This report sourced from this IOL News article, 10 January 2025.

The Government has finally removed its unwanted guest from the Union Buildings, King Khoisan SA. The Department of Public Works was granted an eviction order against the self-styled ‘first nation king’ on 11 December 2024, giving him 30 days to vacate the gardens of the presidential offices where his ragged encampment has controversially been growing cannabis.

The eviction order gave the sheriff or SAPS members the authority to “demolish or remove the temporary dwelling structure erected by the respondents and the greenhouse (where the king was growing his cannabis) at the Union Buildings”.

King Khoisan vacated the premises ahead of the 11 January deadline to do so and was intending to fight the eviction. However, he was involved in a bad car accident on 10 January 2025 on his way back from Pretoria to his Eastern Cape home. His wife Cynthia Triagaardt, also known as Queen Khoisan SA, died in the accident, caused by a burst tyre, near Colesberg. There has been an outpouring of tributes from the Khoi San community for her..

King Khoisan SA had been camping outside the Union Buildings for nearly seven years since and his family walked from the Eastern Cape to Pretoria to demand that the President recognise the Khoisan people as the country’s first nation.

The protestors, who set up their tented camp and cannabis greenhouse near a statue of Nelson Mandela and vowed to remain on site until the Khoi and San languages were officially recognized and that ancestral land was returned to them.

The group has resisted several prior attempts at removal and officials declined to prosecute him when he was arrested in 2022. In recent years he had become something of a tourist attraction for openly growing cannabis at his makeshift ‘palace’, but that is no longer to be.

Samuel van Niekerk, eldest brother of Triagaardt, confirmed the passing of his sister and the injuries of his brother-in-law.

“We received information early on Friday morning that they couldn’t do anything for my sister after the accident occurred. Earlier this morning, they were still busy trying to resuscitate King Khoisan SA. It is heartbreaking but it is the unfortunate reality now,” said Van Niekerk.

From the Gorachouqua Tribe, Neville Felix said: “This untimely incident has already claimed the life of Chief Khoisan’s wife and Chief Khoisan is in a very serious state where doctors are trying to resuscitate King Khoisan himself, a mighty tree has fallen as the Nation is convinced that we get a very clear report from the powers that be.

“The Nation will pursue this matter as it seems our lives are expendable if we raise issues about our Inalienable Rights that this quasi government continues to ignore and refuse to acknowledge the empirical truth and facts about our 372 years of oppression, genocide and discrimination against humanity and the Descendants of the First Nations Peoples.”

Elder Shaun Green said: “This is a huge attack from evil to stop our advancement in its tracks. We don’t know if it’s planned but it’s sinister.”

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