The following letter was sent by the Mandela Park community inviting officials from the City, Provincial and National governments towards dialogue on the Mandela Park Housing Crisis.  The Mandela Park community would also like to extend this invitation to members of the media so as to document the voice of our community.

For more information, contact: Mabhuti at 082 997 8475, Sluja at 071 433 1101, Nosipho at 073 587 8980 and Loyiso at 073 766 2078.

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DEAR HONORABLE LEADERS

THIS SERVES AS A KIND INVITATION TO ALL STAKE-HOLDERS TO A MANDELA PARK HOUSING INDABA THAT WILL BE HOSTED AT SIZIMESELE SECONDARY SCHOOL IN KHAYELITSHA ON THE 14TH NOVEMBER 2009, STARTING AT 9AM

THE HOUSING SITUATION IN MANDELA PARK HAS BEEN VOLATILE FOR A WHILE NOW AND WE CALL ON YOU AS OUR LEADERS TO COME AND ENGAGE THE COMMUNITY ON A RANGE OF ISSUES THAT MOSTLY PERTAIN TO HOUSING AS WELL AS SERVICE DELIVERY IN GENERAL IN THIS AREA. THE URGENCY OF THE MATTER IS SUCH THAT IF COLLECTIVE ACTION FROM LEADERSHIP (BOTH LOCAL AND PROVINCIAL), THE LARGER COMMUNITY AND ALL RELEVANT STAKEHOLDERS IS NOT TAKEN, WE COULD FIND THIS SITUATION ESCALATING TO EVEN WORSE PROPORTIONS THROUGH PROTESTS AND THE LIKE. THESE ACTIONS OFTEN OPEN THE COMMUNITY TO CRIMINAL ELEMENTS AND ANIMOSITY. THIS IS NOT ALWAYS NECESSARY IF DIALOGUE AMONGST PEOPLE AND LEADERSHIP IS HONEST AND FORWARD THINKING.

HENCE THE CALL FOR THIS ENGAGEMENT THIS COMING SATURDAY. IN AN UNFORTUNATE CIRCUMSTANCE OF YOU NOT BEING AVAILABLE FOR THIS MEETING. PLEASE ENSURE THAT A REPRESENTATIVE FROM YOUR OFFICE IS AVAILED.

November 12, 2009 Edition 2
Aziz Hartley – Cape Times

RESIDENTS of Blikkiesdorp in Delft confronted Premier Helen Zille yesterday and demanded that the DA provincial administration provide them with proper housing.

Angry women told Zille, on a visit to the area, that nothing has come of promises housing MECs made before and after this year’s elections.
Blikkiesdorp, a temporary relocation area, has become a place of misery for families living there, they said.

While community activist Priscilla Ludidi told Zille that Cape Town mayor Dan Plato had said that proper houses would be built on vacant land in the area, families had to wait until next year.

Other women demanded to see the housing waiting list.

They claimed they’d waited for up to 25 years while people who applied much later had received houses.

Zille undertook to investigate their claims and explained that many problems arose while the government’s N2 Gateway housing project was run by housing agency Thubelisha Homes which has become bankrupt. She said the provincial housing authority worked closely with Thubelisha’s replacement, the Housing Development Agency, and that 2 000 houses would be constructed soon.

“But I must stress that there are many other families who also have to be considered,” Zille said.

The DA provincial government changed the housing allocation from 70-30 to 50-50 for people in informal settlements and backyard dwellers respectively, Zille said. She also promised to investigate if people were properly registered on the waiting list.

Zille explained that there were 430 000 families on the list and upgrades of places such as Blikkiesdorp were undertaken while people waited.

“I promise you that we’ll have a transparent process so that everyone understands what is happening. We have nothing to hide, but I must say that not everyone will be helped immediately,” Zille said.

A Blikkiesdorp mother, Matilda Groepe, demanded to see the waiting list.

“These are fake promises. Where are our houses? We have been dumped here by the DA. To think that we are the people who put you in power. You just talk and talk,” an incensed Groepe shouted at Zille.

Other residents complained about drugs, prostitution, illegal shebeens and poor living conditions in Blikkiesdorp.

“We have two families in one shack. In one side there are two teenagers and a baby who have to share a bed with their parents. The place is wet and our children are getting sick,” a tearful Shireen Mars said.

The city council set up Blikkiesdorp last year to house about 450 families evicted from unfinished N2 Gateway houses they illegally occupied in December 2007.

The area has since been expanded and currently accommodates about 10 000 people.

aziz.hartley@inl.co.za

To all clergy and church leaders of Durban:

By now many will be aware of the recent events in Kennedy Road and the subsequent arrests of thirteen members of the grassroots movement known as Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM).  But just to be sure, here are some facts which we feel are important right now:  On 26 September, at 11.30pm, a group of 30 to 40 men, wielding pangas, sticks and guns surrounded the community hall in Kennedy Road informal settlement in Durban and launched a violent attack. Kennedy Road is the original home of AbM, the social movement of shackdwellers. In the violence that followed over the next few nights and days, people died, many fled and the shacks of a number of known AbM activists were systematically destroyed. All this while local and provincial ANC leaders proclaimed the events to be a liberation of Kennedy Road and installed ANC leadership over the community.Soon after the attack, 13 members of AbM were arrested and charged with various counts, including murder and aggravated assault, some as far afield as the Eastern Cape.

The ‘Abahlali 13’, as they have come to be known, have applied for bail. Their bail hearings have been postponed five times – by the time they reappear on 18 November, they will have been in Westville Prison for two months.

Since the arrest of these 13, many other members of AbM have been forced out of Kennedy Road. The local ANC leadership has replaced the AbM movement with their own leaders and structures.
At all of their bail hearings, friends and family members of the 13 ‘accused’ have been denied access to court proceedings by weapon-wielding, abusive and threatening ANC supporters. Even clergy and representatives of ecumenical agencies have come under attack from these people.

What are others saying?

“The achievement of our hard won democracy was a great moment of shared grace. The militia that have driven the Abahlali baseMjondolo leaders and hundreds of families out of the settlement is a profound disgrace to our democracy. The fact that the police have systematically failed to act against this militia while instead arresting the victims of their violence and destruction is cause for the gravest concern. There are credible claims that this militia has acted with the support of the local ANC structures. This, also, is cause for the most profound concern.” Anglican Bishop Rubin Philip

“The Kennedy Road killings and violence are of great concern. Reports of militia being allowed to
operate with impunity and a perceived partisan role by the South African Police Service in the area
require immediate investigation.” Catholic Bishop Barry Wood, OMI

“The residents of this community have found themselves caught up in a struggle far more insidious than a conflict between city officials and their elected leadership. The spiral of violence seems to be fuelled by partisan dynamics, which are further aggravated by structural inadequacies and alleged collusion between members of the SAPS and the local branch of the ANC.” Methodist Bishop Michael Vorster

“It is a profound disgrace to democracy, that militia have been allowed to drive out the leaders of the Abahlali baseMjondolo movement, and many hundreds of families with them.” Archbishop Thabo Makgoba.

“While those who shape the national debate avert their eyes, the government’s commitment to democracy is being tested in a Durban shack settlement. And it is failing. Democracy means that all citizens are allowed to express themselves. If people at the grassroots do not enjoy that right, democracy is not operating for most of our people. And it may then be only a matter of time before power-holders decide that the rest of us need to be curbed. The shack dwellers of AbM and other grassroots activists threatened by local power are the front line in the fight to keep us democratic. We need to make their right to a voice a priority — and to force provincial and national politicians to account for their role in suppressing, or failing to protect, that right.” Prof Steve Friedman

And what have we been doing?

Leaders of the faith community, ecumenical agencies and other partner organisations have met with various stakeholders, including the leadership of Abahlali baseMjondolo, in an attempt to understand the situation and respond appropriately.

Faith leaders and ecumenical partners have issued several calls to government, both local and national, pleading for justice – immediate relief to the families affected by the violence, and an independent judicial enquiry into the events of 26 September. These calls have been echoed by the international community.  We have witnessed the organised exclusion of grieving family members from court proceedings. We have seen how the Court has allowed hate speech and death threats to be voiced inside the courtroom. We have witnessed how women and children have been threatened with bodily harm and even death – from ANC supporters transported to the courts for the hearings.

But one or two are too few…

We now need your help. On 18 November, the Abahlali 13 will appear for the sixth time – hopefully their bail will be granted. It is important that they know we care.

• Please join us at the Prayer Service from 8.00am to 9.00am outside the Durban Magistrate Court on 18 November. We hope that, as clergy, your presence can help family and friends gain access to the court.  Please DO wear clerical attire.

• Accompany AbM members into the court gallery on 18 November – thereby assuring them safe passage and safe seating places inside the court.

• If you would like to visit them in prison, please contact David Ntseng on 072 839 1153.

• Pray for those in prison and their families. Pray for our faith leaders who have intervened in this situation. Pray for all our elected leaders that their hearts would hear the cry of their people for justice.

• The facts speak for themselves – share them with others. For more information, visit http://www.abahlali.org.

• Write letters to the press, to government and to the President, calling for justice – we support the call for an independent judicial enquiry into the events of 26 September. The truth will set us free.

PLEASE be present at the Durban Magistrates Court from 8am on 18 November.
For more details contact:
Roland Vernon on (031) 310 3551 or 074 311 0000.

“It is essential that the attack on democracy in Kennedy Road is widely publicised so that we can all confront what has happened and ensure that it never happens again. We need to give platforms to the victims of these attacks where ever we can.” – Bishop Rubin Philip

Landless People’s Movement (LPM)

All are welcome to join us this Sunday 15 November at 10am in Soweto, Protea South, Peace Makers Ground. We will be celebrating and reflecting on the meaning of our court victory.

Background: In 2004 we, the LPM, began a relentless battle to defend ourselves from evictions in Protea South, an informal settlement in Soweto. We organised several marches and pickets over the past several years, and we submitted memorandums to the Premier and MEC of Housing but these officials refused to address our demands. We were ignored by our local council and, in some instances, the police resorted to repressive tactics, and even torture, to undermine our struggle.

In 2008, we embarked on a legal route to assist in our struggle. On the 4th August 2009, we finally won a victory as the Johannesburg High Court stipulated that the government will not move us out of our land in Protea South against our will. We were promised water, VIP toilets, and street lights, and electricity in our shacks. This victory gives us faith that if we push forward, we will prevail. We cannot be pushed around by a local government that we view as being bribed through their salaries, merely to implement decisions made at another level. The councilor feels it has more power to do anything that they want, but we prevailed in the end.

On the one hand, our court victory testifies to our capacity to resist the imposition of the top-down development plans of the government. On the other, we have not been released from the fundamental oppressive systems of power. Indeed, we continue to be brutalised and discriminated against by the police. The willing-buyer willing-seller approach to land distribution by definition marginalises poor people and this approach has not been overturned in favour of a socialist approach that enables all people to access and make use of the land. Our victory must therefore also be used as a platform to reflect on our past struggles and the strategies we employ to improve our lives and the lives of all poor people across South Africa.

For more information or to provide solidarity or support, please contact:

Maureen, LPM Chairperson 082 337 4514
Or Maas, LPM Secretary 079 267 3203

http://www.redemmas.org/event/1731/

Ashraf Cassiem, chairperson of the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign (South Africa)
Monday Nov 16, 7PM @ 2640 (2640 St. Paul St.)
The Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign has been fighting since 2000 on the frontlines of the struggle for the right to the city in postapartheid, neoliberal South Africa. The AEC is a grassroots coordinating body for over 15 community organizations fighting against displacement, privatization, poverty and police brutality, organized from below by and for the poor people of the Western Cape province. Join us as we welcome Ashraf Cassiem, AEC chairperson, for a presentation of the work of the AEC.

“As coordinators of the anti-eviction campaign, we are not leaders in the traditional authoritarian sense. Instead, we are like a set of cutlery. We are the tools that are there to be used by poor communities fighting against the cruel and oppressive conditions of South African society. Power to the poor people!”

SOUTHSIDE SOLIDARITY NETWORK & STUDENTS FOR A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY

A Visit from Ashraf Cassiem

Ashraf Cassiem is the lead organizer of South Africa’s Anti-Eviction Campaign in the Western Cape.

An activist from the Mitchells Plain township with a long history in the anti-apartheid struggle, Ashraf has been one of the leading critics of the continuing attacks on poor people’s human rights in South Africa after the fall of apartheid. The Anti-Eviction Campaign has been written about and reported on around the world for its innovative, bold, and defiant resistance in the face of evictions, privatization and violation of the right to housing that have increased with the spread of IMF and World Bank-imposed economic policies through post-apartheid South Africa.

Fighting Displacement from South Africa to Chicago will be a chance to hear reflections from Ashraf on the situation confronting South Africa’s poor, the resistance they have organized, and lessons to be learned by groups struggling for the right to housing in a U.S. housing market plagued by foreclosure, evictions and destruction of public housing. Local leaders from Southside Together Organizing for Power, a tenant organizing group based in Woodlawn, will share their own struggles to stop evictions and housing demolition and engage with Ashraf and the audience in a discussion on making local-global connections in struggles for human rights.

Wednesday, November 11
Harper 140
7:30 P.M.
Free dinner will be served

For more information, contact Divya Sundar at
divyasundar@uchicago.edu

Mitchells Plain Concerned Traders and Hawkers Association (CHATA) held a meeting and workshop today for its members. CHATA is opposing the relocation process of the Traders in the Town Centre. They have been a driving force in encouraging the city to postpone the relocation process as they have pointed out that it has been unfair and not transparent – CHATA extends gratitude to the Mayor for accepting the request to call off the eviction operation. The city has made claims that within the next ten days it will hold a workshop with Traders regarding concerns about the process before all Traders are asked to move. CHATA welcomes the workshops, but still questions why it is happening now after the process was approved last year. In the meantime, officials and members of the umbrella body are evicting Traders each day – this clearly shows that officials employed by the city are not respecting the Mayor’s request to postpone evictions. CHATA has been helping its members stay in their bays all week. The city is attempting to move traders to each other’s spaces and creating tension amongst traders in the Town Centre.

On November 24, 2009, the Western Cape Informal Traders Coalition (WCITC), of which CHATA is a member, will picket at the Mayor’s office in Cape Town to voice the anger and frustrations of Traders all throughout the Western Cape. After the picketing, the press is invited for a conference to speak with the coalition and traders – more details will come closer to the date. Chairperson of CHATA, Mischka Cassiem, is acting as the interim public relations officer of WCITC.

For more information please contact Mischka Cassiem 0731286657 and Jasmine Page 0733688690

Anti-Eviction Press Release
On behalf of Mandela Park
Thursday 12 November 2009

Click here for some photos of last night’s mass protest. For high resolution photos, email us using this link.

Yesterday morning, two Mandela Park residents were assaulted by four Chippa security guards at the instruction of the local SANCO chairperson.  The two residents along with 7 witnesses went to the police station to lay a charge against the guards.  As retribution, the local SANCO chairperson laid a counter charge of intimidation against one of the residents who he ordered to be assaulted – backyarder Khaya Xintolo.  Khaya was then arrested and kept in police custody for more than 11 hours even though the detective himself admitted that there was no case against Khaya.
Khaya was reluctantly allowed to leave after fellow backyarders demanded his immediate release.  He will appear in Khayelitsha Magistrates Court at 9am this morning.  Mandela Park residents will be present in numbers to support Khaya and to testify against the SANCO chairperson and the Chippa security guards.

Yesterday evening, more than 300 residents took to the street.  We staged a strictly peaceful protest (but some residents warn that the patience of the community is running out).  We roamed through most of Mandela Park for many hours singing and toyi-toying.

The protest was in part a response to the continued violence and intimidation against community activists by police, security guards and the SANCO affiliated leadership.  But the protest was also to demonstrate our grievances and to let the government know that they must not ignore the residents of Mandela Park.  There is still a serious housing crisis here in Mandela Park.

MEC Bonginkosi Madikizela has lied to us over and over.  Yesterday he gave houses to people from Gugulethu but ignored promises made to our own community.  Yesterday, our protest was to let Madikizela know that our patience is running thin and that he better start addressing our Constitutional right to housing.  Mandela Park is a ticking time bomb and the MEC is making it tick even faster each time he lies to and misleads residents.

Click here for some photos of last night’s mass protest.

For high resolution photos, email us using this link.

For more information, contact:

Sluja at 071 433 1101
Nosipho at 073 587 8980
Loyiso at 073 766 2078

Some photos of yesterday’s protest in Mandela Park.  Police banned the protest during the day.  Protesters reassembled at about 8pm and toyi-toyi’ed until 11pm

Hundreds of backyard dwellers living in Mandela Park will be marching this morning (11 Nov) at 9am in protest at the Housing MEC’s handover of houses without any local residents benifiting.

We are angry at continuing lies the the MEC has made towards our community.  We are angry that the MEC has publically refused to work with us or to allow us to benifit because he thinks that we are “hooligans”.  The MEC has no right to play favourites in housing allocation.  He has been mandated by South African citizens to serve all South Africans living in the Western Cape – not only the ones who kiss up to him.  He therefore has no right to exclude us backyard dwellers from benifiting from housing built in our own backyards!

Click here for background information on this issue.

For more information, contact:

Mabhuti at 082 9978 475
Loyiso at 073 7662 078
Sluja at 071 4331 101