Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign
27 April 2011
For the poor in South Africa, there is no freedom.
Today from 10am till 2pm, the movements will come to QQ Section Informal Settlement for an UnFreedom Day rally. QQ was the victim of a huge shack fire just before Christmas in 2010 so the location is fitting for our Shack Fire Summit. Read the rest of this entry »
Our sadness on UnFreedom Day
27 04 2011Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: democracy, poor, shack fires, unfreedom day
Categories : Archives, News & Press Release, Poor People's Alliance, Site B and Site C in Khayelitsha
Invitation to the Cape Town Shack Fire Summit
26 04 2011ABAHLALI BASEMJONDOLO MOVEMENT OF SOUTH AFRICA (WESTERN CAPE PROVINCE)
Website: khayelitshastruggles.com or http://www.abahlali.org
Email: abmwesterncape@abahlali.org office admin: 0732562036/073 4128 218
The above mentioned organization would like to invite your organization/ community/ area to a SHACK FIRE SUMMIT that will be held at QQ informal settlement site B Khayelitsha on 27 April 2011 from 10:00am to 13:00pm.
The aim of the event is to:
1. Light candles in memory of those who lose their lives within shack fire and the victims of shack fires.
2. Explore the course of shack fire, governmental intervention, and other humanitarian intervention
3. To come up with a program/ campaign to call for electrification of all shack settlement
For further details and direction please call our admin @ 073 412 8218
On behalf of ABM WC
Mzonke Poni
M WC Chairperson)
073 2562 036/ 083 446 5081
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Tags: Abahlali baseMjondolo in the Western Cape, shack fires, unfreedom day
Categories : Anti-Eviction Campaign, Archives, News & Press Release, Poor People's Alliance, Site B and Site C in Khayelitsha
AbM: Terrible Shack Fire Currently Raging in QQ Section, Khayelitsha
7 12 2010Terrible Shack Fire Currently Raging in QQ Section, Khayelitsha
Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape Emergency Press Statement 07/12/2010
A terrible fire is currently raging in the QQ Section settlement in Khayelitsha. More than twenty homes and the community-built creche have already been destroyed. The fire is still raging and still destroying countless lives.
Shack fires are not natural disasters. They are a direct result of the contempt in which the government holds the poor in this country. Shack fires are political.We will never accept that it is normal for the poor to burn.
Those so-called social justice organisations that are calling for a politics of patience in which the poor do not directly and immediately confront our oppression take no account of THE FACT that our every day lives are an emergency. We live in crisis every day. We live in life threatening conditions every day. This is what drives us to the streets. We will continue to go to the streets until our humanity is recognised and we are treated with dignity. It is not our protests that are a threat to our society. Is the way that we are forced to live that is a threat to society. It is the oppression of the poor that is a threat to society.
We refuse to be patient. We refuse to accept that it is normal for human beings to have to live like this.
For on the scene updates and comment from QQ section please contact:
Mr. Qona 076 041 0057
Mbongeni 076 981 6945
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Tags: dignity, qq section, shack fires
Categories : Anti-Eviction Campaign, News & Press Release, Poor People's Alliance, Site B and Site C in Khayelitsha
Solidarity: Another Devastating Shack Fire in the Kennedy Road Settlement
11 08 2010Click here to read ‘A Big Devil in the Jondolos: A report on Shack Fires’ by Matt Birkinshaw (2008).
Press Release: 10 August 2010.
Another Devastating Shack Fire in the Kennedy Road Settlement
If electricity, water and adequate housing were provided in the Kennedy Road shack settlement these recurring shack fires could have been prevented.
The Kennedy Road shack settlement burnt once again at about 10 pm on Sunday, 08 August 2010 – two hours before women’s day. As of today thousands of residents in Kennedy are homeless in this cold winter weather. If the municipality had given them houses or provided them with basic services, such as electricity, refuse collection, road access and water they would have been safe from fire. Fire is a serious threat to our lives. It is an undeniable fact that electricity is not needed by us but that our lives’ need electricity. In settlements that have electricity it is so unlikely to have fires of this nature as it is happening again and again in Kennedy.
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Tags: Abahlali baseMjondolo, Poor People's Alliance, shack fires
Categories : Anti-Eviction Campaign, News & Press Release, Poor People's Alliance, Solidarity
Solidarity: Serving our Life Sentence in the Shacks
26 07 2010Friday, 16 July 2010
Serving our Life Sentence in the Shacks
People all over South Africa have been asking the leaders of Abahlali baseMjondolo as to why the government continues to ignore the demands of the shack dwellers. They have been asking why after all the marches, statements, reports and meetings the Kennedy Road settlement continues to get burnt down through the endless shack fires. They have been referring in particular to the recent Kennedy Road shack fire on Sunday, 4 July 2010 that took four lives, leaving more than three thousand people displaced and homeless.
Without much more words to explain this continuous tragedy we have replied that in fact the shack dwellers of South Africa are serving a life sentence. Everybody knows that we are the people who do not count in this society. But the truth that must be faced up to is that we have been sentenced to permanent exclusion from this society.
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Tags: Abahlali baseMjondolo, electrification, shack, shack fires, Slums Act, The 2009 Attack on Kennedy Road
Categories : Archives
Open Letter to the Mayor: Broken promises of electricity in Blikkiesdorp formal shack settlement
2 11 2009BLIKKIESDORP COMMUNITY- DELFT (SYMPHONYWAY TRA)
DATE: 2ND November 2009
DATE: 2ND November 2009
To: The Mayor – Dan Plato
From: Blikkiesdorp Anti- Eviction Campaign (Western Cape)
Subject: Installation of Electricity
It has become common knowledge that the government and politicians ignore the poor. Members of the Blikkiesdorp community have been trying to set up a meeting with Mayor Dan Plato for several weeks now regarding the installation of electricity in the area. Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: blikkiesdorp, Dan Plato, electrification, shack fires
Categories : Anti-Eviction Campaign, Archives, Delft - evictions + resistance, News & Press Release
Kennedy Road is Burning Again – The Fires Must Stop
9 07 20098 July 2009, 3:44 a.m.
Emergency Press Statement from Abahlali baseKennedy
Kennedy Road is Burning Again – The Fires Must Stop, the Settlements Must be Electrified Immediately
Our settlement is burning again. More than a hundred shacks have been lost. It’s too early to say if anyone has been hurt or killed in this fire.
The cause of the fire was, again, a paraffin stove which means that, in reality, the cause of the fire was again the eThekwini Municipality’s inhumane refusal to provide electricity to shack dwellers or to allow us to access electricity on our own. Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: eThekwini, fire, Kennedy Road, shack fires
Categories : Archives, News & Press Release, Poor People's Alliance
AbM: Fire Devastates the Kennedy Road Settlement – At Least One Hundred Homes Destroyed
16 06 2009
16 June 2009
Press Statement from Abahlali baseKennedy
The Red Devil Must be Defeated
Today is the 16 June, Youth Day, the anniversary of the 1976 Soweto Uprising. In Johannesburg and Cape Town our comrades are struggling for the people to take this day back from the politicians.
Here at the Kennedy Road settlement we are burning, again. At about 1:30 last night a fire started after a paraffin stove was left unattended while a couple argued. Before it was put out around 100 shacks had burnt. At least 300 people have been left homeless. One woman has been very badly injured and has, only just now, been taken to hospital. Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: Bheki Simelane, City of Durban, durban, fire, Fire Department, Kennedy Road, shack fires, Thina Khanyile
Categories : Archives, News & Press Release, Poor People's Alliance
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