Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Statement
11 March 2010

Mike Sutcliffe Bans another Abahlali baseMjondolo March

The notorious Mike Sutcliffe has banned another Abahlali baseMjondolo march. We have, as always, scrupulously followed the laws that govern protest and we have informed the City in good time that we intend to march on Jacob Zuma on 22 March 2010. Yesterday the march convenor, Troy Morrow from the Hillary AbM branch, was verbally informed that permission to march has been denied. The excuse that has been given this time is that the City does not have enough police officers to be able to ensure security at our march.

Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Statement
3 March 2010

The Third Force is Gathering its Strength

The goal that our attackers wanted to achieve when they ambushed us on the night of 26 September 2009 has not been achieved. A surprise attack was launched against our movement, the spontaneous resistance to the attack was broken by the police, our office was destroyed, hundreds of our members and supporters were chased from Kennedy Road, thirteen of our comrades were jailed and illegally detained and we have been banned from openly organising in the settlement where our movement was founded. But our movement was never just in Kennedy Road. Before the attack there were fifteen settlements affiliated to our movement in Durban and more than 50 branches across Durban, Pinetown, Tongaat, Howick, Pietermaritzburg and Cape Town. The goal of the attack was to destroy our movement to punish us for our victory against the Slums Act, to deny us the victory that we had won to have the Kennedy Road settlement upgraded where it is and to neutralise us before 2010. But our movement still exists. In fact it continues to grow. Since the attack we have launched four new branches and we will launch another four new branches soon.

Inkulumo ka-Mengameli waBahlali baseMjondolo Movement SA.wokuvulwa kwehhovisi labahlali e-Siyanda, Isonto, 28 February 2010.

Mphathi wohlelo, abaholi babahlali baseMjondolo, bonke abaholi abakhona ngokwezikhundla zabo nabobonke Abahlali baseMjondolo.

Ngithanda ukuzwakalisa ukukhathazeka okukhulu ngokuthi ngingakwazi ukuba phakathi kwenu namhlanje , futhi ngifisa ukudlulisa ukuxolisa okukhulu kini ngokuzithoba. Nakuba ngifisa nazi ukuthi nginani ngokomphefumulo.Kubeyintokozo enkulu kimi ukubona abaholi benu beshabasheka, behla benyuka ukwakha lelihhovisi ngokusizwa ngamalunga omphakathi. Lelihhovisi lakhiwe ngezithukuthuku zabasebenzi abampofu, lelihhovisi lakhiwe ngothando nobubele ngakho-ke angingabazi ukuthi lizowusiza lomphakathi wabahlali.

http://abmsolidaritygroup.blogspot.com/

Abahlali baseMjondolo Solidarity group in association with SOAS War on Want Society Presents:

The Right to Know: The Fight for Open Democracy in South Africa

- A Short Film Showing and Discussion -

7pm - Wednesday 3rd March

Room 4418 (4th Floor, SOAS Main Building)

Since the mid-2000s, a number of social movements in South Africa have organised and acted to improve the lives of those living in substandard housing and working, if at all, precariously in the informal economy and fighting against privatization, evictions, water-collection and electricity turn-offs.

When liberators become oppressors

Revd Roger Scholtz of the Methodist Church has castigated the authorities for
turning themselves into oppressors of the people they once liberated.

He was speaking at a prayer service organised by Diakonia Council of Churches outside the gates of the Durban Magistrates’ Court on 19 February. The service was attended by church leaders who included Bishop Barry Wood OMI, Chairperson of Diakonia Council of Churches, staff and friends and family members of the
Kennedy 12.

In a powerful message Revd Scholtz said it is ironic that the service is being held just a week after the 20th anniversary of the release of Nelson Mandela from prison.

http://abmsolidaritygroup.blogspot.com/2010/02/open-letter-to-church-leaders-in-united.html

An Open Letter to Church Leaders in the United Kingdom
21 February 2010

Dear church leaders in the United Kingdom,

I would like to draw your attention to a situation of great injustice that is festering in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal South Africa. In response to their campaigns for economic and social rights for shack dwellers, members of Abahlali baseMjondolo (Abahlali), a community movement based in the shack settlement of Kennedy Road, have been subjected to violent attacks, forced evictions and unjust court proceedings since September last year. The most worrying fact about these travesties is that they appear to have been conducted with the knowledge and tacit support of local authorities and structures of the governing party. This repression of a democratic organisation, brings back memories of the oppressive days of apartheid in the country.

‘We see what you do, we watch you’, warns Revd Brittion

Revd Sue Brittion has warned the authorities that the church is watching them and it will remember when the time comes for the truth to be told.

Revd Brittion was speaking at a prayer service organised by Diakonia Council of Churches for the ‘Kennedy 12’ outside the Durban Magistrates’ Court on Friday 5 February 2010.

She expressed disgust at how the prosecutors and the political leadership have treated the accused and lamented the fact that none of the perpetrators of this horrific attack on Abahlali has been brought to book. “No charges have been put to the accused. The state prosecutor has been highly negligent in preparing a case to the extent of failing to appear in court at one of the eight hearings even if he was seen in the court building. A call by religious leaders for a Commission of Enquiry into the events of 26 September 2009 has been ignored by the authorities”, she said.

http://www.timeslive.co.za/sundaytimes/article284174.ece

A crisis of dignity - 5 humiliating years later
One of a human being's most private acts is a daily ordeal for these families
Jan 30, 2010 8:25 PM | By Buyekezwa Makwabe

Ntombifuthi Mdibaniso dreads answering the call of nature. The matric pupil has been cleaning up human excrement for the past decade - often with only plastic bags to cover her hands - to earn the right to use a neighbour's toilet.

The humiliating ritual has become a way of life for the 19-year-old, who lives in a shack with her parents in a section of the sprawling township of Khayelitsha in Cape Town.

Third NYC Encuentro for Dignity & Against Displacement

Movement for Justice in El Barrio

An echo that turns itself into many voices, into a network of voices that, before the deafness of power, opts to speak to itself, knowing itself to be one and many, acknowledging itself to be equal in its desire to listen and be listened to, recognizing itself as different in the tonalities and levels of voices forming it. A network of voices that resist the war that power wages on them. – Words of the Zapatistas at the “First Intercontinental Encuentro for Humanity and Against Neoliberalism.”