An open letter to participants in the Social Movements Indaba

The Western Cape Anti Eviction Campaign wishes to make clear to all social movements and participants in the Social Movements Indaba that its representatives will not be attending the SMI to be held in Cape Town from 2-5 December 2007.

We have seen the "Planned Agenda" and want to make absolutely clear that we did not give the SMI leadership permission to cite our name as participants. We reject the dishonesty of the SMI leadership in this regard with the utmost contempt. Our inclusion as participants will mislead other social movements throughout South Africa, Africa and internationally. It also will mislead funders such as the Rosa Luxembourg Foundation who have partly financed this gathering of the SMI

The Strong Poor & the Police

by Philani Zungu

Abahlali have discovered that when the strong poor speak for ourselves the people who are paid to speak for us, from local councillors, to Mike Sutcliffe and some NGOs and academics, call us criminal. They ignore the fact that it is hundreds of years of crimes against our ancestors that have driven us into the shacks and that even in these shacks the municipality breaks the law when it demolishes our homes. It seems that when ever we want the same rights as other citizens we will be called criminal. Often the powerful people who call us criminal for telling the truth get the police to attack us.

Here is the full 40 mins of unedited video footage of the Abahlali baseMjondolo and Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign protest against the Social Movements Indaba, in two parts:

Part I

Part II

Following this article in the M&G the following letter was sent to the Mail and Guardian but, despite their publishing three letters attacking Abahlali baseMjondolo in a specially dedicated extension of the letters page, it was not published. (Scroll down to read What Happened at or to the SMI)

Letter from the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign to the Mail and Guardian

The Western Cape Anti Eviction Campaign (WCAEC) was, together with the Anti-Privatisation Forum, Jubilee South Africa and the Landless People’s Movement, a founder of the Social Movement Indaba (SMI) in 2002. That is why it is incorrect for your reporter Niren Tolsi (“On the far side of left”, December 8-14) to echo the claim of SMI secretariat member Mondi Hlatshwayo that the WCAEC “invaded” the December 2006 SMI in Durban. The SMI was set up as a platform for social movements and we regarded its space as our space. Yet some SMI ‘leaders’ attempted to deny us and Abahlali baseMjondolo access to the meeting!

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=292905&area=/insight/insight__national/
08 December 2006 11:59

On the far side of left
Niren Tolsi

Mass Action 101 User’s Manual: Chanting “Down Babylon!” is to be encouraged -- but not when directed at fellow far-left activists.

Chanting members of the KwaZulu-Natal shack-dwellers movement Abahlali baseMjondolo and the Western Cape’s Anti-Eviction Campaign raised major hackles when they invaded the Social Movement Indaba’s (SMI) five-day annual pow-wow at the University of KwaZulu-Natal on Sunday, interrupting it for three noisy hours.