Category Archives: arnett drive

Evictions and Intimidation Continue in Many Shack Settlements After the Local Government Elections

Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Statement
Wednesday, 25 May 2011

Evictions and Intimidation Continue in Many Shack Settlements after the Local Government Elections

On the day after the election, 19 May 2011, the eThekwini Municipality’s Land Invasion Unit arrived in our settlements. Mr Mdletshe from the Land Invasion Unit arrived with his team to demolish shacks in Arnett Drive, Reservoir Hills. When talking to residents there Mdletshe was very rude and violent to Abahlali. He pointed at Sam Jaca and threatened him saying he is the one that took him to the High Court. Mdletshe's team them demolished two shacks leaving the families homeless. They had no court order and were acting without any respect for the law, the court, the community or the families that they left homeless.

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Heritage Day Fire in Arnett Drive

Abahlali baseMjondolo Arnett Drive Press Release
25 September 2010

Heritage Day Fire in Arnett Drive

At 9:45 last night a primus stove broke out starting a big fire in shack number 40 in the Arnett Drive settlement. This shack was completely destroyed and the next door shack was damaged. Gertrude Cele (65) was very badly burnt on her side and stomach and is now in Addington Hospital. She and her partner, Michael Morori, have lost their home and all their possessions.

The fire brigade were called but they came late. However the community was able to organise a chain to pass buckets of water from the river up to the settlement and we put the fire out ourselves. The police came quite quickly and they called the ambulance that took Gertrude Cele to hospital. We appreciate this. The councillor has not come although we phoned him and there has been no support from Disaster Management. We need building materials to rebuild the shack.

There have been fires in our settlement in 1992, 2007 and 2009. These fires are a result of having to use primus stoves and candles instead of electricity. When our self organised electricity connections are destroyed by the police they force us back to the primus stoves and candles and therefore to the fires. The denial of electricity to shack dwellers is the cause of shack fires.

When we first started to organise ourselves as Abahlali baseMjoindolo the politicians would always say that shack fires are the result of drunkeness. Now they always say that shack fires are the result of ‘illegal electricity connections’. They are always trying to blame us for the fires whereas they are the ones that have failed to ensure that we have access to electricity. Everyone knows that when self organised connections are done safely they protect us from fires.

Earlier this year the eThekwini Municipality lifted its 2001 ban on providing electricity to shacks. This was a direct result of the struggle of Abahlali baseMjondolo and we welcome this step forward by the Municipality. However we have still not been provided with formal access to electricity and until we are we will insist on our right to connect ourselves to electricity.

The Arnett Drive shack settlement was formed when this land was occupied in 1978. Since then the settlement has constantly been threatened with eviction. As a result of our struggle in Abahlali baseMjondolo we have now been promised that houses will be built for us here in Reservoir Hills and that we will not be forcibly removed to the human dumping grounds outside the city. We welcome this promise.

However we do fear that all these promises could just be to try and trick us into voting in the next election and that after that the bulldozers will come to destroy the settlement. We cannot relax until the promises that have been made to us our kept.

Our demands are that:

1. We are given formal access to electricity and that while we wait our self-organised connections are not destroyed.
2. We are given toilets and taps.
3. Our settlement is upgraded where it is.

We are also unhappy about the police raids. They come into the settlement during the night, waking us up, making us stand up while they look into our homes. They look for electricity connections and to see if anyone is selling beer. They often steal our money and insult us. Earlier this year they confiscated two crates of beer and two bottles of Smirnoff from one lady and stole R1000 from her. She was also made to pay a fine of R300. During these raids the police treat the poor as criminals. No middle class person has their home raided in the middle of the night. We have the same right as anyone to be protected and not vandalised by the people. However we wish to be clear that we are not fighting the police. We are fighting the municipality and the councillors.

We are not happy about Heritage Day. How can we be happy when Gertrude Cele and Michael Morori have lost their home and Gertrude is in a serious condition in hospital? Some of our parents came here after being evicted from Umkhumbane [Cato Manor] where they fought in the women’s riot in 1959. This is the only heritage that we can take pride in – the heritage of the long and continuing struggles of the poor to have a dignified place in this city.

For more information and comment please3 contact:

Nomhle Mkhetho 079 258 6043
Clement Mtshali 078 115 3215

Click here to read ‘A Big Devil in the Jondolos: A report on Shack Fires’ by Matt Birkinshaw (2008).

Intimidation Continues

This addendum to yesterday's press release was received late last night via cellphone text message from Reverend Mavuso Mbhekeseni. Please contact the Reverend for further details on the threats to the clergy, the chairperson of the AbM Women's League and others, at the court yesterday.

The ANC mob was swearing at us in court saying that we are corrupt church leaders who support criminals. They threatened to catch us and kill us in the city. They said that they would describe us to all their people by the clothes we were wearing. They also threatened the chairperson of the AbM women's league although she was not present at the court. They threatened her by name, shouted and swore at her name, and said that she is a "a thief who wears pants bought with the money from Kennedy Road people." The ANC mob was armed with sticks and other sharp objects. They were highly intimidating and it was clear that their threats were serious – they meant what they were saying.
– Reverend Mavuso Mbhekeseni

We also need to note that some of the ANC mob threatened AbM people with knobkerries, that they also claimed to have bush knives in the bus and threatened to kill people leaving the court and that threatening sexual gestures were made against elderly AbM women. One of the mob also openly said that their plan, when they attacked the AbM Youth Camp at Kennedy Road, had been to kill S'bu Zikode. Also, it is clear that the mob confused the chairperson of the AbM Women's League with her daughter – they are threatening her because she spoke on TV after the victory in the constitutional court.

Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Update
Monday 19 October 2009

Kennedy Thirteen Bail Hearing Adjourned

The Kennedy Thirteen appeared in the Durban Magistrate's Court today for a bail hearing. Once again the ANC bussed in its supporters. Once again they were hostile and aggressive and openly threatened to kill the Kennedy Thirteen if they are given bail. The arguments were heard and the decision will be given on Monday 26 October. In the meantime the Kennedy Thirteen will be kept in the notorious Westville prison.

Our movement was vindicated in the case of the Kennedy Six – we will be vindicated in this case too.

For comment on today's bail hearing please contact:

Reverend Mavuso Mbhekeseni: 072 279 2634
Shamita Naidoo: 074 315 7962

Eight More Arrests in Two More Settlements

On Thursday last week there were another eight arrests. Four people were arrested in the Foreman Road settlement and another four in the Arnett Drive settlement. This has extended the current wave of repression against the movement to 3 settlements and brought the total number of arrests to 21.

The police first descended on the Foreman Road settlement where they kicked in doors and arrested 4 people for Operation Khanyisa (i.e. connecting themselves to electricity in a city where shack dwellers have been officially denied access to electricity since 2001). They then went to the Arnett Drive settlement where they also kicked in doors and arrested 4 people for 'drinking in public'. In the previous wave of repression – from 2005 till late 2007 – this charge was often used against the movement. The police act as if a shack is not a private space and then arrest people having a beer in their own homes. This is a very dirty trick aimed at making being poor a criminal offense.

The politics of the poor developed by our movement was criminalised from 2005 till late 2007. Our movement came out of that phrase of repression stronger than we were when it began. We did not give up our struggle. We kept going. And after the March on Mlaba the City realised that it had to negotiate with us. From late 2007 until last month things were much easier in Durban (although not elsewhere) – we were negotiating with the City and making all kinds of progress. But now a decision has been taken to return to repression. We survived the first attempt to criminalise our movement and we will survive this attempt. Every arrest makes the real nature of the state more clear to more people. Every arrest makes the real nature of our democracy more clear to more people. We have no choice but to keep going forward with our struggle. Without struggle there is no hope for us or our children. We cannot accept that. Therefore we will not be defeated.

For comment on the arrests in Foreman Road and Arnett Drive please contact:

Philani Dlamini: 078 583 5451
Mama Nxumalo: 076 579 6198

Isolezwe: Ugogo (65) uboshelwe ukweba ugesi

Arnett Drive – Digital Archive