Issed by: Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa (SERI)
27 September 2012

KENNEDY ROAD SHACKDWELLERS SUE POLICE

Former residents of the Kennedy Road informal settlement in Durban are pursuing damages claims against the South African Police Service (SAPS) and the eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality, three years after the police failed to protect them from an armed gang that invaded the settlement in September 2009. This is an important case because it holds the police responsible to prevent violence perpetuated by others when it is in a position to do so.

On 25 September 2012, summons and particulars of claim were served and filed in the Durban High Court. Abahlali baseMjondolo (Abahlali), a national movement of shackdwellers, is also a plaintiff in the proceedings, along with the 52 individuals. This action comes after the residents gave notice of their intention to pursue a damages claim in terms of section 3 of the Institution of Legal Proceedings against Certain Organs of State Act 40 of 2002 on 24 March 2010.

27 September 2012
Abahlali baseMjondolo press statement

Three Years after the Attack on our Movement, the Kennedy Road Displacees Remain Homeless and in Exile

The attack on Abahlali baseMjondolo in 2009 set a tone for KwaZulu-Natal to become the province where warlordism and the assassination of leaders and activists has become the order of the day. It was also a warning to the poor that we should accept landlessness, homelessness and all forms of injustices and inequality as the order of the day if we want to survive this democracy.

It was on the night of the 26th, 27th and 28th of September 2009 that the whole political plot was concluded and carried out to assassinate the leadership of Abahlali. We know and we want the nation and the whole world to know that this plot was planned at a very high political level in our province. The plot was not just aimed at reigniting the politic of fear and assassination among those of us who refuse to accept fear. It was also aimed at tearing apart our movement - a movement that has brought us together, a movement that has made us realise how much power and value we have when we stand together. A movement that has shown us how we were made poor by colonial rule, by apartheid and by the post-apartheid state. A movement that has insisted that democracy means that everyone has the same right to participate in decision making and that the land, cities and wealth of our country must be shared and managed equally.

Monday, 12 March 2012
Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Statement

Abahlali Members who were Displaced in September 2009 Still Homeless

Two weeks ago IFP members fought with NFP members at Hostel 17 in Umlazi Township. That political violence left one person dead and it left some people homeless. The Minister of Safety and Security intervened to mediate between the two parties that were fighting. This is very good and is something which we welcome. We also acknowledge that the new Mayor of the eThekwini Municipality took the Umlazi violence into his attention and is working on it. However this activism of the Minister and the Mayor is raising so many questions.

Dark corners of the state we're in

Padkos from the Church Land Programme

Just after the attacks on Kennedy Road in 2009, S'bu Zikode, then President of the shack-dwellers' movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo said:

"This attack is an attempt to suppress the voice that has emerged from the dark corners of our country. That voice is the voice of ordinary poor people. This attack is an attempt to terrorise that voice back into the dark corners. It is an attempt to turn the frustration and anger of the poor onto the poor so that we will miss the real enemy....Our crime is a simple one. We are guilty of giving the poor the courage to organise the poor. We are guilty of trying to give ourselves human values. We are guilty of expressing our views. Those in power are determined not to take instruction from the poor. They are determined that the people shall not govern. What prospects are there for the rest of the country if the invasion of Kennedy Road is overlooked? ... Our message to the movements, the academics, the churches and the human rights groups is this: We are calling for close and careful scrutiny into the nature of democracy in South Africa" (29th September 2009).

http://www.counterpunch.org/pithouse08012011.html

No Easy Path Through the Embers

By RICHARD PITHOUSE

In Texaco, his novel about the history of a shack settlement in Martinique, Patrick Chamoiseau writes of a “proletariat without factories, workshops, and work, and without bosses, in the muddle of odd jobs, drowning in survival and leading an existence like a path through embers.” But Texaco is also a novel of struggle, of struggle with the “persistence of Sisyphus”- struggle to hold a soul together in the face of relentless destruction amidst a “disaster of asbestos, tin sheets crates, mud tears, blood, police”. Texaco is a novel of barricades, police and fire, a struggle to “call forth the poet in the urban planner”, a struggle to “enter City”. It's about the need to “hold on, hold on, and moor the bottom of the your heart in the sand of deep freedom.”

19 July 2011
Democratic Left Front

Press statement: Celebrate the acquittal of the Kennedy Road 12! Investigate the role of the SAPS and the ANC in the September 2009 attack on Kennedy Road

Mnikelo Ndabankulu speaks outside the court

The Democratic Left Front (DLF) salutes the 12 members of Abahlali BaseMijondolo (AbM) from Kennedy Road in eThekwini who were acquitted of all charges of murder. Their arrest and trial followed a September 2009 attack on AbM in the Kennedy Road informal settlement eThekwini. All evidence pointed fingers at ANC-mobilised and police-supported attackers who were heavily armed and used ethnicity part of their strategy. ANC involvement in the attack was confirmed by ANC provincial statements that heralded this attack as the ‘liberation’ of the area. For months after the attack the homes of AbM leaders were openly and publicly attacked with impunity by the local ANC. Many had to leave the area.

HALALA FOR the Kennedy 12

We see this as a great day for the 12, their families, their movement and the struggle of the poor in South Africa. From day we as the SDCEA were suspicious of the so called charges that were brought against Abahlali comrades ,we believed that these were trumped up to destroy the movement of the poor.We as the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance wish to extend our deepest congratulations to our comrades and our brothers in the movement for their steadfast resolve to challenge this injustice since their arrest.

We will continue to stand by the poor no matter what the situation . We have heard in the courts the false evidence presented from some of the witness presented and knew this could never stand the test of the truth as it was clear that there was no evidence against any of the accused and that there had been an attempt to frame them.

Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa (SERI)
[Media Release, 18 July 2011]

"Kennedy 12" Acquitted

Magistrate criticises “dishonest” and “unreliable” witnesses

Twelve members of Abahlali baseMjondolo - a shackdwellers movement based in
Durban - brought to trial on spurious charges ranging from public violence to
murder, were acquitted today in the Durban Regional Court.

The activists were prosecuted in the aftermath of the attacks on Abahlali’s
members residing in the Kennedy Road Informal Settlement on 27 and 28 September
2009. Abahlali members were evicted from the settlement by an armed gang

18 July 2011
Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Statement

The Victory in the Kennedy 12 Trial is a Victory for all the Poor in South Africa

The Kennedy 12 have been acquitted of all the charges bought against them after the attack on our movement in September 2009. It is a great day for the 12, their families, our movement and the struggle of the poor in South Africa.

We wish to begin by extending our deepest, heartfelt gratitude to all our comrades and our partners around the world who have supported the 12 and our movement since the attack. We must thank our Alliance partners, the Rural Network, LPM, and the AEC; our comrades in the UPM and the Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front; Bishop Rubin Philip of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, the Diakonia Council of churches, and all the other church leaders that stood with us; the German churches; the Church Land Programme; the Human Rights organization around the world, particularly Amnesty International, the Centre for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in New York; our comrades in the grassroots organisations in the US from Chicago to New York City and the Bay Area in California, our comrades in Moscow (Russia), Italy, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria and Belgium. We also want to thank all the academics and leading scholars who signed a powerful petition in our support and all those who academics who wrote articles in our defence while we and our supporters were under attack. Most importantly we want to thank our Legal Team from the Socio-Economic Rights Institute (SERI). There are so many of you, we cannot mention you all by name, but we thank you all. We are not alone in this struggle.