City Sees Red Over Protests

(For the archive)
http://www.sundaytribune.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=3440988

September 17, 2006

Abahlali baseMjondolo is the shackdwellers’ movement that grew out of a protest organised from the Kennedy Road settlement in Clare Estate on Saturday, March 19, 2005. The protest was organised after a piece of nearby land, long-promised for housing, was suddenly sold off to a developer.

On that day Alfred Mdletshe told the Sunday Tribune’s Fred Kockott, the first journalist on the scene, “We are tired of living and walking in shit. The council must allocate land for housing us. Instead, they are giving it to developers to make money.”

The movement quickly spread to nearby settlements, then across Durban, to Pinetown and Pietermaritzburg. Abahlali now have members in more than 30 settlements.

Their highly democratic mode of organising, the deeply humanistic statements of the elected President, S’bu Zikode, and their thoughtful use of legal marches, negotiations and other tactics has won them attention, from community media to Al Jazeera and the New York Times.

Recently, leading figures like Bishop Reuben Philip and poet Dennis Brutus have lent their credibility to Abahlali’s struggle for genuine democratic governance, access to services and decent housing in the city.

Violence

But the state has responded with consistent repression, most of it patently illegal. This has included the illegal banning of marches and severe police violence. More than 100 members have been arrested since March last year, but in every instance charges have been dropped for lack of evidence. The power of arrest is being systematically misused as a form of political intimidation.

On Monday, September 4, Abahlali used the Promotion of Access to Information Act to demand that City Manager Mike Sutcliffe tell them what the city’s plans were for them. The next day Mxolisi Nkosi, head of the provincial department of housing, called Abahlali to berate them and demand that they cease speaking to the media.

Abahlali refused to be silenced, out-arguing housing department spokesman Lennox Mabaso in two major radio debates. Council worker Nonhlanhla Mzobe, a key Abahlali activist, found her boss had received a letter from a councillor, demanding she be fired for supporting the “red shirts”.

The following Monday Abahlali, together with community organisations from the municipal flats in Wentworth and Chatsworth, protested outside a Housing Summit at the International Convention Centre. Again this put them all over the newspapers, radio and TV.

On Tuesday, Abahlali were invited to be on Gagasi FM from 6pm to 7pm. They had recently raised money through a 16-team football tournament for transport between the settlements. Some of this money was used to hire a small car, a Tazz, to help with all the getting round for radio interviews and meetings after taxis have stopped running.

About 5.40pm S’bu Zikode, Philani Zungu (Deputy President) and Mnikelo Ndabankulu (PRO) got into the car to leave for the radio interview. While the car was still stationary, officers from the Sydenham police station pounced. They thrust guns into their faces, accused them of driving a stolen vehicle and ordered the three men out of the car.

When they saw that Ndabankulu was wearing one of the famous red Abahlali T-shirts they pulled it off him, insulted him, pushed him around, threw the shirt on to the ground, made a great show of standing and spitting on it and announced that “there will be no more red shirts here”.

Philani Zungu politely but firmly told them they had no right to act like this and suggested this was racist political intolerance. He was assaulted.

Zikode was also assaulted as the two were bundled into the van. The police picked up Ndabankulu’s red shirt and said they were taking it “to use as a mop in the station”.

Ndabankulu, Zikode’s wife Sindi, Zungu’s mother, Ma Zungu, and a handful of others soon got to the nearby Sydenham Police Station. They were denied entrance, sworn at and racially abused. Someone sent an SMS to Gagasi FM, saying their guests were under arrest. This was announced on air.

Crowd

Within minutes, Abahlali started arriving from all over Durban and Pinetown.

There was soon a crowd of about 40 outside the station. Access to the prisoners and medical attention for Zungu were denied. The police refused to say what the charge was.

In the nearby Kennedy Road settlement, an emergency mass meeting was being held in the hall. An SMS was sent to people at the police station to see if bail was possible. The police said no. When the meeting heard there would be no bail, a group of women in the front decided to march on the police station.

Within minutes of people getting on to the road, the police arrived. They gave no warnings and began shooting with rubber bullets and live ammunition. A woman in her 40s, known as Zinovia, was shot in both legs.

Back at the police station, there was a glimpse of Zikode and Zungu lying face-down on the floor, handcuffed and bound at the feet. Ndabankulu’s red shirt lay on the floor next to them. In the charge office a whiteboard was headed “Suspicious Behaviour” and listed “3 Black Men Driving a Tazz”. It was announced that Zikode and Zungu were to be charged with assaulting a police officer.

Word was received that the police were continuing to shoot in the settlement and that there had been an attempt to fight back with stones. Zikode sent out two cellphone messages.

One said “Please look after Sindi!” Zikode was assured that Sindi was fine and asked if he wanted people to protest outside the police station, as they were determined to do, or to make a tactical retreat in the hope of calming the police down. He replied, “Up to them! I am fighting for them. Not for myself.”

Threatening

Suddenly, outside the police station, a group of men in camouflage arrived. They declared the collection an illegal gathering and began herding people, using their guns like cattle prods and threatening to shoot. One of the policemen shouted, in Fanakalo, “Hamba inja! Hamba!” (Go, dog, go!).

The next morning there were hundreds of Abahlali in the Durban Magistrate’s Court. The magistrate released Zikode and Zungu without asking for bail. They were joyously carried out on the shoulders of their comrades. Both men had visible wounds and said they had been assaulted by a police officer.

Another red shirt will be sewn for Mnikelo Ndabankulu on a rented hand-held pedal-powered sewing machine. But the city’s democratic credentials are in tatters that will not be sewn together by more empty pomposity at the ICC, or wasting billions of rand on another airport and stadium.

This assault on two men trying to get to a radio interview was an assault on democracy. If the rulers of this city do not accept that the poor have a right to disagree with the powerful, our future will be as ugly as Sydenham Police Station.

# Sydenham Police station commissioner Supt Glen Nayager referred all queries to police spokeswoman Supt Danelia Veldhuizen. Veldhuizen denied police had fired on the crowd but confirmed that Zikode and Zungu had filed counter charges of assault against the police.

“One of the accused did receive medical treatment while in police custody, as he was injured while trying to resist arrest,” said Veldhuizen.