Sunday, 31 May 2009
Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape
Press Statement
Urgent Interdict against Municipal Criminality to be Served on the Cape Town City Manager First Thing on Monday Morning
The urgent interdict awarded to the Macassar Village Occupation on Friday evening against the ongoing state criminality by the City of Cape Town will be served to the Cape Town City Manager, Achmat Ebrahim, by the Sheriff of the Court first thing on Monday morning.
The interdict prevents the City from demolishing any shacks in the Macassar Village Occupation without an order of the court. It also compels them to return the building material that they have stolen.
Once the interdict has been served any further claims by city officials and politicians that their ongoing demolitions and confiscation of building materials from the Macassar Village Occupation are and have been lawful will be a clear case of deliberate dishonesty.
However we need to be clear that the interdict was binding from the movement that the court issued it on Friday and that the demolitions and confiscation of building materials on Saturday morning were carried out in criminal violation of the law and in contempt of court. The police were presented with a copy of the interdict, and its contents were explained to them by us and then by our lawyer, yet they still went ahead and demolished two shacks and stole building materials in blatant contempt of the interdict. Their response was that they only take instruction from the City Manager and the Mayor. The police are being quite open about the fact that they will follow the orders of their political masters and not the law or the courts. This is rule by decree and not rule by law. The Cape Town City Council appears to remain determined to continue to ignore the rule of law when the law offers some protection to the poor. It seems that they are determined to continue to, instead, implement the arbitrary and violent rule of the rich through the barrel of the guns wielded by the police and the Anti-Land Invasions Unit.
The land at Macassar Village was first occupied on 19 May 2009 and the first demolition happened on 20 May 2009. Since then the occupiers have rebuilt and then had their shacks demolished and building materials stolen again almost every day. However after the demolition and theft of building materials on Saturday morning it was not possible to rebuild as there were no more materials available. They had finally taken everything that we had. The occupiers spent this bitterly cold and wet weekend sleeping on the ground under bits of plastic sheeting. Many of us are now sick.
In 2006 the Tshwane Municipality demolished shacks in Moreleta Park in Pretoria in violation of a court interdict preventing any demolition with out an order of the court. The court responded by ordering (1) the arrest of the Minister of Safety and Security and (2) that the police must themselves rebuild the shacks that they had demolished.( For more information on this case look at chapter two of the 2008 Centre on Housing Rights & Evictions report on housing rights in Durban: Business As Usual?: Housing Rights and 'Slum Eradication' in Durban, South Africa.) Perhaps the time has come to approach the courts to seek the arrest of Achmat Ebrahim and Dan Plato as well as the police officers who follow their orders rather than the law? It is certainly clear that someone should be arrested for the crimes committed on Saturday, and every day since 19 May. It is certainly clear that the police have an obligation to return what they have stolen and to rebuild what they have broken.
We will continue to use the courts to discipline the police, and the politicians and officials that give them their orders to protect the colonial order and the rule of money over the lives of the poor. But will also continue to occupy the land in Macassar Village and to build political support for the occupation. As part of this process we are working towards a major march on the City of Cape Town and in defence of the Macassar Village Occupation. Abahlali baseMjondolo now has 15 vibrant branches in Cape Town and we will, working together with our comrades in the Poor People’s Alliance, take the suffering and struggles of the poor into the heart of the territory of the rich – the same territory from which they order the police to attack us.
We have nothing but our will but our will is strong.
Despite the assaults, the arrests, the day to day intimidation, the relentless and criminal demolitions and theft of our building materials in the cold and the rain we remain determined to democratise this city from below.
For more information please contact Mzonke Poni at 073 256 62036.
Showing newest 22 of 25 posts from May 2009. Show older posts
Showing newest 22 of 25 posts from May 2009. Show older posts
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Urgent Interdict against Municipal Criminality to be Served on the Cape Town City Manager First Thing on Monday Morning
Update on the Latestriminal Attack on the Macassar Village Occupation
Update from the Macassar Village Occupation
The Church supported Abahlali baseMjondolo lawyer rushed to Macassar Village to explain to the police that:
1. Any demolition of a shack without an order of the court is a criminal offence that carries a penalty of a fine or two years in jail.
2. Any demolition of a shack in the Macassar Village Ocupation is in violation of the court interdict obtained yesterday and is therefore in contempt of court.
However despite being shown the interedict and, again, having it and the law explained to them the police said that they don't take instructions from lawyers and that they only take instructions from their superiors. They went ahead and demolished all the structures, including two that were fully rebuilt. This was, once again, a blatantly criminal action on the part of the police.
The police are being quite open about the fact that they will follow the orders of their political masters and not the law or the courts. The Cape Town City Council appears to remain determined to continue to ignore the rule of law when the law offers some protection to the poor. It seems that they are determined to continue to, instead, implement the arbitrary and violent rule of the rich through the barrel of the guns wielded by the police and the Anti-Land Invasions Unit.
In 2006 the Tshwane Municipality demolished shacks in Moreleta Park in Pretoria in violation of a court interdict preventing any demolition with out an order of the court. The court responded by ordering (1) the arrest of the Minister of Safety and Security and (2) that the police must themselves rebuild the shacks that they had demolished. For more information on this case look at chapter two of the 2008 Centre on Housing Rights & Evictions report on housing rights in Durban: Business As Usual?: Housing Rights and 'Slum Eradication' in Durban, South Africa.
We will see what Monday brings. In the meantime the Macassar Village Occupation continues without shelter out in the cold and in the rain.
For more information please contact Mzonke Poni at 073 256 62036
The Church supported Abahlali baseMjondolo lawyer rushed to Macassar Village to explain to the police that:
1. Any demolition of a shack without an order of the court is a criminal offence that carries a penalty of a fine or two years in jail.
2. Any demolition of a shack in the Macassar Village Ocupation is in violation of the court interdict obtained yesterday and is therefore in contempt of court.
However despite being shown the interedict and, again, having it and the law explained to them the police said that they don't take instructions from lawyers and that they only take instructions from their superiors. They went ahead and demolished all the structures, including two that were fully rebuilt. This was, once again, a blatantly criminal action on the part of the police.
The police are being quite open about the fact that they will follow the orders of their political masters and not the law or the courts. The Cape Town City Council appears to remain determined to continue to ignore the rule of law when the law offers some protection to the poor. It seems that they are determined to continue to, instead, implement the arbitrary and violent rule of the rich through the barrel of the guns wielded by the police and the Anti-Land Invasions Unit.
In 2006 the Tshwane Municipality demolished shacks in Moreleta Park in Pretoria in violation of a court interdict preventing any demolition with out an order of the court. The court responded by ordering (1) the arrest of the Minister of Safety and Security and (2) that the police must themselves rebuild the shacks that they had demolished. For more information on this case look at chapter two of the 2008 Centre on Housing Rights & Evictions report on housing rights in Durban: Business As Usual?: Housing Rights and 'Slum Eradication' in Durban, South Africa.
We will see what Monday brings. In the meantime the Macassar Village Occupation continues without shelter out in the cold and in the rain.
For more information please contact Mzonke Poni at 073 256 62036
City of Cape Town currently demolishing in Macassar Village in Violation of last night's Court Interdict
Emergency Press Statement
Last night30/05/09 an urgent interdict was secured in the Cape High Court preventing the City of Cape Town from demolishing shacks at the Macassar Village Land Occupation without an order of the Court.
Minutes ago the City arrived with considerable armed force and they are currently demolishing shacks in blatant contempt of the court order. They were shown the interdict and yet they are carrying on regardless.
Dan Plato and his administration can not, this time, claim to be unaware that they are engaging in criminal behaviour. There can now be no doubt that Dan Plato heads a wilfully and deliberately criminal organisation - the City of Cape Town.
For up to the minute updates from Macassar Village contact Mzonke Poni at 073 256 2036.
Last night30/05/09 an urgent interdict was secured in the Cape High Court preventing the City of Cape Town from demolishing shacks at the Macassar Village Land Occupation without an order of the Court.
Minutes ago the City arrived with considerable armed force and they are currently demolishing shacks in blatant contempt of the court order. They were shown the interdict and yet they are carrying on regardless.
Dan Plato and his administration can not, this time, claim to be unaware that they are engaging in criminal behaviour. There can now be no doubt that Dan Plato heads a wilfully and deliberately criminal organisation - the City of Cape Town.
For up to the minute updates from Macassar Village contact Mzonke Poni at 073 256 2036.
Macassar Village Secured an Urgent Interdict Against the City of Cape Town Last Night on the 30th May 2009
Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape
Urgent Press Release
Last Night We Secured an Urgent Interdict Against the City of Cape Town that Prevents them from Continuing with their Criminal Harassment of the Macassar Village Ocupation
We have secured an urgent interdict against the City of Cape Town. The interdict prevents them from demolishing any shack or structure at the Macassar Village Occupation without an order of the court (and the due process that obtaining such an order requires). It also compels them to return to us all the building materials that they have stolen.
This is an important victory against state criminality in Cape Town. Municipalities across the country regularly engage in criminal behaviour towards the poor because they are confident that we will not be able to secure legal support. But ten days after we first occupied the land we were able, with church support, to secure a lawyer and to succeed in forcing the City of Cape Town to engage with us in terms of the law. The City wanted to resolved this crisis with violence. We have now been given an opportunity to resolve this crisis politically.
For more information please contact Mzonke Poni at 073 256 62036
Urgent Press Release
Last Night We Secured an Urgent Interdict Against the City of Cape Town that Prevents them from Continuing with their Criminal Harassment of the Macassar Village Ocupation
We have secured an urgent interdict against the City of Cape Town. The interdict prevents them from demolishing any shack or structure at the Macassar Village Occupation without an order of the court (and the due process that obtaining such an order requires). It also compels them to return to us all the building materials that they have stolen.
This is an important victory against state criminality in Cape Town. Municipalities across the country regularly engage in criminal behaviour towards the poor because they are confident that we will not be able to secure legal support. But ten days after we first occupied the land we were able, with church support, to secure a lawyer and to succeed in forcing the City of Cape Town to engage with us in terms of the law. The City wanted to resolved this crisis with violence. We have now been given an opportunity to resolve this crisis politically.
For more information please contact Mzonke Poni at 073 256 62036
Thursday, May 28, 2009
It's the state that is flouting the law
May 27, 2009 Edition 1
WHILE the dust thrown up in the election is still settling, the City of Cape Town is already engaged in violent and allegedly unlawful behaviour towards its most vulnerable citizens.
On Tuesday 19 May, a group of backyard shack dwellers occupied vacant municipal-owned land in Macassar Village. Rents for backyard shacks in the area can reach as high as R600 a month and they have become overcrowded and unaffordable for many people. The law on trespass does render this occupation unlawful and the city has laid a charge of trespass against the occupiers. But, following the right to housing guaranteed in the constitution, the law also makes provision for the protection of the rights of unlawful occupiers. That protection extends to making it a criminal offence to evict an unlawful occupier without an order of the court.
A court can only issue an eviction order against an unlawful occupier after a process that includes a significant degree of consideration for the rights of occupiers.
A Constitutional Court decision against the Port Elizabeth municipality in 2004 insisted that, when considering application for evictions, courts are required to "infuse elements of grace and compassion into the formal structures of the law". It added that they should pay attention to the history of evictions under apartheid and to how that history has left "lasting and enduring effects on the distribution of land and access to housing today".
The state should have responded to the Macassar occupation by providing emergency support for basic needs. After all, unaffordable rents and consequent overcrowding are as much a disaster as any flood or fire in terms of the suffering imposed on people. The state should then have begun sincere negotiations about interim relief leading to a long term plan for housing.
Instead, the state response has been violent and, in strict legal terms, criminal. People have been shot at with rubber bullets and others have been arrested on the spurious charge of public violence. It is the police who are guilty of public violence, not to mention assault, intimidation and wrongful arrest. Moreover, the state has demolished the occupiers' shacks every day and then confiscated their building materials. Despite this, the occupiers have managed to rebuild every day with what materials remain. These demolitions have been undertaken without an order of the court and are therefore illegal and criminal acts.
The confiscation of building materials is straight forward theft. In terms of the law the infractions of the occupiers are much less serious than those of the state. In principle, officers in the police and the Anti-Land Invasions Unit should be arrested for assault, intimidation, theft and demolition of shacks without an order of the court.
The city's willingness to disregard the rule of law to defend the elite monopoly over urban planning is hardly unique. On the contrary, many ANC-run municipalities, with eThekwini and Erkhuleni being perhaps the most notorious, have a long record of routine and systematic state criminality towards shack dwellers. This has included unlawful evictions as well as unlawful and often violent repression.
In the past the DA and the ANC have both given active support to attempts at legal reform aimed at reducing poor people's rights to land and housing. In practice this means they have both been committed to criminalising the survival strategies of the urban poor and to deploy armed force to defend this criminalisation. When challenged on this they are both likely to argue that the state needs to firm up the law in order to protect its plans for rational development.
But everyone knows that there is no rational plan to steadily work through housing lists until everyone has a decent house. On the contrary in most cities the number of people without access to decent housing is growing.
According to Professor Martin Legassick in Cape Town: "There is a backlog of some 400 000 homes, increasing by some 20 000 a year, but with a maximum of 8 000 houses a year being built." Across the country housing lists are usually a simple fiction used to justify the arbitrary and often self-interested despotism of local political elites and to present popular protest and innovation as queue jumping.
If the major political parties continue to operate on a tacit agreement to accept that the rule of law need not apply to the poor the demand for real equality before the law will have to come from outside party politics. But just as the DA and the ANC share a tacit agreement that the rule of law can be suspended to beat poor people back into overcrowded, unaffordable backyard shacks, the political parties also share a tacit agreement that politics conducted outside of their control is somehow unacceptable.
Already Cape Town's DA Mayor Dan Plato and local ID councillor John Heuvel have resorted to the paranoid language that the ANC has routinely deployed against self-organised communities and movements. They speak as though there is something perverse and illegitimate about independent organisation by poor people. They speak as if a decision to think and act together is some sort of illegitimate conspiracy.
The political parties have failed to address the housing crisis. The magnitude of their failure means that it is inevitable that they will also fail to retain their monopolies on urban planning and on the right to legitimately engage in politics.
They are now obligated to face up to all of this and to learn to respond to popular innovation with negotiation and creativity rather than slander and violence. If they are unwilling or unable to do this they will be responsible for a rapid escalation in social conflicts already endemic in our cities.
This article by Richard Pithouse, who teaches politics at Rhodes University, was distributed by the South African Civil Society Information Service (sacsis.org.za).
WHILE the dust thrown up in the election is still settling, the City of Cape Town is already engaged in violent and allegedly unlawful behaviour towards its most vulnerable citizens.
On Tuesday 19 May, a group of backyard shack dwellers occupied vacant municipal-owned land in Macassar Village. Rents for backyard shacks in the area can reach as high as R600 a month and they have become overcrowded and unaffordable for many people. The law on trespass does render this occupation unlawful and the city has laid a charge of trespass against the occupiers. But, following the right to housing guaranteed in the constitution, the law also makes provision for the protection of the rights of unlawful occupiers. That protection extends to making it a criminal offence to evict an unlawful occupier without an order of the court.
A court can only issue an eviction order against an unlawful occupier after a process that includes a significant degree of consideration for the rights of occupiers.
A Constitutional Court decision against the Port Elizabeth municipality in 2004 insisted that, when considering application for evictions, courts are required to "infuse elements of grace and compassion into the formal structures of the law". It added that they should pay attention to the history of evictions under apartheid and to how that history has left "lasting and enduring effects on the distribution of land and access to housing today".
The state should have responded to the Macassar occupation by providing emergency support for basic needs. After all, unaffordable rents and consequent overcrowding are as much a disaster as any flood or fire in terms of the suffering imposed on people. The state should then have begun sincere negotiations about interim relief leading to a long term plan for housing.
Instead, the state response has been violent and, in strict legal terms, criminal. People have been shot at with rubber bullets and others have been arrested on the spurious charge of public violence. It is the police who are guilty of public violence, not to mention assault, intimidation and wrongful arrest. Moreover, the state has demolished the occupiers' shacks every day and then confiscated their building materials. Despite this, the occupiers have managed to rebuild every day with what materials remain. These demolitions have been undertaken without an order of the court and are therefore illegal and criminal acts.
The confiscation of building materials is straight forward theft. In terms of the law the infractions of the occupiers are much less serious than those of the state. In principle, officers in the police and the Anti-Land Invasions Unit should be arrested for assault, intimidation, theft and demolition of shacks without an order of the court.
The city's willingness to disregard the rule of law to defend the elite monopoly over urban planning is hardly unique. On the contrary, many ANC-run municipalities, with eThekwini and Erkhuleni being perhaps the most notorious, have a long record of routine and systematic state criminality towards shack dwellers. This has included unlawful evictions as well as unlawful and often violent repression.
In the past the DA and the ANC have both given active support to attempts at legal reform aimed at reducing poor people's rights to land and housing. In practice this means they have both been committed to criminalising the survival strategies of the urban poor and to deploy armed force to defend this criminalisation. When challenged on this they are both likely to argue that the state needs to firm up the law in order to protect its plans for rational development.
But everyone knows that there is no rational plan to steadily work through housing lists until everyone has a decent house. On the contrary in most cities the number of people without access to decent housing is growing.
According to Professor Martin Legassick in Cape Town: "There is a backlog of some 400 000 homes, increasing by some 20 000 a year, but with a maximum of 8 000 houses a year being built." Across the country housing lists are usually a simple fiction used to justify the arbitrary and often self-interested despotism of local political elites and to present popular protest and innovation as queue jumping.
If the major political parties continue to operate on a tacit agreement to accept that the rule of law need not apply to the poor the demand for real equality before the law will have to come from outside party politics. But just as the DA and the ANC share a tacit agreement that the rule of law can be suspended to beat poor people back into overcrowded, unaffordable backyard shacks, the political parties also share a tacit agreement that politics conducted outside of their control is somehow unacceptable.
Already Cape Town's DA Mayor Dan Plato and local ID councillor John Heuvel have resorted to the paranoid language that the ANC has routinely deployed against self-organised communities and movements. They speak as though there is something perverse and illegitimate about independent organisation by poor people. They speak as if a decision to think and act together is some sort of illegitimate conspiracy.
The political parties have failed to address the housing crisis. The magnitude of their failure means that it is inevitable that they will also fail to retain their monopolies on urban planning and on the right to legitimately engage in politics.
They are now obligated to face up to all of this and to learn to respond to popular innovation with negotiation and creativity rather than slander and violence. If they are unwilling or unable to do this they will be responsible for a rapid escalation in social conflicts already endemic in our cities.
This article by Richard Pithouse, who teaches politics at Rhodes University, was distributed by the South African Civil Society Information Service (sacsis.org.za).
Monday, May 25, 2009
The DA and ANC Share a Penchant for State Criminality
In the recent election the DA, together with COPE, made much of their intention to defend the rule of the law. But while the dust thrown up in that election is still settling the City of Cape Town is already engaged in brutal and criminal behaviour towards its most vulnerable citizens.
On Thursday 14 May a group of backyard shack dwellers occupied a piece of vacant municipal owned land in Macassar Village, outside Cape Town. But while the law on trespass does render their occupation unlawful the law also makes specific provision for the protection of the rights of unlawful occupiers. That protection extends to making it a criminal offence to evict an unlawful occupier without an order of the court.
A court can only issue an eviction order against an unlawful occupier after a careful process that includes a significant degree of consideration for the rights of occupier. A Constitutional Court decision against the Port Elizabeth Municipality in 2004 famously insisted that, when considering application for eviction orders, courts are required to “infuse elements of grace and compassion into the formal structures of the law.” It added that they should pay careful attention to the history of evictions under apartheid and to how that history has left “lasting and enduring effects on the distribution of land and access to housing today.”
But the state response to the land occupation in Macassar Village has been, in strict legal terms, criminal. People, including a child, have been shot at with rubber bullets and others have been arrested on the entirely spurious charge of public violence. It is in fact the police who are guilty of public violence not to mention assault, intimidation and wrongful arrest. Moreover the state has demolished the occupier’s shacks every day and then confiscated their building materials. Despite this the occupiers have managed to rebuild everyday with what materials remain. These demolitions have been undertaken without an order of the court and are therefore illegal and criminal acts. The confiscation of building materials is straight forward theft. In principle officers in the police and the Anti-Land Invasions Unit should be immediately arrested for assault, intimidation, theft and demolition of shacks without an order of the court. In practice the prospects of this happening are close to zero.
The City of Cape Town’s willingness to resort to violent criminality to defend the elite monopoly over urban planning is hardly a unique aberration. On the contrary many ANC run municipalities, with eThekwini and Erkhuleni being perhaps the most notorious, have a long record of routine and systematic state criminality towards shack dwellers. This has included unlawful evictions as well as unlawful and often violent repression. One of the reasons why municipalities have been able to get away with this is that it’s often extremely difficult for poor people to access to competent and committed legal support. Moreover when it is possible to access legal support it sometimes happens that both lawyers and judges put their own assumptions and prejudices before the letter of the law.
The bitterness stirred up by Helen Zille’s political critique of Jacob Zuma’s personal life and the astonishingly sexist response from some in the ANC, creates the impression that the DA and ANC are deeply opposed social forces. But while there certainly are important differences between the parties the high levels of personal conflict often masks both these differences and some commonalities between the DA and the ANC. One of those commonalities is that, at the level of practice, both parties share a commitment to an authoritarian mode of development and an assumption that when the poor do not know and keep to the places allocated to them they should be excluded from the protections supposed guaranteed to all citizens by the constitution.
The Constitution and the laws associated with it are imperfect from the point of view of most social forces. That fact should not surprise us given that the Constitution is an expression of the compromises reached during the negotiated settlement. Property owner’s associations have lobbied for a reduction of the rights provided to unlawful occupiers and popular movements and intellectuals on the left have challenged the rights provided to property owners. But state action undertaken in routine contempt of even the limited legal protection currently offered to the poor is setting us on a trajectory far beneath the compromise envisioned by the negotiated settlement.
In the past the DA and the ANC have both given active support to attempts at legal reform aimed at reducing poor people’s rights to land and housing. In practice this means that they have both been committed to criminalising the survival strategies of the urban poor and to deploy armed force to defend this criminalisation. When challenged on this they have both tended to argue that they need to firm up the law in order to protect their plans for rational development. But everyone knows that there is no rational plan to steadily work through housing lists until everyone has a decent house. On the contrary in most cities the number of people without access to decent housing is growing. ‘Housing lists’ are usually a simple fiction used to justify the arbitrary and often self interested despotism of local political elites and to present popular protest and innovation as ‘queue jumping.’ We’re in the early days of Zuma’s government but there have, as yet, been no signs that the ANC intends to break with any of this.
If the major political parties continue to operate on a tacit agreement to accept that the rule of law need not apply to the poor the demand for real equality before the law will have to come from outside of party politics. But this will not be uncomplicated. Although there are important exceptions civil society is largely unwilling to confront the reality of systemic state criminality head on. And while there are some popular poor people’s movements, one of which is growing very rapidly, they remain acutely under resourced and are only just beginning to access some of the resources required from them to be able to forge a way to work together across the country.
On Thursday 14 May a group of backyard shack dwellers occupied a piece of vacant municipal owned land in Macassar Village, outside Cape Town. But while the law on trespass does render their occupation unlawful the law also makes specific provision for the protection of the rights of unlawful occupiers. That protection extends to making it a criminal offence to evict an unlawful occupier without an order of the court.
A court can only issue an eviction order against an unlawful occupier after a careful process that includes a significant degree of consideration for the rights of occupier. A Constitutional Court decision against the Port Elizabeth Municipality in 2004 famously insisted that, when considering application for eviction orders, courts are required to “infuse elements of grace and compassion into the formal structures of the law.” It added that they should pay careful attention to the history of evictions under apartheid and to how that history has left “lasting and enduring effects on the distribution of land and access to housing today.”
But the state response to the land occupation in Macassar Village has been, in strict legal terms, criminal. People, including a child, have been shot at with rubber bullets and others have been arrested on the entirely spurious charge of public violence. It is in fact the police who are guilty of public violence not to mention assault, intimidation and wrongful arrest. Moreover the state has demolished the occupier’s shacks every day and then confiscated their building materials. Despite this the occupiers have managed to rebuild everyday with what materials remain. These demolitions have been undertaken without an order of the court and are therefore illegal and criminal acts. The confiscation of building materials is straight forward theft. In principle officers in the police and the Anti-Land Invasions Unit should be immediately arrested for assault, intimidation, theft and demolition of shacks without an order of the court. In practice the prospects of this happening are close to zero.
The City of Cape Town’s willingness to resort to violent criminality to defend the elite monopoly over urban planning is hardly a unique aberration. On the contrary many ANC run municipalities, with eThekwini and Erkhuleni being perhaps the most notorious, have a long record of routine and systematic state criminality towards shack dwellers. This has included unlawful evictions as well as unlawful and often violent repression. One of the reasons why municipalities have been able to get away with this is that it’s often extremely difficult for poor people to access to competent and committed legal support. Moreover when it is possible to access legal support it sometimes happens that both lawyers and judges put their own assumptions and prejudices before the letter of the law.
The bitterness stirred up by Helen Zille’s political critique of Jacob Zuma’s personal life and the astonishingly sexist response from some in the ANC, creates the impression that the DA and ANC are deeply opposed social forces. But while there certainly are important differences between the parties the high levels of personal conflict often masks both these differences and some commonalities between the DA and the ANC. One of those commonalities is that, at the level of practice, both parties share a commitment to an authoritarian mode of development and an assumption that when the poor do not know and keep to the places allocated to them they should be excluded from the protections supposed guaranteed to all citizens by the constitution.
The Constitution and the laws associated with it are imperfect from the point of view of most social forces. That fact should not surprise us given that the Constitution is an expression of the compromises reached during the negotiated settlement. Property owner’s associations have lobbied for a reduction of the rights provided to unlawful occupiers and popular movements and intellectuals on the left have challenged the rights provided to property owners. But state action undertaken in routine contempt of even the limited legal protection currently offered to the poor is setting us on a trajectory far beneath the compromise envisioned by the negotiated settlement.
In the past the DA and the ANC have both given active support to attempts at legal reform aimed at reducing poor people’s rights to land and housing. In practice this means that they have both been committed to criminalising the survival strategies of the urban poor and to deploy armed force to defend this criminalisation. When challenged on this they have both tended to argue that they need to firm up the law in order to protect their plans for rational development. But everyone knows that there is no rational plan to steadily work through housing lists until everyone has a decent house. On the contrary in most cities the number of people without access to decent housing is growing. ‘Housing lists’ are usually a simple fiction used to justify the arbitrary and often self interested despotism of local political elites and to present popular protest and innovation as ‘queue jumping.’ We’re in the early days of Zuma’s government but there have, as yet, been no signs that the ANC intends to break with any of this.
If the major political parties continue to operate on a tacit agreement to accept that the rule of law need not apply to the poor the demand for real equality before the law will have to come from outside of party politics. But this will not be uncomplicated. Although there are important exceptions civil society is largely unwilling to confront the reality of systemic state criminality head on. And while there are some popular poor people’s movements, one of which is growing very rapidly, they remain acutely under resourced and are only just beginning to access some of the resources required from them to be able to forge a way to work together across the country.
: Residents fight against City of Cape Town
May 25 2009 at 07:32AM
Source: IOL
The Abahlali baseMjondolo organisation in the Western Cape said early Monday morning that it would be approaching the Cape High Court for an urgent interdict against alleged “unlawful and criminal evictions.
The organisation said in a statement that they would apply for the interdict late on Monday morning to prevent alleged unlawful evictions in the Macassar village by the City of Cape Town.
“Macassar Village back-yarders have been made homeless by the extremely high rents that they are charged to erect shacks in other people’s backyards.”
The organisation also said for the past week, homeless residents occupied an empty piece of land owned by the City of Cape Town with the intention of apparently housing them and their families.
“Land is the building block of any healthy and sustainable community. We are merely fighting for our own livelihoods which have been denied to us by past governments and this current government,” it said. – Sapa
Source: IOL
The Abahlali baseMjondolo organisation in the Western Cape said early Monday morning that it would be approaching the Cape High Court for an urgent interdict against alleged “unlawful and criminal evictions.
The organisation said in a statement that they would apply for the interdict late on Monday morning to prevent alleged unlawful evictions in the Macassar village by the City of Cape Town.
“Macassar Village back-yarders have been made homeless by the extremely high rents that they are charged to erect shacks in other people’s backyards.”
The organisation also said for the past week, homeless residents occupied an empty piece of land owned by the City of Cape Town with the intention of apparently housing them and their families.
“Land is the building block of any healthy and sustainable community. We are merely fighting for our own livelihoods which have been denied to us by past governments and this current government,” it said. – Sapa
Press Alert: Macassar Abahlali to place urgent interdict at Cape High Court
AbM-WC Press Release
Monday 25 May, 2009
Where: Cape High Court
When: First thing in the morning
Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape will be approaching the Cape High Court first thing this morning to secure an urgent interdict against unlawful and criminal evictions by the City of Cape Town in the case of Macassar Village.
Macassar Village backyarders have been made homeless by the extremely high rents that they are charged to erect shacks in other people's backyards. For the past week, homeless residents have been occupying an empty piece of land owned by the City of Cape Town with the intention of housing them and their families.
Land is the building block of any healthy and sustainable community. We are merely fighting for our own livelihoods which have been denied to us by past governments and this current government.
For more information, contact Mzonke at 0732562036
Monday 25 May, 2009
Where: Cape High Court
When: First thing in the morning
Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape will be approaching the Cape High Court first thing this morning to secure an urgent interdict against unlawful and criminal evictions by the City of Cape Town in the case of Macassar Village.
Macassar Village backyarders have been made homeless by the extremely high rents that they are charged to erect shacks in other people's backyards. For the past week, homeless residents have been occupying an empty piece of land owned by the City of Cape Town with the intention of housing them and their families.
Land is the building block of any healthy and sustainable community. We are merely fighting for our own livelihoods which have been denied to us by past governments and this current government.
For more information, contact Mzonke at 0732562036
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Backyard dwellers remain defiant
By Francis Hweshe
Source: Cape Argus
May 22 2009 at 02:34PM
The defiant backyard dwellers who are continuing to illegally occupy a piece of land in Macassar should retreat, Mayor Dan Plato said.
Tension has grown over the past three days, with the protesting group not backing down on its intention of permanently occupying land close to the N2.
On Thursday Plato said the protesters should stay away from the city-owned land, which had been budgeted for and earmarked for 2000 housing units.
Once environmental impact studies were completed, work would start, he said.
If the group was allowed to squat there, they would “start shouting for services” such as electricity and toilets, he said.
Plato claimed he had heard that certain elements had orchestrated the land invasion through misinformation.
They were sleeping in proper houses while causing trauma for the families spending nights out in the cold, he said.
On Tuesday, police and law enforcement agents razed structures the group had erected and confiscated their building materials.
A fracas broke out as the group clashed with the police, resulting in the injury of one policeman and several other people, and three arrests.
Professor Martin Legassick of the University of the Western Cape, a supporter of the backyard dwellers, was also held but later released.
A day later, the backyard dwellers said they had again erected about 70 structures on a nearby piece of land.
The structures were demolished on Thursday by the law-enforcement agents, and building materials confiscated.
In a statement, the group alleged they had occupied the second piece of land after they had had successful negotiations with local councillor John Heuvel.
“After three hours of negotiations between the backyard dwellers and the ward councillor, it was agreed that they could build on that land, which is 10m from the land they had occupied,” the group said.
Heuvel denied that he gave them the green light to occupy the land, saying politics was at play and “the situation was getting out of hand.”
He was set to meet city officials soon to discuss the matter.
Legassick said it was disgraceful for Heuvel to turn against the group.
“He (Heuvel) should explain himself,” said Legassick.
When the Cape Argus visited the area on Thursday, the situation was relatively calm, but police and law-enforcement agents were there with a Casspir and several police vans.
The backyard dwellers, some with beds, mattresses and blankets still lying on the land, claimed that Heuvel had betrayed them by ordering law-enforcement agents to raze their structures despite an agreement with him.
“People are desperate, my brethren.
“We don’t need violence.
“We need a place to stay,” said Gert Smit, 38.
Women with children said they had nowhere to go on the cold and rainy nights.
Their spokesman Mzonke Poni said the group would stay on the land and the way forward would be discussed on Friday night.
o This article was originally published on page 4 of Cape Argus on May 22, 2009
Source: Cape Argus
May 22 2009 at 02:34PM
The defiant backyard dwellers who are continuing to illegally occupy a piece of land in Macassar should retreat, Mayor Dan Plato said.
Tension has grown over the past three days, with the protesting group not backing down on its intention of permanently occupying land close to the N2.
On Thursday Plato said the protesters should stay away from the city-owned land, which had been budgeted for and earmarked for 2000 housing units.
Once environmental impact studies were completed, work would start, he said.
If the group was allowed to squat there, they would “start shouting for services” such as electricity and toilets, he said.
Plato claimed he had heard that certain elements had orchestrated the land invasion through misinformation.
They were sleeping in proper houses while causing trauma for the families spending nights out in the cold, he said.
On Tuesday, police and law enforcement agents razed structures the group had erected and confiscated their building materials.
A fracas broke out as the group clashed with the police, resulting in the injury of one policeman and several other people, and three arrests.
Professor Martin Legassick of the University of the Western Cape, a supporter of the backyard dwellers, was also held but later released.
A day later, the backyard dwellers said they had again erected about 70 structures on a nearby piece of land.
The structures were demolished on Thursday by the law-enforcement agents, and building materials confiscated.
In a statement, the group alleged they had occupied the second piece of land after they had had successful negotiations with local councillor John Heuvel.
“After three hours of negotiations between the backyard dwellers and the ward councillor, it was agreed that they could build on that land, which is 10m from the land they had occupied,” the group said.
Heuvel denied that he gave them the green light to occupy the land, saying politics was at play and “the situation was getting out of hand.”
He was set to meet city officials soon to discuss the matter.
Legassick said it was disgraceful for Heuvel to turn against the group.
“He (Heuvel) should explain himself,” said Legassick.
When the Cape Argus visited the area on Thursday, the situation was relatively calm, but police and law-enforcement agents were there with a Casspir and several police vans.
The backyard dwellers, some with beds, mattresses and blankets still lying on the land, claimed that Heuvel had betrayed them by ordering law-enforcement agents to raze their structures despite an agreement with him.
“People are desperate, my brethren.
“We don’t need violence.
“We need a place to stay,” said Gert Smit, 38.
Women with children said they had nowhere to go on the cold and rainy nights.
Their spokesman Mzonke Poni said the group would stay on the land and the way forward would be discussed on Friday night.
o This article was originally published on page 4 of Cape Argus on May 22, 2009
Update from the Macassar Village Occupation
Abahlali baseMjondolo Western Cape
23 May 2009
Ongoing Defiance of State Criminality at Macassar Village
The land at Macassar Village was first occupied on Tuesday. The shacks that were built that night were demolished very early the next morning. Every day since then the people have rebuilt their structures to protect themselves at night, sometimes in the rain. Early every morning the police and municipal officials come have come and intimidated people, demolished people's structures and confiscated our building material.
In South Africa the PIE act makes it illegal and in fact criminal for anyone, including the state, to demolish any shack or even a temporary structure without an order of the court. Therefore these actions by the state are illegal and in fact criminal acts. As a results of these illegal actions from the police and the municipality the people at Macassar Village now, once again, sitting in the cold outside in an open space with nowhere to go. This includes women and children.
Abahlali baseMjondolo are not happy with the systemic criminality on the part of the police and municipality - a criminality that clearly has high level political backing.
We will continue with our struggle to democratise this city from below.
For more information contact Mzonke Poni at 0732562036
23 May 2009
Ongoing Defiance of State Criminality at Macassar Village
The land at Macassar Village was first occupied on Tuesday. The shacks that were built that night were demolished very early the next morning. Every day since then the people have rebuilt their structures to protect themselves at night, sometimes in the rain. Early every morning the police and municipal officials come have come and intimidated people, demolished people's structures and confiscated our building material.
In South Africa the PIE act makes it illegal and in fact criminal for anyone, including the state, to demolish any shack or even a temporary structure without an order of the court. Therefore these actions by the state are illegal and in fact criminal acts. As a results of these illegal actions from the police and the municipality the people at Macassar Village now, once again, sitting in the cold outside in an open space with nowhere to go. This includes women and children.
Abahlali baseMjondolo are not happy with the systemic criminality on the part of the police and municipality - a criminality that clearly has high level political backing.
We will continue with our struggle to democratise this city from below.
For more information contact Mzonke Poni at 0732562036
Friday, May 22, 2009
Bankruptcy of responses to Macassar land occupation underlines Western Cape housing crisis
By Martin Legassick
21/5/2009
On Tuesday 19th backyarders in Macassar, desperate for homes, built shacks on municipal land on a field adjoining the N2 – and were illegally evicted by Cape Town’s DA Helen-Zille-inspired Anti-Land Invasion unit, together with SAPS and Metro Police. Their building materials were confiscated and taken off in a truck. In the process four people (including a 2-year old child) were unnecessarily wounded by police rubber bullets, four people (including myself) were unnecessarily taken into custody and three of these wrongfully charged with public violence.
On Wednesday evening a solution to the situation appeared to have been reached. The Macassar SAPS superintendent, Princess Benjamin, brokered negotiations between representatives of the occupiers and the local ID councillor, John Heuvel. At 8pm the representatives returned to open land next to the field, to which the homeless occupiers had removed their furniture and slept the previous night, and were now sitting around fires. The representatives announced that the councillor had agreed the people could occupy a piece of land nearby and that they should build shacks there immediately. The councilor promised that the mayor, Dan Plato, would come at 9 the following morning to endorse this. The people rushed to begin, and as they did so, some ten police cars guarding the field that had been occupied, left it.
However the next morning (Thursday) Dan Plato did not turn up. Instead Metro Police appeared and supervised the renewed destruction of the structures. More building materials were confiscated. What caused this disgraceful abandonment of an agreement between the people and the ward councilor? According to the Metro Police boss, “a ward councilor cannot allocate land, but only the council. I work for the mayor. That is why I countermanded the agreement.” In other words, the anti-poor policies of the Democratic Alliance is what put a spanner in the works.
Macassar, a formerly ‘coloured’ area, is now bursting at the seams with overcrowded houses, occupied by both coloured and African families (and even a few whites). Both coloureds and Africans participated in the occupation. Macassar is one part of Cape Town’s housing crisis, where there is a backlog of some 400,000 homes, increasing by some 20,000 a year, but with a maximum of 8, 000 houses a year being built. Backyarders in Macassar pay exorbitant rents to the house-owners of some R300-R500 a months, and that is why they want decent homes of their own.
Before the elections, backyarders in Macassar had approached mayor Helen Zille several times with letters and SMSes. She eventually said she would get Dan Plato to visit them to hear their grievances. He never came. After the elections people decided they would have to go it on their own. They identified a piece of vacant land and spent three days cleaning it in preparation for a picnic and sports event on Saturday 16th, but this was wiped out by the first of the Cape’s winter storms.
So on the night of Monday 18th they gathered at 6pm to build, and succeeded through the night in erecting a number of complete shacks; many others brought their furniture to put on their intended shack sites. The DA-ordered eviction on Tuesday morning was illegal under the Prevention of Illegal Eviction from, and Unlawful Occupation of, Land Act of 1998 (PI), which states that any built structures require a court order before people are evicted from them. People put up the shacks again, but they were torn down again and this time the materials were confiscated.
The initial response of the community was to try to occupy the adjacent N2, which the police prevented. People returned to the road next to the field they had occupied and marched up and down, singing and toyi-toying. The police became very restless and tried to block the marches by parking police cars three abreast in the road but people just marched through without touching the cars.
I was there taking pictures of all this. Someone in plain clothes who it later turned out was a Crime Intelligence Unit photographer started trying to take pictures of me, perhaps because I was the only white there, sticking out like a milk bottle. I tried to dodge him but he persisted. An SAPS inspector in plain clothes came and stood right next to me, trying to intimidate me. When I swore back at him he became incensed and grabbed me, soon supported by other police officers. People were disturbed and started to complain and move in my direction. Very fast a ring of police was around me, with their shotguns pointing outwards. I was told to move quietly towards a police van and as I reached it, the police opened fire. In the hail of rubber bullets four people (including a two-year old child) were wounded.
Soon three other people were escorted to the police van. None of them were in the slightest involved. One had been riding past on a bicycle and dropped to the ground when he heard the fire. Another fell over at the fire, and happened to touch a policeman. The third had been pepper-gassed and had handcuffs on but said he had done nothing. The following morning they appeared in Somerset West Court, were released with no bail, but charged with “public violence”.
All this, apparently precipitated by the inspector grabbing me unnecessarily, was quite needless.
Later I told the inspector I was angry because the police were supporting an illegal eviction under the PIE Act. He replied “yes, you are right, it was illegal. But we are national police and here we were instructed by the (DA) provincial and local government.” Yet last week I was at a meeting in the same field when two people from the Anti-Land-Invasion Unit came and told us the meeting was illegal and tried to call the SAPS to disperse it. An SAPS van turned up, but left after five minutes. The SAPS need not respond to demands from provincial or municipal authorities if they believe those demands are illegal.
Poor people do not have the resources to call lawyers within minutes to place interdicts against police actions. That is the reason that the police get away with illegality.
Conditions of service in the police force are of course very bad. The inspector also told me he had been shot in the neck on duty and would be in a wheelchair in two months because of problems in his vertebrae. “I am afraid to sneeze”, he said. Why on earth them was he compelled to take charge of police in the delicate situation of a land occupation.
Significantly, however, it was the SAPS superintendent who brokered the negotiations (which failed) and it was Metro Police who carried out the evictions on Thursday morning.
Now the responsibility for denying these homeless people land on which to build shacks rests with the DA-controlled council. Plato has recently claimed he intends to increase house-building in Cape Town from 8000 to 20-25,000 a year. This would, he claimed, allow the backlog to be ended in less than 20 years. How he expects to do this in these times of recession is anybody’s guess. But even if he could manage it, given that the backlog increases by 18-20,000 a year, on his figures for house-building it would take something like 100 years to end it!
If house-building cannot solve the ever-increasing backlog the pressures will become too great. If the DA’s “no tolerance of land occupations” were rigidly enforced (as they are trying to do) it will massively increase overcrowding of houses – and hence, most likely, abuse of women and children, drug abuse, and crime (all of which the DA claims to be against). If housing cannot be provided immediately for all, people must be allowed to find land on which to build shacks, whether that land is municipal, state, provincial or even private. The officials of the Anti-Land-Invasion-Unit behave very arrogantly and inflexibly. Repression is no answer to the housing crisis, and the Unit should be immediately disbanded.
Zille has criticized the ANC’s N2 Gateway housing project for favouring an elite. Instead she promotes the old apartheid site-and-service schemes, yet she wants to repress people building housing for themselves! This is despite the DA ideology of entrepreneurship and the free market! What a contradiction!
The ID ward councilor John Heuvel says he opposes land occupations because people who carry them out “gain the impression they should get the first option for housing.” Of course this is nonsense. People in shacks want houses, but they are prepared to accept waiting lists – provided those waiting lists are fair and transparent. In fact many involved in the Macassar occupation have been waiting twenty or thirty years for houses. But to ensure fairness and transparency it is incumbent on the Cape Town council to publish its waiting list, with clear indication of the dates on which people first applied for housing.
In Macassar, as elsewhere in the Western Cape, big mistrust in political parties is developing, despite the recent elections. People believe politicians only want their votes to enjoy the privileges of office, and that they are universally corrupt.
The housing crisis in the Western Cape and nationally continues. It is, in fact, an emergency situation. But no political party has answers to it. None of them is prepared to put the 4-8 million unemployed to work to build mass housing under the aegis of the state. So the rich continue to get housed and the poor suffer overcrowding, as well as police violence and deprivation of property when they try to assert their rights.
21/5/2009
On Tuesday 19th backyarders in Macassar, desperate for homes, built shacks on municipal land on a field adjoining the N2 – and were illegally evicted by Cape Town’s DA Helen-Zille-inspired Anti-Land Invasion unit, together with SAPS and Metro Police. Their building materials were confiscated and taken off in a truck. In the process four people (including a 2-year old child) were unnecessarily wounded by police rubber bullets, four people (including myself) were unnecessarily taken into custody and three of these wrongfully charged with public violence.
On Wednesday evening a solution to the situation appeared to have been reached. The Macassar SAPS superintendent, Princess Benjamin, brokered negotiations between representatives of the occupiers and the local ID councillor, John Heuvel. At 8pm the representatives returned to open land next to the field, to which the homeless occupiers had removed their furniture and slept the previous night, and were now sitting around fires. The representatives announced that the councillor had agreed the people could occupy a piece of land nearby and that they should build shacks there immediately. The councilor promised that the mayor, Dan Plato, would come at 9 the following morning to endorse this. The people rushed to begin, and as they did so, some ten police cars guarding the field that had been occupied, left it.
However the next morning (Thursday) Dan Plato did not turn up. Instead Metro Police appeared and supervised the renewed destruction of the structures. More building materials were confiscated. What caused this disgraceful abandonment of an agreement between the people and the ward councilor? According to the Metro Police boss, “a ward councilor cannot allocate land, but only the council. I work for the mayor. That is why I countermanded the agreement.” In other words, the anti-poor policies of the Democratic Alliance is what put a spanner in the works.
Macassar, a formerly ‘coloured’ area, is now bursting at the seams with overcrowded houses, occupied by both coloured and African families (and even a few whites). Both coloureds and Africans participated in the occupation. Macassar is one part of Cape Town’s housing crisis, where there is a backlog of some 400,000 homes, increasing by some 20,000 a year, but with a maximum of 8, 000 houses a year being built. Backyarders in Macassar pay exorbitant rents to the house-owners of some R300-R500 a months, and that is why they want decent homes of their own.
Before the elections, backyarders in Macassar had approached mayor Helen Zille several times with letters and SMSes. She eventually said she would get Dan Plato to visit them to hear their grievances. He never came. After the elections people decided they would have to go it on their own. They identified a piece of vacant land and spent three days cleaning it in preparation for a picnic and sports event on Saturday 16th, but this was wiped out by the first of the Cape’s winter storms.
So on the night of Monday 18th they gathered at 6pm to build, and succeeded through the night in erecting a number of complete shacks; many others brought their furniture to put on their intended shack sites. The DA-ordered eviction on Tuesday morning was illegal under the Prevention of Illegal Eviction from, and Unlawful Occupation of, Land Act of 1998 (PI), which states that any built structures require a court order before people are evicted from them. People put up the shacks again, but they were torn down again and this time the materials were confiscated.
The initial response of the community was to try to occupy the adjacent N2, which the police prevented. People returned to the road next to the field they had occupied and marched up and down, singing and toyi-toying. The police became very restless and tried to block the marches by parking police cars three abreast in the road but people just marched through without touching the cars.
I was there taking pictures of all this. Someone in plain clothes who it later turned out was a Crime Intelligence Unit photographer started trying to take pictures of me, perhaps because I was the only white there, sticking out like a milk bottle. I tried to dodge him but he persisted. An SAPS inspector in plain clothes came and stood right next to me, trying to intimidate me. When I swore back at him he became incensed and grabbed me, soon supported by other police officers. People were disturbed and started to complain and move in my direction. Very fast a ring of police was around me, with their shotguns pointing outwards. I was told to move quietly towards a police van and as I reached it, the police opened fire. In the hail of rubber bullets four people (including a two-year old child) were wounded.
Soon three other people were escorted to the police van. None of them were in the slightest involved. One had been riding past on a bicycle and dropped to the ground when he heard the fire. Another fell over at the fire, and happened to touch a policeman. The third had been pepper-gassed and had handcuffs on but said he had done nothing. The following morning they appeared in Somerset West Court, were released with no bail, but charged with “public violence”.
All this, apparently precipitated by the inspector grabbing me unnecessarily, was quite needless.
Later I told the inspector I was angry because the police were supporting an illegal eviction under the PIE Act. He replied “yes, you are right, it was illegal. But we are national police and here we were instructed by the (DA) provincial and local government.” Yet last week I was at a meeting in the same field when two people from the Anti-Land-Invasion Unit came and told us the meeting was illegal and tried to call the SAPS to disperse it. An SAPS van turned up, but left after five minutes. The SAPS need not respond to demands from provincial or municipal authorities if they believe those demands are illegal.
Poor people do not have the resources to call lawyers within minutes to place interdicts against police actions. That is the reason that the police get away with illegality.
Conditions of service in the police force are of course very bad. The inspector also told me he had been shot in the neck on duty and would be in a wheelchair in two months because of problems in his vertebrae. “I am afraid to sneeze”, he said. Why on earth them was he compelled to take charge of police in the delicate situation of a land occupation.
Significantly, however, it was the SAPS superintendent who brokered the negotiations (which failed) and it was Metro Police who carried out the evictions on Thursday morning.
Now the responsibility for denying these homeless people land on which to build shacks rests with the DA-controlled council. Plato has recently claimed he intends to increase house-building in Cape Town from 8000 to 20-25,000 a year. This would, he claimed, allow the backlog to be ended in less than 20 years. How he expects to do this in these times of recession is anybody’s guess. But even if he could manage it, given that the backlog increases by 18-20,000 a year, on his figures for house-building it would take something like 100 years to end it!
If house-building cannot solve the ever-increasing backlog the pressures will become too great. If the DA’s “no tolerance of land occupations” were rigidly enforced (as they are trying to do) it will massively increase overcrowding of houses – and hence, most likely, abuse of women and children, drug abuse, and crime (all of which the DA claims to be against). If housing cannot be provided immediately for all, people must be allowed to find land on which to build shacks, whether that land is municipal, state, provincial or even private. The officials of the Anti-Land-Invasion-Unit behave very arrogantly and inflexibly. Repression is no answer to the housing crisis, and the Unit should be immediately disbanded.
Zille has criticized the ANC’s N2 Gateway housing project for favouring an elite. Instead she promotes the old apartheid site-and-service schemes, yet she wants to repress people building housing for themselves! This is despite the DA ideology of entrepreneurship and the free market! What a contradiction!
The ID ward councilor John Heuvel says he opposes land occupations because people who carry them out “gain the impression they should get the first option for housing.” Of course this is nonsense. People in shacks want houses, but they are prepared to accept waiting lists – provided those waiting lists are fair and transparent. In fact many involved in the Macassar occupation have been waiting twenty or thirty years for houses. But to ensure fairness and transparency it is incumbent on the Cape Town council to publish its waiting list, with clear indication of the dates on which people first applied for housing.
In Macassar, as elsewhere in the Western Cape, big mistrust in political parties is developing, despite the recent elections. People believe politicians only want their votes to enjoy the privileges of office, and that they are universally corrupt.
The housing crisis in the Western Cape and nationally continues. It is, in fact, an emergency situation. But no political party has answers to it. None of them is prepared to put the 4-8 million unemployed to work to build mass housing under the aegis of the state. So the rich continue to get housed and the poor suffer overcrowding, as well as police violence and deprivation of property when they try to assert their rights.
Cape Town must develop housing plan - court
Fatima Schroeder
March 29 2005
The Cape High Court has ordered the City of Cape Town to develop a comprehensive and co-ordinated housing programme.
It also ordered the city to restore building materials belonging to residents of the Bonnytoun informal settlement in Wynberg that were taken from them when city officials and law enforcement officers tore down their shacks on March 22.
The city has also been interdicted from demolishing any of the structures they build there in the future.
The urgent application was lodged in the Cape High Court after between 20 and 30 families were left homeless when the City of Cape Town's squatter control unit and law enforcement officials removed their shelters.
About 100 people live in Bonnytoun
About 100 people live in Bonnytoun, including eight children - one of them only seven months old.
Seven structures that had been registered with the city were left standing, but some of them were partly damaged when officials tore down extensions to them that the city claimed were unauthorised.
The Cape Times visited Bonnytoun on Monday and saw the conditions in which people are living there.
Two portable toilets are available for the entire Bonnytoun population.
Most of the people whose homes had been demolished were sleeping in the open.
Most community members are unaware of their rights
Some said they had been living there for more than 10 years. A spokesperson for the community, Lucien Noah, a Bonnytoun resident for 13 years, said many residents suffered from tuberculosis, but were left to face the cold nights without shelter.
He said most members of the community were unaware of their rights and they did not realise that the city was not permitted to evict them unless other accommodation could be provided.
Lizzie Khoma, her partner Charles Hansen and her daughters, Abigail, seven months, and Emelicia, 2, have had to walk from door to door in search of food.
It was not possible to cook inside the dwelling she now calls home since the solid structure the family had lived in for about eight years was demolished last week.
Commenting on Sunday's wet weather conditions, Khoma said: "The Lord helped us.
"It didn't rain that hard and water did not seep through."
Kouta Andrews used to live in a wendy house in Bonnytoun before his home was demolished by the city.
Since then, he has had to spend R70 on black plastic sheeting to cover his possessions and to serve as shelter for himself and his wife.
He has lived in Bonnytoun for more than three years.
The residents, assisted by the Homeless People's Crisis Committee, obtained legal advice and an urgent application was lodged on Thursday.
Justice Shanaaz Meer granted an interim interdict.
The city was ordered to return to court on April 22 to show cause why the order should not be made final.
o This article was originally published on page 3 of Cape Times on March 29, 2005
March 29 2005
The Cape High Court has ordered the City of Cape Town to develop a comprehensive and co-ordinated housing programme.
It also ordered the city to restore building materials belonging to residents of the Bonnytoun informal settlement in Wynberg that were taken from them when city officials and law enforcement officers tore down their shacks on March 22.
The city has also been interdicted from demolishing any of the structures they build there in the future.
The urgent application was lodged in the Cape High Court after between 20 and 30 families were left homeless when the City of Cape Town's squatter control unit and law enforcement officials removed their shelters.
About 100 people live in Bonnytoun
About 100 people live in Bonnytoun, including eight children - one of them only seven months old.
Seven structures that had been registered with the city were left standing, but some of them were partly damaged when officials tore down extensions to them that the city claimed were unauthorised.
The Cape Times visited Bonnytoun on Monday and saw the conditions in which people are living there.
Two portable toilets are available for the entire Bonnytoun population.
Most of the people whose homes had been demolished were sleeping in the open.
Most community members are unaware of their rights
Some said they had been living there for more than 10 years. A spokesperson for the community, Lucien Noah, a Bonnytoun resident for 13 years, said many residents suffered from tuberculosis, but were left to face the cold nights without shelter.
He said most members of the community were unaware of their rights and they did not realise that the city was not permitted to evict them unless other accommodation could be provided.
Lizzie Khoma, her partner Charles Hansen and her daughters, Abigail, seven months, and Emelicia, 2, have had to walk from door to door in search of food.
It was not possible to cook inside the dwelling she now calls home since the solid structure the family had lived in for about eight years was demolished last week.
Commenting on Sunday's wet weather conditions, Khoma said: "The Lord helped us.
"It didn't rain that hard and water did not seep through."
Kouta Andrews used to live in a wendy house in Bonnytoun before his home was demolished by the city.
Since then, he has had to spend R70 on black plastic sheeting to cover his possessions and to serve as shelter for himself and his wife.
He has lived in Bonnytoun for more than three years.
The residents, assisted by the Homeless People's Crisis Committee, obtained legal advice and an urgent application was lodged on Thursday.
Justice Shanaaz Meer granted an interim interdict.
The city was ordered to return to court on April 22 to show cause why the order should not be made final.
o This article was originally published on page 3 of Cape Times on March 29, 2005
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Cops, backyard dwellers clash in Macassar
Aziz Hartley
May 20 2009
A police officer and a young boy were among several people injured during Tuesday's violent confrontation between police and Macassar Village backyard dwellers who invaded land adjacent to the N2.
During the incident, four men - including prominent academic Martin Legassick - were taken into custody.
When police bundled Legassick, who the people called their "comrade", into the back of a police van, the backyard dwellers hurled stones at them, and police opened fire with rubber bullets.
Legassick had been present since early Tuesday and had been photographing the homeless people and the actions taken by the police.
'It's still very tense out there'
He was standing with a homeless family when a police officer approached and began photographing them.
Another police officer in plainclothes then went to stand next to Legassick and was heard calling the professor "you f***ing twit" before grabbing him by the arms.
Moments later, stones rained down on the police, who opened fire, and people scattered in all directions. The police gave chase after a group of people ran into side streets and managed to escape.
Released about an hour later, Legassick admitted that he had sworn at the plainclothes police officer who had grabbed him.
Police patrols were stepped up on Tuesday night, as Macassar Village was tense after the backyard dwellers marched to the Macassar police station to demand the release of three men arrested during the confrontation.
The three are due to face public violence charges when they appear in the Somerset West Magistrate's Court on Thursday morning.
Macassar police station commissioner Princess Benjamin said a police officer was injured during the stone-throwing.
"It's still very tense out there. We called the local councillor to come and address the people, but they've left," Benjamin said.
Macassar Village resident Elmarie Rex said a rubber bullet had struck her four-year-old son Benjee, but he had not been seriously hurt. Another resident, Wandile Mhleli, was hit in the buttocks, backyard dweller Eric Gaji had an open wound on his arm. "They just fired without looking. I tried to get out of the way, but could not do it in time. I just felt a shock to my arm," Gaji said.
On Monday the backyard dwellers moved on to the land, which had been cleared last week, ostensibly for a community sports event at the weekend. But when city law enforcement officials arrived yesterday morning, a number of shacks had been built on it.
Officials dismantled some of the shacks, but later backyard dwellers rebuilt them. After a lengthy standoff law enforcement officers called for police assistance.
City law enforcement officials gave the backyarders 30 minutes to remove the structures, failing which their materials would be confiscated. An hour after the order was ignored, police and Metro Police accompanied a team of workers who loaded the building materials on to a truck.
As the materials were taken away, backyarders hurled abuse at police.
Angered by the removal of the building materials, a group of young people ran towards the N2 to blockade the freeway, but quick intervention by police prevented the disruption of traffic.
Later, Anti Eviction Campaign leader Mzonke Poni told the backyarders they had a right to their land and they could sue the municipality for damage to their materials.
Community leaders and police later tried to persuade them to spend the night in a community hall. It was not clear late on Tuesday night if they were.
aziz.hartley@inl.co.za
o This article was originally published on page 1 of Cape Times on May 20, 2009
May 20 2009
A police officer and a young boy were among several people injured during Tuesday's violent confrontation between police and Macassar Village backyard dwellers who invaded land adjacent to the N2.
During the incident, four men - including prominent academic Martin Legassick - were taken into custody.
When police bundled Legassick, who the people called their "comrade", into the back of a police van, the backyard dwellers hurled stones at them, and police opened fire with rubber bullets.
Legassick had been present since early Tuesday and had been photographing the homeless people and the actions taken by the police.
'It's still very tense out there'
He was standing with a homeless family when a police officer approached and began photographing them.
Another police officer in plainclothes then went to stand next to Legassick and was heard calling the professor "you f***ing twit" before grabbing him by the arms.
Moments later, stones rained down on the police, who opened fire, and people scattered in all directions. The police gave chase after a group of people ran into side streets and managed to escape.
Released about an hour later, Legassick admitted that he had sworn at the plainclothes police officer who had grabbed him.
Police patrols were stepped up on Tuesday night, as Macassar Village was tense after the backyard dwellers marched to the Macassar police station to demand the release of three men arrested during the confrontation.
The three are due to face public violence charges when they appear in the Somerset West Magistrate's Court on Thursday morning.
Macassar police station commissioner Princess Benjamin said a police officer was injured during the stone-throwing.
"It's still very tense out there. We called the local councillor to come and address the people, but they've left," Benjamin said.
Macassar Village resident Elmarie Rex said a rubber bullet had struck her four-year-old son Benjee, but he had not been seriously hurt. Another resident, Wandile Mhleli, was hit in the buttocks, backyard dweller Eric Gaji had an open wound on his arm. "They just fired without looking. I tried to get out of the way, but could not do it in time. I just felt a shock to my arm," Gaji said.
On Monday the backyard dwellers moved on to the land, which had been cleared last week, ostensibly for a community sports event at the weekend. But when city law enforcement officials arrived yesterday morning, a number of shacks had been built on it.
Officials dismantled some of the shacks, but later backyard dwellers rebuilt them. After a lengthy standoff law enforcement officers called for police assistance.
City law enforcement officials gave the backyarders 30 minutes to remove the structures, failing which their materials would be confiscated. An hour after the order was ignored, police and Metro Police accompanied a team of workers who loaded the building materials on to a truck.
As the materials were taken away, backyarders hurled abuse at police.
Angered by the removal of the building materials, a group of young people ran towards the N2 to blockade the freeway, but quick intervention by police prevented the disruption of traffic.
Later, Anti Eviction Campaign leader Mzonke Poni told the backyarders they had a right to their land and they could sue the municipality for damage to their materials.
Community leaders and police later tried to persuade them to spend the night in a community hall. It was not clear late on Tuesday night if they were.
aziz.hartley@inl.co.za
o This article was originally published on page 1 of Cape Times on May 20, 2009
The City reversed the decision by ward counselor at Macassar village
Early this morning Dan Plato who is the Mayor of the City of Cape Town was expected to go to Macassar Village to officially hand over the land to people of Macassar Village who had been sleeping outside at the open space for the past three days.
Instead of going to the area he decided to reverse the decision by the ward counselor and ordered anti land invasion unit to demolish peoples structure, now as we speak people went back to stay on the street again and will continue sleeping on the street.
Abahlali baseMjondolo is declaring a war until people get beck the land that they occupied illegally, which the City did not have any legal grounds to evict people on that land without following the right procedures in terms of law. We are saying the City was suppose to follow the PIE act (Prevention of Illegal Eviction) and we note that the eviction by the City was illegal, therefore we demand our land back till the issue goes to the court.
Instead of going to the area he decided to reverse the decision by the ward counselor and ordered anti land invasion unit to demolish peoples structure, now as we speak people went back to stay on the street again and will continue sleeping on the street.
Abahlali baseMjondolo is declaring a war until people get beck the land that they occupied illegally, which the City did not have any legal grounds to evict people on that land without following the right procedures in terms of law. We are saying the City was suppose to follow the PIE act (Prevention of Illegal Eviction) and we note that the eviction by the City was illegal, therefore we demand our land back till the issue goes to the court.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Backyard dwellers take over land
May 15 2009 at 01:56PM
By Francis Hweshe and Molly Raisch
About a thousand disgruntled backyard dwellers in Macassar Village, in the Strand, are set to butt heads with the City of Cape Town after they decided to illegally clear and occupy a piece of land on the margins of the N2.
The city has threatened to seek a court interdict against them if they do not halt the operation.
The backyard dwellers, part of housing lobby group, Abahlali baseMjondolo, said their patience with the government on housing delivery had "run dry".
They also said that they were "tired of paying rent".
A Cape Argus team visited the area yesterday and saw women, some with children in tow, and men busy at work cutting bushes with machetes, saws and spades.
The group's spokeswoman, Ronell Muller, first downplayed the land invasion, saying that they were clearing the land in order to host games for backyard dwellers at the weekend.
"We will see what happens after the games," she said.
Pressed to clarify her response, she said: "If they are open spaces why not allow people to build houses."
Muller, who is a mother of two, said she was retrenched last year and was now failing to pay rent and struggled to send her children to school.
"Some of the people here have been waiting for houses for more than 20 years," she said.
Diniwe Xhakwe agreed.
"We don't have any place to stay.
"Unemployment here is high and we are still waiting for houses," said Xhakwe, a mother of three, who is also taking care of her late sister's two children.
Xhakwe, unemployed, said they were "not doing this (taking the land) by force".
She said "tough circumstances" had pushed them over the edge.
Jeffrey le Roux, a father of two, said the group had lost patience with government.
"Every time they tell us to come for housing in three or five years time. I have been renting for 10 years," he said.
Le Roux said his family survived on his R960 disability grant, which barely covered bills and food.
Vusimuzi Sihamba, 29, said: "I want to build my house here."
In a statement, the group said it would continue with its "cleaning campaign on the land that we have identified ourselves until Friday (today)."
Steve Hayward, head of the city's anti-land invasion unit, said the land had been reserved for a housing development for those on the waiting list.
He said development on the land were set to start in the next two years.
"We have zero tolerance towards land invasion," he said.
"We won't allow the Johnnies-come-lately to occupy the land."
o This article was originally published on page 8 of Cape Argus on May 15, 2009
By Francis Hweshe and Molly Raisch
About a thousand disgruntled backyard dwellers in Macassar Village, in the Strand, are set to butt heads with the City of Cape Town after they decided to illegally clear and occupy a piece of land on the margins of the N2.
The city has threatened to seek a court interdict against them if they do not halt the operation.
The backyard dwellers, part of housing lobby group, Abahlali baseMjondolo, said their patience with the government on housing delivery had "run dry".
They also said that they were "tired of paying rent".
A Cape Argus team visited the area yesterday and saw women, some with children in tow, and men busy at work cutting bushes with machetes, saws and spades.
The group's spokeswoman, Ronell Muller, first downplayed the land invasion, saying that they were clearing the land in order to host games for backyard dwellers at the weekend.
"We will see what happens after the games," she said.
Pressed to clarify her response, she said: "If they are open spaces why not allow people to build houses."
Muller, who is a mother of two, said she was retrenched last year and was now failing to pay rent and struggled to send her children to school.
"Some of the people here have been waiting for houses for more than 20 years," she said.
Diniwe Xhakwe agreed.
"We don't have any place to stay.
"Unemployment here is high and we are still waiting for houses," said Xhakwe, a mother of three, who is also taking care of her late sister's two children.
Xhakwe, unemployed, said they were "not doing this (taking the land) by force".
She said "tough circumstances" had pushed them over the edge.
Jeffrey le Roux, a father of two, said the group had lost patience with government.
"Every time they tell us to come for housing in three or five years time. I have been renting for 10 years," he said.
Le Roux said his family survived on his R960 disability grant, which barely covered bills and food.
Vusimuzi Sihamba, 29, said: "I want to build my house here."
In a statement, the group said it would continue with its "cleaning campaign on the land that we have identified ourselves until Friday (today)."
Steve Hayward, head of the city's anti-land invasion unit, said the land had been reserved for a housing development for those on the waiting list.
He said development on the land were set to start in the next two years.
"We have zero tolerance towards land invasion," he said.
"We won't allow the Johnnies-come-lately to occupy the land."
o This article was originally published on page 8 of Cape Argus on May 15, 2009
Protest against new slums law
KATLEGO KALAMANE
JOHANNESBURG - About 1 000 members from various non-governmental organisations travelled from across the country to the Constitutional Court in Johannesburg to protest against the KwaZulu-Natal Slums Act.
General secretary of the Rural Network in KZN, Mbhekiseni Mavuso, said his organisation was pledging its support to Abahlali baseMjondolo (ABM), which has applied to have the Act declared unlawful under the Constitution.
Their support came because members suffered similar experiences as ABM members, who claimed they were being brutalised and harassed by police.
The Act “is portrayed as preventing the re-emergence of slums. But it is a reinforcement of apartheid laws,” said Mavuso.
ABM says areas replacing “slums” are called transit camps in KwaZulu-Natal, temporary relocation areas (TRAs) in Cape Town and decent camps in Gauteng.
But “they are nothing but a way for the government to evict the poor, to force people out of the cities, in the name of providing so- called ‘housing opportunities’. ”
On Wednesday Western Cape police were allegedly intimidating backyard dwellers during a clean-up campaign at Macassar village.
ABM Western Cape chairman Mzonke Poni, claimed there was a heavy police presence and people were being intimidated.
This came as backyard dwellers were trying to clean vacant land to show the local and provincial government that there was sufficient land to build houses for people of Macassar at Macassar.
katlegok@citizen.co.za
JOHANNESBURG - About 1 000 members from various non-governmental organisations travelled from across the country to the Constitutional Court in Johannesburg to protest against the KwaZulu-Natal Slums Act.
General secretary of the Rural Network in KZN, Mbhekiseni Mavuso, said his organisation was pledging its support to Abahlali baseMjondolo (ABM), which has applied to have the Act declared unlawful under the Constitution.
Their support came because members suffered similar experiences as ABM members, who claimed they were being brutalised and harassed by police.
The Act “is portrayed as preventing the re-emergence of slums. But it is a reinforcement of apartheid laws,” said Mavuso.
ABM says areas replacing “slums” are called transit camps in KwaZulu-Natal, temporary relocation areas (TRAs) in Cape Town and decent camps in Gauteng.
But “they are nothing but a way for the government to evict the poor, to force people out of the cities, in the name of providing so- called ‘housing opportunities’. ”
On Wednesday Western Cape police were allegedly intimidating backyard dwellers during a clean-up campaign at Macassar village.
ABM Western Cape chairman Mzonke Poni, claimed there was a heavy police presence and people were being intimidated.
This came as backyard dwellers were trying to clean vacant land to show the local and provincial government that there was sufficient land to build houses for people of Macassar at Macassar.
katlegok@citizen.co.za
Thursday, May 14, 2009
RE: Press release 14/5/2009 ( tomorrow raining or not we continue with our protest )
Abahlali base Mjondolo of the Western Cape: Press release 14/5/2009
The second day of the cleaning campaign on our land in Macassar was even more successful than the first. The police ceased more or less from their intimidatory tactics and there were even more community members present to clean the land
At six in the evening the community met on the land to plan for the intended picnic and sports event on Saturday. To everyone’s surprise, a municipal bakkie came and parked itself near us in the middle of the meeting. Then a young man and woman got out of the bakkie, with the woman claiming she was from the City of Cape Town’s “Anti-Land Invasion Unit.” She asked what we were meeting about and we told her. She said she had heard we would be putting up poles for goal-posts for soccer, rugby and netball fields and wished to stress that we could not do that without the permission of the municipality! We asked if she wanted to stop the kids playing sports, would the municipality rather that they were smoking tik. She claimed the meeting was illegal. People protested that this was a free country. She claimed we were not allowed to meet on municipal ‘premises’. (Premises includes a building but there was no building there!). People asked where were they supposed to meet to plan for the picnic and sports event on Saturday: there was no community hall. This was like the prohibition of meetings under apartheid. She was confused and left. But, just as we were closing the meeting, the bakkie returned and she repeated that it was an illegal meeting and since we refused to disperse, she was calling the SAPS. The meeting was already ending, so we closed it and waited around. After about twenty minutes an SAPS van arrived with its blue lights flashing. They conversed with the “Anti-Land Invasion” people for about ten minutes and then drove off, after which the municipality bakkie drove off down the road and stopped. We all walked after it to see if they were buying their supper in a shop but then they drove off.
We demand that the media ask the municipality for an answer as to on what authority and under what law this municipal employee declared the meeting illegal. To prevent free assembly and free speech is a violation of the constitution.
We also demand that the media should find out what plans the municipality has for this big stretch of open land that they are so jealously protecting, when there are thousands of people desperate for housing.
If this apartheid repression of free assembly and free speech is a foretaste of what the Zille provincial regime holds in store, then we are in for a huge fight.
Stop apartheid repression! Disband the Anti-Land Invasion Unit! Stop evictions! Provide community halls, sports facilities, and housing for all!
for more info contact Mzonke Poni ABM WC chairperson at 073 2562 036
The second day of the cleaning campaign on our land in Macassar was even more successful than the first. The police ceased more or less from their intimidatory tactics and there were even more community members present to clean the land
At six in the evening the community met on the land to plan for the intended picnic and sports event on Saturday. To everyone’s surprise, a municipal bakkie came and parked itself near us in the middle of the meeting. Then a young man and woman got out of the bakkie, with the woman claiming she was from the City of Cape Town’s “Anti-Land Invasion Unit.” She asked what we were meeting about and we told her. She said she had heard we would be putting up poles for goal-posts for soccer, rugby and netball fields and wished to stress that we could not do that without the permission of the municipality! We asked if she wanted to stop the kids playing sports, would the municipality rather that they were smoking tik. She claimed the meeting was illegal. People protested that this was a free country. She claimed we were not allowed to meet on municipal ‘premises’. (Premises includes a building but there was no building there!). People asked where were they supposed to meet to plan for the picnic and sports event on Saturday: there was no community hall. This was like the prohibition of meetings under apartheid. She was confused and left. But, just as we were closing the meeting, the bakkie returned and she repeated that it was an illegal meeting and since we refused to disperse, she was calling the SAPS. The meeting was already ending, so we closed it and waited around. After about twenty minutes an SAPS van arrived with its blue lights flashing. They conversed with the “Anti-Land Invasion” people for about ten minutes and then drove off, after which the municipality bakkie drove off down the road and stopped. We all walked after it to see if they were buying their supper in a shop but then they drove off.
We demand that the media ask the municipality for an answer as to on what authority and under what law this municipal employee declared the meeting illegal. To prevent free assembly and free speech is a violation of the constitution.
We also demand that the media should find out what plans the municipality has for this big stretch of open land that they are so jealously protecting, when there are thousands of people desperate for housing.
If this apartheid repression of free assembly and free speech is a foretaste of what the Zille provincial regime holds in store, then we are in for a huge fight.
Stop apartheid repression! Disband the Anti-Land Invasion Unit! Stop evictions! Provide community halls, sports facilities, and housing for all!
for more info contact Mzonke Poni ABM WC chairperson at 073 2562 036
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Second day of the cleaning campaign: The 14th May 2009
Abahlali tomorrow on the 14th of May will continue with its cleaning campaign on the land that we have identified by ourselves for our activities, and our cleaning campaign will continue till Friday.
Place: Macassar Village
Time: From 10:00 am till late
Direction: use N2 towards Somerset West and park at the first Engine garage after passing Barden Powell turn off, and cross the N2 towards shell and after shell garage you’ll see us or call 073 775 5132 or 083 248 165 8 to be picked up at Shell garage.
While Abahlali baseMjondolo DBN tomorrow will be contesting the slums act in the constitutional court at Johannesburg (for more info about the slums act case visit www.abahlali.org), Abahali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape will be contesting it on the ground.
Abahlali Western Cape supports the ABM DBN in the struggle against KZN Government; while we note that the language that is being used in the court is not the language of the poor and is not the language that is understandable to us.
We therefore (ABM WC) decided to take practical measure to mobilize communities and work towards creating sustainable communities from below as part of saying as long as government still talks about us and take decisions about us we will continue taking our decisions democratically and carry them democratically at a community level and we will refuse by all means to be bounded by their decisions and we will continue to defend our actions on the ground and if it means we must use courts as Abahlali DBN have done we will as our last resort.
For comment please call: Mzonke Poni ABM WC Chairperson at 073 2562 036
Theliwe Macikiswana at 083 248 165 8 or Ronell at 073 775 5132
View pictures of our first day of our cleaning campaign held on the 13th May 2009 at www.khayelitshastruggles.com.
Report of on the protest of the 13th May 2009
The first day of our protest/cleaning campaign went very well as much as at the beginning we were intimidated by metro police and officials from the city of cape town.
The police come in the scene just after 30 minutes of our cleaning campaign and tried to intimidate people and telling us what we are doing is illegal and wanted to intimidate our community leaders. They were even taking pictures of the community leaders using their phones and when we take pictures of them back using our phones they wanted to take our phones and we have refused by all means to take intimidations from them, we remained united and defended our struggles.
While we were busy cleaning the piece of land that we believe it belongs to us by force, workers from municipality came in with municipal trucks wanted to clean the area as well with a view to illegitimate our struggle to build community from below.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
RE: Abahlali Protest for the 13th of May at 10:00 am at Macassar Village
Abahlali on New Mayor for City of Cape Town and Housing MEC for the Western Cape
Abahlali baseMjondolo of the western cape welcomes the appointment of Madikizela as the new housing MEC of the western cape, while we welcome it but we are also clear as Abahlali that Madikizela will just be the face that represent MEC for housing for the Western Cape and we believe that Zille will be the one that will make and take crucial decisions about housing crisis within the Western Cape and Madikizela is just there to implement those decision.
That is also the same with the City of Cape, Dan Plato who performed very bad while he was the head of service delivery for the city and now become the new mayor for the city is also not given the job by Zille because of competence but because he is one of Zille’s loyalist and he will be please to take orders from his madam and implement them.
Event for Wednesday the 13th May 2007
The newly formed branch of Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape by backyard dwellers at Macassar Village will be having a cleaning campaign of the vacant land that is nearby the area along N2 next to Shell garage (when heading to Somerset West from Khayelitsha with N2).
Three weeks back the backyard dwellers of the area tried to occupy the land and they were intimidated by the police and members of Metro police and their building material was confiscated.
Tomorrow the backyard dwellers will clean the land with a view to show the Local and Provincial government that there is a plenty of land to build houses for the people of Macassar at Macassar.
As the members of Abahlali baseMjondolo we are going to make sure that each an every day we are going to use that land into our own advantage until government decides to build houses for the people of Macassar and we are prepared to make things easier for them by creating a community from below.
Every day at 18:00 more than 100 homeless people gathers at this piece land to discuss issues that affects us such as high rents (which starts from R 350 to R 600 per month, just for putting a shack at the back of the house) that we are paying to the owners of the houses and other issues that affects us.
Tomorrow we’ll gather at 10: 00 am
For comments: please contact Mzonke Poni the Chairperson of ABM Western Cape
Or Theliwe Macekiswana 083 248 1658 or Ronell 073 775 5132
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