fort Hare.

The conference launched the Fort Hare Institute for Social and Economic
Research in East London and was attended by historians, anthropologists and
other researchers from Europe, the United States and South Africa.

A concluding session was devoted to concerns about the Eastern Cape
archives and the need for permanent repositories and adequate staff.
Speakers in the session included researchers involved in land and other
legal claims who needed to access records.

“Transkei archives are no longer properly preserved,” Mr Wotshela said in
his paper. Their fate and the current status of the repository in King
William’s Town reflected a huge problem within the Eastern Cape government.

In Umtata, the Bunga building that held the Transkei repository had been
cleared to make way for the Mandela Museum. The documents were dumped in an
adjoining building that was being vandalised.

__________/\/*******\/\______
Anne Lehmkuhl
Ottawa, Canada
South African genealogy without borders: http://www.rupert.net/~lkool/

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