Shack dwellers food strike day 11

Niren Tolsi

13 April 2007 07:30

Lying on beds, the Kennedy Five smile weakly and raise their fists as Anglican Bishop Rubin Phillip enters their hospital dormitory in Durban’s Westville Prison. It is day 11 of their hunger strike.

S’thembiso Bhengu, S’bongiseni Gwala, Cosmos Nkwanyane, Thina Khanyile and M’du Ngqulunga, of the Kennedy Road shack settlement, were arrested in connection with the death of a suspected criminal, Mzwakhe Sithole.

Insisting that the murder charge against them was orchestrated by police at Sydenham police station to destabilise the shack-dwellers’ movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo, and its affiliate, the Kennedy Road Development Committee, they are refusing to eat. They are demanding their immediate release and an investigation into Sithole’s death by policemen unconnected with the Sydenham police station. The men are adamant that if bail is not granted on Friday and the investigation continues unchanged, their fast will continue.

Kennedy Road residents handed a memorandum to Sydenham station Chief Superintendent Glen Nayagar on Tuesday accusing him of racism, “criminalising the poor” and colluding with criminals to destabilise shack settlements. It said Abahlali intended opening a civil case — backed by Amnesty International — against Nayagar, and demanded his resignation.

Sithole allegedly attacked Kennedy Road resident Khanyile on February 15, stabbing him 18 times before stealing his shoes and watch. Kennedy Road residents say community members arrested Sithole on February 18, forcibly restraining him before handing him over to the Sydenham police.

However, Nayagar said his officers “were alerted to an incident where someone was being terribly assaulted” at Kennedy Road. “The police … found [Sithole] terribly injured and moved him to the police station for his own safety and to open a case docket … While he was seated outside [the police station] waiting for an ambulance, he crossed the road and died.

“We can’t have … kangaroo courts and vigilante-style attacks in the area. We are confident of making more arrests in the settlement,” Nayagar said.

To see ‘I was punched & beaten’, Niren Tolsi’s eyewitness account of a previous instance of the racist, criminal thuggery of the Sydenham Police, click here.