21 August 2015
PRESS STATEMENT: THE UNITED FRONT SALUTES ABAHLALI BASEMIJONDOLO FOR ITS COURT VICTORY OVERTURNING ILLEGAL EVICTIONS IN SISONKE VILLAGE AND CATO CREST
The United Front welcomes and celebrates with Abahlali baseMijondolo (AbM) the judgment delivered against the MEC for Human Settlements and the eThekwini Municipality in the Durban High Court today. The judgment sets aside and interim interdict sought by the MEC and Municipality which would have allowed it to continue evicting landless people from shacks on open lands. Until now the MEC has been using the interim interdict to evict hundreds of families using brutal police methods. Thanks to the dedicated struggle of AbM, together with the Socio-Economic Rights Institute (SERI) and the Legal Resources Centre (LRC), this victory has been won.
The judgment underlines the government’s utter failure to provide universal decent housing. Instead, government resorts to use the law and its security apparatus to use repression, violence and evictions of homeless and landless people who are merely eking out a living as they seek a place under the sun. The judgment also opens the door for people’s movements to challenge the constitutionality of the inadequate Prevention of Illegal Eviction Act 19 of 1998 (the PIE Act). Instead of advancing the right to housing and the need for accelerated land redistribution, this Act does not outlaw evictions. It merely outlaws them. This law gives the state and land owners inordinate rights to undermine the right to housing and just distribution and ownership of land. The United Front calls on the AbM and other fighting organisations of the landless and homeless to use this court judgment to challenge the PIE Act.
The United Front calls on all landless people and South Africans facing the housing crisis to stand with AbM. It is a struggle for the humanity, justice and dignity which is provided for by some degree with adequate housing. It is a struggle in a country led by a government which fails to provide humanity and dignity to its people but squanders hundred of millions of rands on one man’s home in Nkandla.
The United Front is THE home for social movements, civics and other fighting organisations of the landless and homeless. Let us all unite in mobilising the fighting and transformative power of poor and landless people for dignity and decent housing for all.
ENDS
FOR COMMENTS, CONTACT:
- Kwezilomso Mbandazayo – Interim National Co-Convenor, 082 817 0097
- Mazibuko K. Jara – Interim National Secretary, 083 987 9633
- John Appolis – Interim Campaigns Coordinator, 071 623 5996
- Dinga Sikwebu – National Coordinator, 078 457 9855