Dreams of Going Home.(Cape Town's District Six neighbourhood)

The moment was a long time coming. Crammed into a Moravian church near downtown Cape Town, 2,000 people waited anxiously to hear which 24 among them would be the first selected to return to their old home, known as District Six. For decades District Six--located in central Cape Town, a short walk from Parliament--was a thriving, mixed-race community of 66,000 people. But in 1966 the government evicted the locals and razed the neighborhood, hoping to replace it with whites- only apartments and businesses. Now, nearly a decade after the end of the apartheid system, South African President Thabo Mbeki's government seemed ready to make good on a promise to resettle the area. Anwah Nagia, chairman of a community trust, rose to read off the list. Thunderous applause erupted as the lucky 24 people, all over 80, tottered to the front of the church. "Our old community is dying," Nagia said. "We've got to give them a chance to fulfill their dreams."

For the lucky 24, it was a happy night. The government will give each family $2,000, which they will use as a down payment on the first group of new homes that will be built in District Six. Construction of the first homes will begin soon and should be completed by mid-2003. But lost in the good cheer was a stark reality: there's not nearly enough land or money to resettle all the former residents of District Six who want to go home. For one thing, though the neighborhood once occupied 150 hectares of prime city land, the government has granted only 40 hectares to the District Six Beneficiary Trust. (A technical college was built on part of the land in the early 1980s, and the rest of it may be commercially developed.) What's more, the resettlement budget is underfunded."The money's just not there now," says Peter De Tolly, the city's land-restitution director. That is bad news for many of the 3,400 families and business owners who have said they want to return to their old community.

District Six's problems mirror those that have bedeviled South Africa's countrywide reparation program, which was conceived in 1994 to redress the wounds of apartheid. The government has spent $143 million to settle about half of the nearly 70,000 claims from people who lost their homes. Since 1994, the government has redistributed ?1 million hectares of farmland. Beyond that, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission has recommended paying an additional 21,000 victims a total of some $300 million in restitution. But the government has disbursed only $4.8 million in initial payments to them--and clearly isn't in a hurry to commit itself to the ultimate settlement. In June a group of claimants sued to try to force the government to disclose its plan. "We've raised the issue of whether the policy actually exists," says Teboho Makhalemele, the group's attorney.

Among the many injustices of apartheid, the demolition of District Six is one of the most infamous. It's become part of the mythology of the antiapartheid struggle, and inspired a series of award-winning plays. (The revival of a District Six musical opened to a packed house in Cape Town this month.) But it will take more than ...