‘This stinks to high heaven’.

17 May 2021
Abahlali baseMjondolo press statement

‘This stinks to high heaven’.

It is with great disappointment that we report that state was successful in its application to postpone the hearing of the bail application for Mqapheli Bonono, Siniko Miya and Maphiwe Gasela that was set down for today. The state’s request was based and granted on the prosecutor’s statements that (1) the Investigating Officer was not available as he was testifying in another matter in High Court and that (2) the affidavit that she has from the investigating officer was, in her words, ‘not to my liking’. The bail hearing was adjoined to 9:30 on Thursday, 20 May 2021. 

Our lawyer, Jimmy Howse, is a highly respected advocate known to be a measured man who carefully follows the evidence. He said, in open court, that the case ‘stinks to high heaven’, that it was ‘a travesty’ and that there were ‘serious anomalies’ in the argument made by the prosecution.

We now have a clear idea of the ‘evidence’ against Bonono, Miya and Gasela. The state claims that at an open meeting held at the Diakonia Council of Churches the three conspired to have a witness in another case murdered. The state has two witness statements to this effect.

The date of the meeting was given as 14 March. In fact, it was held on 21 March. Miya was not at the meeting. Bonono and Gasela were present

As we have stated before this was an open meeting that all residents of the eKhenena Occupation were invited to attend. As Advocate Howse noted in court the fact that two people have made affidavits hardly constitutes serious evidence when the rest of the people in the meeting can all testify that their claims are, in Howse’s words, ‘a pack of lies’. When seen in the light of the long, ongoing and repeatedly unlawful and violent attack on the eKhenena Occupation by the state, as well as the long history of repression of our movement by the state and the ruling party, the purpose of these lies is very clear. This is not the first time that false witness has been borne against us.

These arrests are a politically motivated farce, nothing more or less than a brazen, crude and cynical misuse of the criminal justice system to repress activists. If anyone can make an evidently dishonest and malicious allegation against activists that results in arrest and imprisonment it will be open season on our movement, and other organisations and struggles. This needs to stop, and it needs to stop now.

In Durban around 500 people, many of them taking a second day off work and some travelling between provinces, gathered at the gates of the court complex today to demonstrate solidarity with the three political prisoners and opposition to repression. In Johannesburg comrades, many also taking a second day off work, gathered at the head office of the National Prosecuting Authority to demonstrate their anger at the capture and misuse of the criminal justice system to repress popular democratic organisation and mobilisation.

Our movement fully supports the attempts to reform the NPA, and restore its professionalism and integrity after its political capture during the Zuma period. However, that reform needs to be extended to the systematic use of the criminal just system to harass activists. Over the last 15 years hundreds of our members have been arrested on ridiculous criminal charges and then often forced to come to court 6 or 7 times before the charges are dropped. As we noted in a previous statement when the high-profile Kennedy 12 trial did go to court the judges threw the case out and made extremely damming statements about the state’s case. It was crystal clear that the state’s case in that matter was a crude frame-up.

At the same time our members are systematically denied the right to open cases with the police when they are confronted with criminal acts by the state, local ANC structures or local thugs linked to ANC structures.

The justice system is failing the poor in this country, and it ruthlessly represses the organised poor.

In Cato Manor, where the eKhenena Occupation is, the station commander has said that he is tired of our movement and that he will not open cases for our members because we block the streets. On Friday, a group of young women in eKhenena, all members of our movement, were harassed and attacked in broad daylight while going to fetch water at the communal tap. The attackers have direct links to the notorious hitman that we have previously mentioned.

When they went to the police, they were told to first go to a hospital to prove that they were assaulted. When they returned from hospital they were told they would be arrested if they continued to try to open the case. This is not the first time that our members in this occupation have tried to open cases with the police without any success. Numerous attempts to open cases against the Anti Land Invasion Unit were never taken seriously even though people were shot with live ammunition. There were many attempts to open cases against the notorious Mkhize from the Anti-Land Invasion Unit – who has used live ammunition against unarmed people – but these attempts were all refused by the Cato Manor police.

The situation regarding the police in eKhenana is not anomalous. In fact, the situation is systemic.

We remember that in 2006 when S’bu Zikode and Philani Zungu (then the Deputy President of our movement) were held in custody on trumped-up charges they were attacked by the notorious station commander of the Sydenham Police Station Glen Nayager, who was also known as ‘Rambo’. S’bu Zikode was severely beaten by the station commander who banged him against the wall many times. Philani was attacked by more than 7 police officers and beaten unconscious. When Nayager was banging Zikode against the wall, he kept saying ‘You think you are Jesus Christ, you think you are the saviour of all these jondolo people’. Nayager then took an Abahlali shirt and said that the police would use it as a cloth to wash the floor in the station. When residents of the nearby Kennedy Road community protested that night they were shot at with live ammunition. A peaceful protest against wrongful arrest by the police was met with police violence. A middle-aged woman was shot in the knee.

In 2009 when our movement was attacked in the Kennedy Road settlement by an armed mob affiliated to the ANC the police stood by and allowed the attack to happen and then, when it was over, arrested innocent members of a dance group known to be linked to our movement.

After the attack then MEC Safety and Community Liaison Willies Mchunu came to the settlement and announced that our movement had ‘been disbanded’. The link between the armed mob, the police and the high-level politicians was clear, as was the aim was to destroy our movement.

Many homes were destroyed in the attack, and for months ANC members would gather on a Sunday and openly destroy the homes of our members. Throughout this time the police refused to intervene, or to allow people to open cases after their homes were destroyed and looted.

In Briardene in Durban North, Bheki Ngcobo, a notoriously violent police officer, used live ammunition on a protest and wounded one person. The attempt to open a case was refused by the Green wood Park Police station. This is just one of a very long list of cases where Abahlali were attacked by the police and then the police refused to open cases and never arrested anyone.

A number of our members have been tortured in police stations.

In most cases when our leaders have been assassinated their cases were never investigated, even when we appeared at the Moerane Commission.

In 2021, after more than fifteen years of struggle, our movement continues to face repression and attack from the police. We have explained the reasons why the eKhenana Occupation is being so brutally and ruthlessly targeted. But we are also aware that we are being targeted because of the award of the Per Anger Prize. The recognition that we have received internationally has created more enemies from the state.

This is why we are calling for serious and effective reform of the criminal justice system – which routinely functions as a mechanism to repress activists.

The function of this kind of repression is to delegitimate activists and organisations, to place huge stress on individuals and their families, to place people at risk from employers, to exhaust individual and movement energies and resources, and to redirect movements away from their usual political work.

Oppression is meant to destroy us and make us give up in the struggle for land, housing and our dignity. However, despite the huge costs of repression, and the very high personal price that many people have paid over the years, our movement has always emerged stronger than before. We have grown over the years even though we are killed for the work to defend our occupations. We continue to fight and expose the failures of the ANC led government as well as the bigger structural forces of neocolonialism and capitalism.

The support coming in for Bonono, Miya and Gasela from around the world, from organisations in South Africa and individual figures of the highest integrity, like Bishop Rubin Phillip, is just incredible. We are not alone nor are we suffering any delegitimation. And we are not stopping our political work. We continue to launch branches, run induction workshops for newly elected leaders and do our day to day organising work on the ground. However, this repression is placing a very high cost on the individuals in prison and their families. As we noted in our previous statement Gasela has a seriously unwell 16-month baby, recently discharged from hospital.

We will hold a third protest at the Magistrates Court in Durban on Thursday. Our comrades in Ghana, where Bonono is a respected comrade and teacher, will hold a protest at the South African embassy. Other actions are currently being planned.

We thank everyone for their support. Please keep the fire burning.

Nomusa Sizani 081 005 3686
Thapelo Mohapi 074 774 4219
S’bu Zikode 083 547 0474