(For the archive)
http://www.mg.co.za/articledirect.aspx?articleid=241580&area=%2fmonitor%2f
25 May 2005

In March 19, 750 people from the Kennedy Road informal settlement in Clare Estate, Durban, blockaded Kennedy Road with burning tires and mattresses for four hours.

Residents in the informal settlement had been promised for more than a decade that a small spit of land in nearby Elf Road would be made available to them for the development of housing. They were participating in discussions about the development of this housing when bulldozers began clearing the land. People were shocked to be told that a brick factory was being built.

Shack Fires Are No Accident

Raj Patel & Richard Pithouse

Before the Treatment Action Campaign successfully politicised AIDS it was widely assumed that people killed by the HI virus had died from natural causes. Now, outside of the Presidency, it is widely accepted that people who die from AIDS are most often killed by a profoundly immoral policy rather than a treatable virus.

A similar politicisation needs to be fought for with regard to shack fires. Disastrous fires are regular events in shack settlements. People are regularly killed and badly burnt. They are also subject to the major set backs that follow from a total loss of property, including things like I.D. books and school uniforms that are necessary to access the resources that the state does provide to the poor.