Joe Slovo community and Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign mass march on FNB this Wednesday 28 November

Thousands of people will march on FNB Bank in Cape Town this Wednesday 28th November 2007 at 10am. The communities who are marching include Joe Slovo, Langa; Gugulethu Backyard Dwellers; QQ Section; Mandela Park; Site C Khayelitsha; Tafelsig; Blue Downs; Hanover Park; Gympie Street; Newfields Village.

The organisations are marching on First National Bank because the bank has bought the land currently housing the Joe Slovo community, knowing full well that this community is refusing to move from the place where they have stayed for the past 10 or more years. FNB has also contracted with government to build houses costing R150 – R300 000. This means that FNB is directly complicit in the forced removal of the citizens of Joe Slovo. We do not accept their argument that they only bought the land because they are working in partnership with the government to deliver to the people. This is a bald-faced lie as they know that 6000 people live in Joe Slovo now and yet they are building only a few hundred expensive houses which will not even accommodate 1% of the current community, who are overwhelmingly jobless and cannot afford them anyway.

All the communities are against the privatised, poorly built housing and the partnership between the ANC, DA and the Banks with regards to housing. These housing projects are plaguing the country currently and are making the lives of the poor a misery because they are so badly built that they force the poor to spend what little money they have on repairs. After this the banks/government hike the rents and when the poor cannot pay, having spent their money on repairing the houses, they are evicted.

The march starts at 9am at Cape Town station on Wednesday 28th November.

A FULL PRESS STATEMENT WILL BE ISSUED LATER TODAY.

This will be part of a continuing campaign against the bank.

For comment call:
Mzwanele Zulu – Joe Slovo Task Team representative – 076 385 2369
Mzonke Poni – QQ Section, Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign – 073 2562036
Ashraf Cassiem – Tafelsig, Western Cape Anti-Eviction campaign – 076 1861408
Mncedisi Twala – Gugulethu Backyard Dwellers, WC AEC – 078 5808646
Gary Hartzenberg – Newfields Village, WC AEC – 072 3925859

Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign Press Statement

27th November 2007 11am

Thousands to march on First National Bank in Cape Town tomorrow

The Joe Slovo community and dozens of other communities affiliated to the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign will march on First National Bank in Cape Town tomorrow (28 November 2007).

The march will leave from Cape Town station at 9am under the theme “Asiyi eDelft!” (We won’t go to Delft)

The communities want to show their support for the Joe Slovo residents, who are currently resisting a forced removal to Delft, and also to protest about evictions and water cut offs in their own communities.

Mzonke Poni of QQ Section Campaign, and a Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign leader, says that the Temporary Relocation Areas (TRA’s) in Delft “are like a concentration camp. No tarred roads, rubbish in the streets, public toilets only many of which have been closed for a year so people must relieve themselves in the bush. People in the TRA’s are living in limbo, unhappy, tolerating the awful conditions only in the hope that they will get a real house. But Thubelisha has promised 9500 houses to more than 20,000 families — from Joe Slovo, New Rest, Barcelona, Boys Town Crossroads etc, as well as to Delft backyarders and to people from Nyanga, Malawi and many other places. It is a recipe for conflict, misery, and disaster.”

Mncedisi Twala, Chaiperson of the Gugulethu Backyard Dwellers Forum said that “Delft is the dumping place for the poor. The ANC’s economic policy is chasing the previously and currently disadvantaged people. First National Bank contributed to the killing of black people in the past by giving millions of rands to the apartheid regime and now FNB is taking the land of the poor people everywhere in the townships.”

Jane Roberts and Margaret Lotz, from the Leiden Delft Anti-Eviction Campaign said that they did not advise anyone to accept forced removal to Delft. “Crime and violence are extremely high in Delft. There are frequent water cut-offs. Where will the Langa children go to school because Delft schools are already very overcrowded. Children play in the streets here and get run over by cars frequently. As the Leiden Anti-Eviction Campaign we support the idea that houses must be built for people where they are already staying,” said Roberts and Lotz.

Willie Heyn, Chairperson of the Gympie Street Residents Committee said that the Gympie Street residents have pledged their support for the Joe Slovo residents because they face the same problem. “The residents of Joe Slovo received an eviction letter from Lindiwe Sisulu’s office with an alternative of moving to an area far away, while Gympie Street received an eviction letter/threat from a landlord to move ‘peacefully’ or face the consequences. Our young democracy is falling into ruin,” said Heyn.

Professor Emeritus Martin Legassick, and an Anti-Eviction campaign activist said that “Thubelisha Housing Company wrongly accuses the Joe Slovo task team of ‘intimidating’ people into opposing going to Delft. When people were moved from Joe Slovo after the 2005 fire, cranes loomed over their houses and they were told “move, or all your belongings will be gone.” Was that not intimidation?”

…/ends

For further comment please call:

* Mzwanele Zulu – Joe Slovo Task Team representative – 076 385 2369
* Mzonke Poni – QQ Section, Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign – 073 2562036
* Ashraf Cassiem – Tafelsig, Western Cape Anti-Eviction campaign – 076 1861408
* Mncedisi Twala – Gugulethu Backyard Dwellers, WC AEC – 078 5808646
* Gary Hartzenberg – Newfields Village, WC AEC – 072 3925859