Masked Police Officers attack Salt Rock Community

Friday, 05 August 2022
Salt Rock facing continuous attacks from the KwaDukuza Municipality

Masked Police Officers attack Salt Rock Community

Our branch in Salt Rock has been facing continued attacks from the Kwadukuza Municipality. This comes after the municipality filed an application to evict which was successfully challenged by our movement.

On Tuesday, the community was attacked by police who raided their homes and beat up everyone who was in the community. As in the police attack on eNkanini in March in which Siyabonga Manqele was murdered, the police wore masks so that their faces could not be seen.

These actions are reminiscent of the apartheid policing where black people were completely demhumanised and attacked and killed with impunity. The ANC should be working with the oppressed to ensure access to land and housing, instead they are violently oppressing us.

There is a trend of attacks on the poor in the suburban parts of KwaDukuza Municipality. This comes as a result of the ANC giving in to the mostly white elites in the Ballito, Umhlali and Shaka Kraal areas. The elites in the form of rate payers’ associations and gated estates see black people who are living in shacks as human waste who do not deserve to live in these areas. The ANC led Coalition in the municipality is pleasing white privilege at the expense of poor black people.

The very ANC that claims to be biased to the poor and is in an alliance with Cosatu is evicting the working class from their homes. The people under attack mostly work for the very same people in the suburbs who do not want to clean their own houses. We note that there is also an eviction in Shaka’s Head by the KwaDukuza Municipality. The elites who live in a gated estate are leading this eviction.

The hypocrites in the ANC who pretend that they want land to be restored to the people
are leading these evictions. This was confirmed by the mayor of the municipality in a meeting with leadership in Salt Rock. She said that the white elites are paying rates and the municipality is surviving because of them, and therefore if they say they don’t want poor black people in Ballito the municipality should succumb to that. Private property and private wealth is being put before the common good.

We will challenge the violent and evictions that are targeted to the poor in these areas. We will defend ourselves against the evictions in Salt Rock and Shaka’s Head that are before the courts.

The spokesperson of the Kwadukuza Municipality has accused us of defending those who have unlawfully occupied land. The fact is that this is the law written to accept the logic of colonial conquest, and this is what the ANC is defending.

Contact:

Thapelo Mohapi – 084 576 5117
Mqapheli Bonono – 073 067 3274
Sne Mncanyana – 073 832 3331