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http://www.mg.co.za/article/2008-08-24-its-our-duty-not-to-be-silent

News | National | Land & Housing
'It's our duty not to be silent'
PEARLIE JOUBERT | CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA - Aug 24 2008 06:00

After 15 years of fighting with government and the Cape Town municipality about their right to live in Langa, the Joe Slovo community finally had their day in the Constitutional Court this week.

Opposing their right to continue living in Cape Town's Langa township -- earmarked for housing development -- were Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu, government-appointed housing agency Thubelisha Homes, former Western Cape housing minister Richard Dyantyi and the city of Cape Town.

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=326470&area=/insight/insight__national/

A lethal find
Pearlie Joubert
01 December 2007 11:59

A massive row is brewing between the Joe Slovo squatter community and the government after a Cape Town professor found the presence of the lethal crocidolite asbestos in material similar to that used to build the walls of temporary houses in Delft -- a suburb outside Cape Town where government wants to move this 25 000-strong community.

Crocidolite is the most lethal carcinogenic known and, if inhaled, causes mesothelioma, an aggressive and untreatable lung cancer. South Africa is believed to have the world’s highest rate of masothelioma and one of the highest rates of asbestosis.

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=321174&area=/insight/insight__national/

When Cape Judge President John Hlophe ordered a nine-week postponement to the state's attempt to evict about 25 000 Joe Slovo residents from their shacks in Langa, the 2 000 people outside court broke into wild celebratory song.

The 6 000 households of Joe Slovo have been opposing government's attempts to remove them from this piece of land bordering the N2 highway for close to three years now. Every week people are allowed to stay in Joe Slovo is seen as another victory against the state's attempt to remove them forcibly to the outskirts of Cape Town.

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=320524&area=/insight/insight__national/

Courtroom number one in the Cape Town High Court is proof that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

On Wednesday, an entire Bench in court was taken up by senior government and housing officials all anxious to secure eviction orders so they can start the relocation of about 5 000 homeless Joe Slovo residents -- “relocation” is the preferred term used by the political authorities these days for “forced removals”.

Outside court 1 500 residents of Joe Slovo informal settlement in Langa sat in the road patiently waiting to hear their fate. When local leaders announced the judge’s ruling of an eight-day stay of execution the ululations and cheers could be heard for blocks.

Here's a story which mentions another 'no vote' campaign, this time in Khayelitsha, organised from within the shacks. Sadly, the article reproduces precisely the standard narratives of criminality in shacks against which Abahlali have consistently railed, in reports such as Make Crime History or The Strong Poor and the Police. Yet the existence of another no-vote campaign, mentioned even in passing in a national newspaper, points to a widespread understanding by poor people about their only recourse in getting elected officials to listen to them - other mechanisms of democracy having failed.