E/CN.4/2006/78/Add.2 page 10 classified as “Coloureds” during the apartheid regime (that is, as neither Europeans nor Blacks), now feel that in the new South African dispensation, their identity as a distinct indigenous people goes unrecognized and may become even more marginalized. 29. The Special Rapporteur held a number of meetings with several Griqua communities in various parts of the country. Despite their forced assimilation and progressive mixing with non-Khoi-San populations, beginning in the nineteenth century they created new leadership structures designed to maintain their unity and struggle for rights and recognition. At present, the Griqua acknowledge that they enjoy full political and human rights in South Africa, but lack official recognition as a distinct community. 30. Griqua organizations complain that progress has been very slow and political decisions on their status are still to be determined. Today the Griqua claim the right to land restitution. So far they have obtained only two farms with slightly over 7,200 hectares through the Government’s land restitution programme. Unemployment and poverty among their members are one of their main concerns. They are also actively involved in reviving their ancestral culture, traditions and indigenous language in order to restore their almost lost identities. 31. The debate concerning indigenous peoples also involves the so-called “revivalist Khoi-San”, a group that demands recognition of its Khoi-San identity and has organized itself through affiliation with the Cape Cultural Heritage Development Council of South Africa. The Council, however, is not legally recognized as a statutory structure, a situation that its membership considers as unfair and discriminatory. 32. Numerous other Khoi-San communities are engaged in similar efforts, such as the Nama, the Koranna, the Cape Khoi, the Khwe and !Xun, the Attaqua Khoi-San and others with whom the Special Rapporteur had an opportunity to engage. Their organizations complain that they were not included in the negotiations leading to the democratic transition, nor in the new national constitution nor in the Truth and Reconciliation process, and the Special Rapporteur considers that this has fuelled the sense of identity crisis and the perception that their full human rights as an indigenous people are not being entirely met in the new South Africa. B. Land rights and related human rights issues 33. The Nama and San people constitute some of the poorest of the poor in South Africa. This is a result of living in neglected rural areas and a result of their stigmatized status as a rural underclass. The root cause hindering economic development and intergenerational cultural survival has been the forced dispossession of traditional land that once formed the basis of hunter-gatherer and pastoralist economies and identities. This historic dispossession of land and natural resources has caused indigenous people to plunge from a situation of self-reliance into poverty and a dependency on external resources. Nutrition levels have dropped due to sedentarization and lack of access to traditional bush food. Research has documented a drop in health care and vitality due to poor nutrition and inadequate access to traditional or Western medicines. Where there is regular access to clinics, health care standards are higher. 34. The most pressing concern of all the indigenous communities is securing their land base, and where possible, re-establishing access to natural resources necessary for pastoralism, hunting-gathering or new land-based ventures such as farming. With the assistance of external