Tuesday, 02 December 2008

Arnett Drive Resident Shot With Live Ammunition, by Securicor Guard

Nomhle Mkhetho, Thokozani Mkhotli & Nikiwe Zondi

On Tuesday last week (25/11) Thokozani Mkhotli, from the Arnett Drive settlement in Reservoir Hills, was shot by a Securicor Guard with live ammunition. The bullet entered his left buttock and emerged lower down in the front of his left thigh. The trajectory of the bullet shows clearly that he was shot from behind and from above. Thokozani is 33. He is from Bizana and works as a builder's labourer fixing ceilings.

http://www.khayelitshastruggles.com/2008/11/big-threat-to-informal-settlements.html

The Big Threat to Informal Settlements

by Mzonke Poni

More than 50% of people who do not have houses in South Africa are living at informal settlements, and informal settlements have been viewed as a step towards getting a house in South Africa.

Most people when getting to the City from rural areas, most of the time when they come they'll first squat (live) with their friend, family members or relatives, while they are still looking for a work but once they get a job the first thing that they will think about is to get their own place first so that they can have their own space or privacy. Most of the time people view this option as the best option to jump the queue from the housing list as they know that if they bought a house at informal settlement and when the area is being relocated or being developed they will also benefit as they also owned a house from the area and this most of the time create problem between people who are coming out side the City and with people who have been in the City longer or people who have been born in the City but does not have a house.

http://www.fahamu.org/publications/item/a_place_in_the_city/

A Place in the City

Nearly 15 years since apartheid ended, millions of black South Africans still live in self-built shacks – without sanitation, adequate water supplies, or electricity.

But A Place in the City will overturn all your assumptions about ‘slums’ and the people who live in them.

In this film, shot in the vast shack settlements in and around Durban, members of Abahlali baseMjondolo, the grassroots shackdwellers’ movement, lay out their case – against forcible eviction; for decent services – with passion, eloquence, and sweet reason. The film captures the horrible conditions in which shackdwellers live – but it also captures Abahlali’s bravery and resilience, in a political climate where grassroots campaigners like them are more likely to be met with rubber bullets than with offers to talk.

At 8 minutes this new version of Dear Mandela, specially made for the
Zero Evictions Campaign Video Contest, is two minutes longer than the original.

Tuesday, 25 November 2008
eMacambini Anti-Removal Committee Press Statement

Ten Thousand to March on S’bu Ndebele in Protest at eMacambini Evictions

Date: Wednesday 26 November 2008
Time: 10:00
Route: From Isithebe airstrip to the Mandeni Municipal Offices

At least ten thousand people are expected to march on KwaZulu-Natal Premier S’bu Ndebele tomorrow morning. A memorandum will be handed to the Premier warning him to immediately retract his plans to evict 10 000 families from eMacambini and to cease his collaboration with new forms of colonialism.

Late last night 15 month old Mzomjani Mvunyiswa was attacked by a giant rant and bitten on the hand, leg and forehead.

Mzomjani is the third infant to be attacked by a rat in the settlement this year. In January Nkosi Cwaka died after a rat attack and in July Wandile Cikwayo was seriously injured when a rat gnawed at her fingers.

These attacks are a direct consequence of the failure to provide adequate refuse collection to shack settlements. The movement does what it can to organise clean up days, weekly fires to burn the rubbish and so on. But despite years of struggle around this issue, and many promises, refuse collection remaims entirely irregular and inadequate. The remains from the last fire have still not been picked up despite promises that this would be done quickly.

http://www.khayelitshastruggles.com/2008/11/fires-at-rr-section.html

Fire At RR Section, Khayelitsha, Cape Town

More than 100 shacks burned down over the weekend at RR Section Site B and left more than 500 people homeless including women, children and disabled people.

It was early in the morning past one on Saturday when the fire started at RR Section and it started at one shack which is owned by a 30 year old man, according to the neighbour's he was drunk and left paraffin stove unattended and most people believed that he was the cause of the fire.

Siyanda 9 November 2008, the day before the big march. For pictures of the march click here and here.

10 November 2008
Siyanda Abahlali Branch

Demands addressed to Mike Mabuyakulu, the MEC for Housing in KwaZulu-Natal, by the Siyanda Abahlali baseMjondolo Branch

1. We demand adequate land and decent housing in the city.

2. We demand one house per family and not one house per shack.

Durban High Court, 6 November 2008

3 November 2008
Press Statement by the Abahlali baseMjondolo Youth League

Abahlali baseMjondolo Case Against the KwaZulu-Natal Eradication and Prevention of Re-Emergence of Slums Act to be Heard in the Durban High Court on 6 and 7 November 2008

Across the country the government is chasing the poor people out of the cities. Across the country we are mobilising to defend our right to the cities.

We are in the cities for good reasons – we need work, education, clinics, libraries and more. Pay is higher and prices are lower in the cities. Therefore we need land and housing in the cities. But the government only want our votes. They do not want us in the cities. Therefore we have said ‘No Land! No House! No Vote!’

http://www.khayelitshastruggles.com/2008/11/matt-spent-10-days-living-at-qq.html

'Be a visitor, not a spy' - QQ Section, Site B, Khayelitsha

Matt Birkinshaw, October 2008

Introduction

For the first time in history more people in the world now live in cities than in rural areas. Globally one in five people live on land that does not legally belong to them. The UN predicts that this will rise to one in three by 2050. The future, to paraphrase Mike Davis, is not made of glass and steel, but of plastic, zinc and cardboard.