March to Demand the Resignation of Nigel Gumede

Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Statement
23 November 2011

Abahlali baseMjondolo Youth League March to Demand the Resignation of Nigel Gumede – Thursday 24 November 2011

After years of broken promises and intimidation protesters march to demand an end to Housing Chairperson's reign of disrespect

We are human beings, not dogs. Nigel Gumede treats us like dogs but we will defend our humanity.

The Abahlali baseMjondolo Youth League has organised a march to demand the immediate removal of Nigel Gumede as the Chairperson of the Housing Portfolio Committee and Infrastructure for the eThekwini Municipality. People from more than 20 shack settlements in Durban as well as our comrades who are taxi workers, street traders, hostel dwellers, and others will march in solidarity with us on Thursday 24 November 2011. The march will leave Botha Park at 8. We will display the power of the people to show the weight of our demand that: Nigel Gumede must go!

This protest is part of a series of actions to pressure eThekwini Mayor James Nxumalo to terminate Nigel Gumede's employment effective immediately. The protests come after over a decade of Mr. Gumede consistently neglecting the needs of the poor. He has refused to listen to the demands of the city's poor people and has instead been investigated for corruption, supported the attack on AbM, tried to stir up ethnic division and issued open and blatant threats at the leadership and members of Abahlali baseMjondolo. For all these reasons Nigel Gumede must go!

Abahlali is a non-ethnic and non-racial movement of the poor that is not affiliated to any political party and struggles to protect, promote and advance the dignity of the poor in South Africa. Abahlali is active in over 64 shack settlements nationwide, works closely with our sister movements in the Poor People's Alliance as well as the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance and the Unemployed People's Movement, and has over 10,000 paid up members. This march belongs to us, the people who are struggling everyday with inhumane and illegal evictions, electricity disconnections and police brutality. Nigel Gumede must be held to account for his total lack action to address these needs that our families and communities are facing. He has literally left us out in the cold and so Nigel Gumede must go!

Housing in the city of Durban is not bringing justice to the dispossessed. Housing in this city is a mess – houses are unfit for human habitation, they are in rural human dumping grounds and their allocation is corrupted. Housing has become little more than a way for some people in the ANC to become millionaires while the poor are forced out of the cities. People are being evicted from their shacks and left homeless, subject to violent disconnections from electricity and even forced into transit camps. Housing in this city is not delivering to us. It is terrorizing us and so Nigel Gumede must go!

The Youth League of Abahlali is also demanding Mr. Gumede's removal as his reign has meant that we are unable to achieve real dialogue with those in power. His intimidation and unfulfilled promises undermine the goodwill of conversations with the eThekwini mayor's office and damage any chance of us getting real changes from the municipality. We have grown tired of asking for the same things only to be met with increasing repression and disdain from Nigel Gumede. We and our parents have fought tirelessly for justice and security. Today, we are marching once more for land, housing, and a fair transfer of resources without political barriers. Our elected officials must serve the interests of all youth, families and communities. Because he is not serving the community's interests, Nigel Gumede must go!

The youth are also mounting this protest to remind our elected officials of the power that young people have always shown against tyranny in this country. We want to show that the youth can have a constructive response to the destructive politics as usual game that Nigel Gumede so keenly represents. Our poverty is political. We were made poor. We will respond, as we have always done, by building the power of the poor from the ground up. We want the government to understand that we are not its enemies, we are simply fighting to reclaim our dignity. The youth were once at the forefront of our liberation movement and today we raise again this time for land and housing in the cities, decent education and economic justice. We believe that Nigel Gumede must be sanctioned and investigated but that in the end, Nigel Gumede must go!

We are human beings not dogs and so Nigel Gumede must go!

For further information please contact: Mr Mazwi Nzimande on 031 3046420 or Miss Bandile Mdlalose on 071 4242815

24 November 2011, 12:00 pm.

Memorandum of Demands from Abahlali baseMjondolo to the Premier of the Province of KwaZulu-Natal Dr. Zweli Mkhize, and the Mayor of Durban, Mr. James Nxumalo

We, women and men, young and old, residents of shacks and flats, all members of Abahlali baseMjondolo Movement SA in KwaZulu-Natal are democrats committed to the flourishing of this country. We speak for ourselves and direct our own struggle.

We have been mobilized by our own suffering and our hope for a better future. It is time to take seriously the fact that land is a serious problem in our country and that land was stolen from our ancestors and that this has impoverished us. We have been made poor by a history of oppression. Housing in the city of Durban is not bringing justice to the dispossessed. Housing in this city is a mess – houses are unfit for human habitation, they are in rural human dumping grounds and their allocation is corrupted. Housing has become little more than a way for some people in the ANC to become millionaires while the poor are forced out of the cities. People are being evicted from their shacks and left homeless, subject to violent disconnections from electricity and even forced into transit camps. Housing in this city is not delivering to us. It is terrorizing us.

We have explored all routes to try and negotiate a better system that puts human beings first. We tried to talk to our councilors but they ignore us if we are lucky and call the police to beat us and arrest us if we are unlucky.

We have marched many times but our memorandums are ignored. After police violence against our protests became an international issue we were finally invited to entered into a long process of negotiations with the City. But the agreement that we negotiated has not been implemented and instead we were attacked by the ANC with the support of the police. We have been to the courts and won interdicts against the City which are then just ignored. We have reached the point at which it is clear to us that when, after much struggle. we can find a path through a system designed to exclude the poor in the name of democracy that system will just ignore its own rules. It's clear to us that the only way that we can have any hope for our children and for our own lives too is if this system is radically changed from the bottom up.

For too long Abahlali baseMjondolo have been subjected to state repression, displacement, evictions, disconnections, arrests, violence and death threats.

For too long Nigel Gumede has been terrorizing our communities without regard for law. He has lied to our communities with no respect for the shack dwellers, the flat dwellers and the poor. Gumede has failed the residents of the Hillary flats and allow them to be evicted. He has failed the residents of Kennedy Road by supporting the violent expulsion of AbM leaders from the settlement. He has failed all of us by trying to stir up ethnic tensions. He has failed the poor by failing to develop a housing programme in this city that is people centred. He has failed this democracy by personally and openly threatening violence against our leaders and declaring that the ANC is at war with AbM. We demand his immediate resignation. He is a disgrace to democracy.

Gumede has even threatening our leadership in the presence of the Mayor without our leaders being protected by the Mayor or the Mayor calling Gumede into order. The Mayor owes us an apology for his failure to stand up to Gumede and to stand up for democracy.

For too long SOHCO has terrorized our flats communities. We demand that those who have been evicted be reinstated back into their homes. We further demand that SOHCO compensate all evicted tenants from Hillary flats with immediate effect. We further demand that the Premier of the Province Dr. Zweli Mkhize intervene in this matter.

For too long the commercial value of land here in eThekwini and many other areas has been put before its social value. We demand that social value of land come before its commercial value. People around the world are demanding that people must come before profit and this is our demand too. If this demand is not recognised from above there will be no choice for the poor but to continue the programme of land occupations from below.

For too long we have been living under consistent threats of eviction in our own land. We demand an immediate and final end to all evictions. Durban must become an eviction free city. We demand land security. Yesterday the new land occupation in Richmond Farm was destroyed. We demand justice for these people.

For too long our right to the cities has been denied to the shack dwellers and the poor in this country. We demand the right to live in cities. We will continue to refuse forced removals to rural human dumping grounds. People will resist forced removals and they will continue to abandon these places and to return to the cities. If you continue to criminalize these actions you will continue to criminalize poverty when in fact you were elected to bring justice to the dispossessed – not the NIA, the police, rubber bullets and the jails.

For too long the provision of basic services has been denied to us and the poor. We demand the provision of all basic services such as water and sanitation, electricity, road access, refuse collection etc to us. People living in shacks must have the same right to these services as all other people. They cannot be denied to shack dwellers on the grounds that shack settlements are called temporary when many of us have lived our whole lives in these shacks.

For too long we have been fenced in the land occupations and the transit camps. We demand that the electric fence around the eMmause land occupation, and the security guards, be removed with immediate effect.

For too long people have been forced into transit camps when in fact they were promised housing. This is another return to the tactics of apartheid and we call for an immediate end to all transit camps. We demand justice for the people of Rich View and Richmond Farm.

For too long the notorious Ricky Govender has been allowed to terrorise the people of Motala Heights. We demand an immediate end to his tyranny.

We are prepared to continue to struggle for these rights in the courts, in streets and in our communities. We are also prepared to negotiate and to work together to find a way forward. But for as long as the City allows Nigel Gumede to openly threaten us it will remain clear that they are not negotiating in good faith.

Just like people around the country are country we are also are concerned about the Secrecy Bill. We demand that the City and the Province publicly inform President Jacob Zuma that they are requesting him to scrap this bill immediate effect.

Just as people around the city, the country and world are uniting in support of our struggle we express our support for our comrades elsewhere. We note that 2011 has become a revolutionary year, a year in which people around the world are insisting that democracy must be a bottom up system and that people must count more than money. We are not alone.

Receiving this memorandum without conscious, failing which Abahlali baseMjondolo Movement SA will reconsider another plan B…

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To follow up please contact Mr Mazwi Nzimande on 031 3046420 or Miss Bandile Mdlalose on 071 4242815