Independent on Saturday: ”Where is the R10-billion?’

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3045&art_id=vn20070929085453605C905431

September 29 2007 at 12:13PM

Chaos erupted in the Durban suburb of Sydenham after a peaceful housing protest turned ugly as police dispersed a large crowd using water cannons, rubber bullets and baton charges on Friday.

Fifteen people, including academics Fazel Khan and Richard Pitthouse, were arrested and charged with public violence.

Police baton-charged the estimated 1 000 protesters on the command of Sydenham Police Station Commissioner Superintendent Glen Nayager after they refused to disperse when their demand to hand over their memorandum to Mayor Obed Mlaba was not met.

The protesters said the march was over the failure of Mlaba and the eThekwini council to provide housing to Durban’s poor and homeless.

On Friday, homeless people took to the streets with banners asking “Where is the R10-billion?” that Mlaba promised for a housing project.

After marching a few kilometres from their homes in Kennedy Road to the eThekwini Municipal Offices in Sydenham where the group had hoped to meet Mlaba, the group was informed that the mayor was not coming and instead an official from the eThekwini Municipality was on hand to collect their memorandum of demands.

Leader of Abahlali baseMjondolo, the shackdwellers movement, S’bu Zikode, said the mayor’s snub was a sign of disrespect and disregard.

He told protesters that they would never allow this, and said the mayor had failed to respect the needs and call of the poor.

The people refused to move until Mlaba honoured their protest, but police called in the water cannon and decided to disperse the group using force.

Police baton-charged the group and without warning began firing the water cannon and rubber bullets.

A number of the protesters, including women and children, were injured.

The police arrested a number of protesters and took them to Sydenham Police Station.

Mnikelo Ndabankulu, who was one of the march organisers, said he went to visit those who were arrested and was himself arrested.

Speaking from inside the police cell, Ndabankulu said they were charged with public violence and were being refused bail.

The protesters were demanding that Mlaba accept the memorandum because almost two years ago he “paraded” a piece of land near Gateway shopping centre before the media and said the city would build a R10-billion housing project called the Phoenix East Integrated Housing Development Project for Durban’s homeless.

Mlaba’s announcement was made days after a similar protest took place in Durban by the same group of people.

But a day after the announcement Moreland Development, which owned the land that Mlaba had said was for the housing project, released a statement saying it was “only involved in preliminary discussions with the eThekwini Municipality regarding plans for the future development of Cornubia”, and that the mayor had caused a misunderstanding about the housing project which was not a “done deal”.

Mlaba said he was not aware of a legal march taking place, but he did not see anything wrong with someone else receiving the memorandum.

“If it was legal I was not aware of it,” he said.

Mlaba said there was no imperative that any specific person had to receive a memorandum.

He said anyone could receive the memorandum, which was just a document raising awareness about something.

Mlaba said it was not a court order where they could demand his presence and said they should have handed the memorandum to the person who had come to receive it.

On the concerns of the protesters, Mlaba said that one of the problems with the housing backlog was that “as we build 10 000 homes there are another 10 000 pushed into the city because people are making money as shack lords and we cannot have that”.

With regards to the R10-billion housing project, that he announced almost two years ago, Mlaba said the project was still going to go ahead, but “no one said it would happen on Su