Siyanda Eviction to Richmond Farm: 26 Families Left Homeless, Housing Misallocation and Reports of Corruption Continue

This is what development looks like from the inside...

SIYANDA – 17 March 2009 – At 5am on a rainy Tuesday, 50 Siyanda families in Siyanda Section C began to dismantle their shacks in compliance with a negotiated relocation order to the Richmond Farm transit camp. The Department of Transport and the eThekwini Municipality had sought their eviction to make way for the new MR577 freeway. People had agreed to go to new houses in the Khalula Project but then their houses were sold off corruptly. They were then told to go to the Richmond Farm Transit Camp (government shacks) with no garuantees of when, if ever, they would get houses. They refused this and rebelled. Eventually they went to court and they won in court - they won an investigation into the corruption, that various measures would be put in place to ensure judicial oversight over conditions in the camp and that no one would spend more than one year there before being given a formal house

Friday, 06 March 2009
Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Statement

Siyanda Win in Court
The Struggle Against Corruption and Transit Camps Continues

Waiting on the steps of the Durban High Court

Today eight orders were granted in favour of Abahlali baseMjondolo in the Durban High Court. The orders that have been granted are a breakthrough. We can call this a landmark judgment because the orders provide for judicial oversight of the new and entirely notorious phenomenon of the transit camp – also known by the government as decant areas in Jo’burg, as temporary relocation areas in Cape Town and as amatins, blikkies and government shacks by the people. However while it is progress to get judicial oversight over the transit camps our aim is to eradicate them entirely. We will not claim victory until this has been achieved.

Press Release from the Siyanda Abahlali baseMjondolo Branch
Hand written on Friday 30 January
Digitised late on Tuesday 3 February (due to no electricity in Kennedy Road)

Durban High Court Delays Bheki Cele's Attempt at Forced Removal from Siyanda to the Richmond Farm Transit Camp

The judge has adjourned this matter to the 6th of March 2009. We, the remaining residents of the Siyanda shacks, welcome the outcome of today's hearing.

Everybody, rich or poor, has a life to live.

The Department of Transport has continued to reject our request for a negotiated solution. They have continued to argue that our refusal to accept that the houses promised to us should be corrupted to other people is costing them hundreds of thousands of rand a day. They have continued to argue that our refusal to move to their government shacks, what the people call the amatins, (the Richmond Farm transit camp) is costing them hundreds of thousands of Rands a day. They have continued to say that the demolition of our homes and our forced removal to their government shacks is an urgent priority and that there can be no further delays.

Johannesburg, 23 January 2009

FORCED REMOVAL OF SIYANDA RESIDENTS TO TRANSIT CAMPS

CALS condemns the current government policy of using transit camps as alternative accommodation for forcibly removed shackdwellers

The Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS) is disturbed at a growing trend in South African cities in terms of which the state forcibly removes shackdwellers from large shacks on well-located land to ‘temporal housing’ in transit camps (also known as ‘temporary relocation areas’ or TRAs) on the urban periphery. Relocation to transit camps is most often done to make way for infrastructure and development projects which will not benefit those being removed.

Monday, 12 January 2009
Siyanda Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Release

Bheki Cele Seeks the Forced Eviction of 50 Families
– Agreement on Negotiations
- Court Battle Set Down for 27th January 2009

Report back from court at Siyanda shack settlement, noon, 9 January 2009

On 19 December 2008 Bheki Cele, MEC for Transport in KwaZulu-Natal, had the sheriff serve an application to evict 50 families from the Siyanda shack settlement, which lies between Newlands East and KwaMashu. Abahlali baseMjondolo is the 51st respondent to the application. The court date was set down for Friday 9 January 2009. Abahlali baseMjondolo attended court and was represented, pro bono, by Advocate Juliet Nicholson. Advocate Nicholson was briefed by Elco Geldenhuis from Shanta Reddy Attorneys.

Latest from Siyanda: 50 Families Remain in their Homes & Refuse Eviction to “Transit Camp” Under Heavy Police Presence

In the early morning of December 11, 2008, police vans, trucks and cars – estimated six in total – pulled into Siyanda, KwaMashu, to carry out the eviction of 52 families to make way for the new MR577 Freeway. Approximately 10 police, armed with batons and pistols, reportedly went door-to-door with a representative from Linda Masinga & Associates, to each of the 66 families’ shacks. With bulldozers and transport trucks standing by, the eviction team asked each family if they would be willing to be relocated to an area “transit camp.” As had already been officially communicated to the MEC of Transport who is seeking the eviction, all but two families refused.

Sunday, 07 December 2008
Siyanda Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Statement

Transport MEC Bheki Cele Threatens 61 Families in Siyanda with Forced Removal to one of the Notorious "Transit Camps"

Mamu Nxumalo speaking at the meeting against forced removals, 7 December 2008

On Saturday the Sheriff of the Court served a letter from the State Attorney on 61 families in Siyanda, KwaMashu. This letter instructs us to leave our homes by 16h00 this Tuesday, 9 December. More than 300 hundred people in our community are now at risk of forced removal to the notorious ‘transit camps’.

Update 24 October: Click here to see a letter of protest on the Siyanda evictions sent to Obed Mlaba by COHRE.

Siyanda Residents March

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.)

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.