Friday, 06 July 2018

Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Statement

Open Assembly in eKukhayeni on Saturday

Tomorrow our movement will hold an open, public assembly in eKukhayeni in Marianhill where S’fiso Ngcobo, our branch chairperson, was assassinated on 22 May 2018.

The ward councillor in the area, who is known as ‘Khekhe’, has vowed to destroy our movement. We have received numerous warnings, including from sympathetic people within the police and the ANC, that it will not be safe for us to go ahead with our meeting tomorrow. 

We will not give into the politic of fear and death. We will hold an open, public meeting. The rights to associate freely, to speak freely and to organise freely were won in struggle. We cannot give them up to ward councillors, or traditional leaders, who do not think that impoverished black people should be able to participate in democratic life. We cannot give up our right to democratic life to the gangsters who control the ANC in Durban, and who only see the lives of impoverished black people as tools for their own personal enrichment via state corruption.

We continue to receive death threats, and we are receiving more and more credible warnings from outside of our organisation indicating that another assassination is imminent. We do believe that we are at grave risk. We are hoping that the recent media attention on the assassinations in Durban will give us some protection tomorrow and request the media to be present tomorrow. However most assassinations happen at night at people’s homes, and this is where we remain most vulnerable.

We are requesting all the democratic forces in South Africa to pay close attention to what is happening in Durban, and in KwaZulu-Natal, and to take clear and active positions against political gangsterism and for democracy.

Thapelo Mohapi 062 892 5323

Mqapheli Bonono 073 067 3274