Delft Anti-Eviction Campaign Press Statement
9 October, 2008 - For Immediate Release

A few days ago, Jerome Daniels and Riedwaan Issacs were released parole after their lawyer lodged an appeal to the ruling of Magistrate Van Graan. Jerome and Riedwaan, who have been serving their sentences in Polsmoor and Goodwood prisons, where sentenced by Van Graan who argued that he needed to hold the defendants responsible even if they were not present during the incident and that he furthermore needed to "teach the Anti-Eviction Campaign a lesson".

The AEC maintains that the ruling is both politically motivated and an attempt discourage poor South Africans from participating in social movements such as the Anti-Eviction Campaign. Residents of Symphony Way have stated that "if the justice system was fair, the Magistrate would never have sentenced Jerome and Wanie in what his judgment stated was in the interest of the community. Because if you ask anyone in our community, the judgment meant that we had lost two of our most tireless community workers. This was obviously not in our interest."

Floods Rock the City

Joint AbM and AEC Press Statement
24 September 2008

Gugulethu -- About 50 residents from Thambo Square informal settlement have been displaced from their homes to a local community hall as a result of flooding in their shacks (Cape Town's heavy rain this winter has left a lot of people homeless in the City.

The devastated group early this morning marched to the office of their local Department of Social Development seeking immediate relief or intervention such as building material for their shacks, plastic to put over their roof, blankets and a temporary sleeping place. However all they were able to get from Social Development was an unpleasing response. People were told that the ANC government had nothing to do with their situation and they must go to DA. When trying to question the unpleasing response by government, instead of receiving a proper report, the police were called to intimidate and threaten the residents. Residents then went back to their flooded homes in Thambo Square informal settlement.

Breaking News: Siyanda shack-dwellers, facing eviction from the MR577 Freeway site, are staging ongoing marches to halt building and allocations at the Kulula Housing Project. The contractors have just been stopped from proceeding with the patently unfair allocation of housing that has been undertaken without any form of meaningful consultation. There is a heavy police presence again today and the situation is tense. (There is an article in yesterday's Isolezwe here.)

Update: A summary of the report has now been published at Pambazuka and it has been discussed in an article in the Sunday Tribune

Monday 8 September 2008
Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Release

A Big Devil in the Jondolos
Abahlali baseMjondolo Launches a Report on Shack Fires in Advance of the City Wide Shack Fire Summit on 22 September 2008

This picture, by the M&G, is from another fire in Kennedy Road earlier in the year.

Well more than a hundred shacks burnt down in the Kennedy Road settlement this morning. This is the 7th fire in the settlement this year.

Abahlali baseMjondolo condemns the eThekwini Municipality's inhuman 2001 decision to stop electrifying shacks on the grounds that it is too expensive. There is a direct link between this decision and the fires as the fires are caused by candles and paraffin stoves.

Abahlali baseMjondolo has just won a major court victory against evictions. But outside the court the eThekwini Municipality is currently demolishing shacks in the Siyanda settlement. There is no court order and so, according to South African law, these demolitions are illegal and criminal acts. Media are urged to rush to the scene.

The shacks that are being demolished were built a month ago after renters in the area were left homeless when shack owners were moved to RDP houses and the renters illegally left homeless. This happens in every relocation or upgrade in Durban and in South Africa it is a completely illegal and in fact criminal act to leave someone homeless. The people who have been made homeless again today, just after being made homeless last month, will rebuild again. What else can they do? This is the cruel reality of the government's plans to eradicate shacks: give houses to shack owners and leave shack renters, the poorest of the poor, homeless and desperate.

Sunday, 24 August 2008
Abahlali baseMjondolo eThekwini Press Release

Why are Shack Dwellers Excluded from the Discussions About the Cornubia Development?

Nothing for Us, Without Us!

There has been much discussion about the Cornubia housing development in the press. The City and the political parties have had their say. Tongaat-Hulett, the company that owns the land, have had their say. The technical experts have had their say. Shack dwellers' organisations have not had their say. We who live with the rats in the mud and the fires have not had our say. We who were publicly promised houses in this development in November 2005 have not had our say. We who have been beaten and arrested while defending our right to speak for ourselves, defending our communities from eviction, and defending our right to decent housing in the city have not had our say.

Update: 20 August 16:46 Word has just been received that another home, this one occupied by 3 families, is burning in Motala Heights....

19 August 2008
Press Release from the Motala Heights Abahlali baseMjondolo Branch

Armed De-Electrification in the Motala Heights Settlement

This morning an eThekwini Municipal official invaded the Motala Heights settlement with a group of security guards. They drew their guns, said that they were there to disconnect what they call 'illegal electricity connections' and what every one else calls 'lifesaving community connections' and threatened to shoot anyone that resisted.

(Click here to read this statement in Italiano.)

Abahlali baseMjondolo (eThekwini) Press Statement
Friday, 08 August 2008

Let us Work Together to Stop the Plague of Shack Fires
Abahlali baseMjondolo Calls for a Shack Fire Summit

Obed Mlaba's house is symbolically burnt on 28 November 2007 in protest at the plague of fires.

This weekend the eight people that burnt to death in two shack fires in Cato Crest will be buried. This weekend we will continue to rebuild the Kennedy Road settlement after two fires in two weeks.

Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Statement
Friday August 8, 2008 - For Immediate Release

Date: 9th August, 2008 (Saturday)
Time: 14h00 – 16h00
Venue: QQ Revolutionary Community Crèche

QQ Section – Tomorrow, the newly formed AbM Western Cape will be holding a workshop for over 10 informal settlements in Khayelitsha on the City's 'Comprehensive Plan' for Informal Settlements.

Speakers at the workshop will include: Mzwandile Sokupa, Director of Informal Settlements for the City of Cape Town, Helen Macgregor from Development Action Group, Professor Martin Legassick, and others.

The aim of the workshop includes the following: