Impi Yokulwa Nabampofu! War on the Poor!

Wednesday, 22 April 2020
Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Statement

Impi yokulwa nabampofu iyaqhubeka eThekwini

The war against the poor continues in Durban

At around 6:30 last night armed members of the notoriously violent Calvin & Family Security Company arrived at the eKhenana occupation in Cato Manor, Durban, and started taking photographs of people’s homes. The residents asked them to desist at which point they became aggressive and violent, and fired live ammunition at unarmed people. They were shooting all over. Doors were kicked open while old people and children were in their homes. People were insulted, assaulted, humiliated and robbed of cash and phones at gunpoint. 

When the abuse, threats and theft were over a delegation from the occupation went to the Cato Manor police station, known as KwaKito, to open charges of theft, assault, and attempted murder against Calvin & Family Security Company. The police refused to open a case, called the people trying to open the case criminals and threatened them with arrest and assault. The residents were chased out of the police station.

Today, at around 12:45 Calvin & Family Security Company returned to the eKhenana occupation and began destroying homes. They destroyed 14 homes while the Durban Metro Police looked on.

In February 2019 the residents of this settlement secured an interdict from the High Court preventing the eThekwini Municipality from illegally evicting them. The evictions in Durban today were in violation of the interdict, the Constitution, the law and the lockdown regulations.

Just now, at around 6:00 pm, the Azania Occupation was attacked again by Calvin & Family Security. Four homes have been destroyed and two of the big collective houses (izitimela) that were built after the recent evictions have also been destroyed. The injured are being rushed to King Edward Hospital.

Right now, the Durban Metro Police are at the eKhenana occupation in numbers insulting people and threatening to attack.

In recent days there have also been a number of illegal and violent evictions carried out by the notorious Red Ants security company, and the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police. A number of people have been injured and hundreds of homes, some made of bricks, have been destroyed.

When there were evictions in Cape Town the ANC expressed solidarity with the people under attack, and the minister of housing even visited the community, condemned the evictions and ordered that building materials be provided for the people who have been evicted. However, the ANC is silent on the evictions taking place in Durban and Johannesburg. This shows that their position in Cape Town is nothing but gross political opportunism. A principled politics would be against all evictions everywhere.

If the ANC were serious about the rule of law, and the moratorium on evictions during the lockdown, they would have moved to stop them from the first day, and they would have arrested the mayors of Durban and Johannesburg, as well as the bosses of Calvin & Family Security and the Red Ants. However, they do nothing. They say nothing. They pretend like they care about us when they are on TV but in really like we are treated like we are nothing, like we are not even human beings.

The failure of the ANC and the national state to act against the ongoing evictions in Durban and Johannesburg makes them complicit with these ongoing violent and illegal attacks on impoverished black people, attacks undertaken in a moment of global crisis.

In Durban it has been made very clear that our movement is being specifically targeted.

If you are poor and black in this country you do not count to the law. You are treated as if you are beneath the law. Your life and your family and your home and your dignity as a human being count for nothing.

In this crisis the government comes to us with bullets, not bread.

Umzabalazo uyaqhubeka noma besidubula.

Mqapheli Bonono 073 0673 274
Lindokuhle Mnguni 081 491 4027
Nomsa Sizani 081 005 3686