Category Archives: armed disconnections

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Electricity Disconnected and Three Women Arrested in Arnett Drive

Update: Click here to read Phili Mjoli's article in Izolezwe.

Thursday, 19 February 2009
Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Release

Electricity Disconnected and Three Women Arrested in Arnett Drive

Yesterday at around 10am ten cars of Sydenham SAPS and Securicor Security Guards came with their guns to the Arnett Drive settlement to disconnect electricity from 200 households. The private police came into Gertrude Cele’s house and said “Can you please turn on your radio.” She turned it on. Then, they said “The electricity is working so now we are arresting you”. She said “You can’t arrest me because I am just a visitor here, and I don’t know anything.” They said, “We found you in this house, so we are going to arrest you.” This is how the police and private security make it a criminal offence to be a poor person in South Africa.

Gertrude Cele is 60 years old. She told them that she is sick and is taking some high blood pressure medication. The police said you will do that in the police station. While she was at the police station, she collapsed, went unconscious and when she woke up the police asked her, what is wrong? She told them that the high blood pressure is high now, and that she needed to take her medication. Then they said they were going to bring her back to the settlement, and that they would not arrest her. While she was at the Sydenham police station, they asked her if she could pay R500 bail. She said she does not have that money. They brought her back. The other two ladies remained in police custody. The names of the two ladies are Sisi Ndlovu, who is 18 years old, and Nozolile Khathi, who is 30 years old. Nozolile is also sick and was a visitor in the house where she was arrested. She was supposed to go to hospital today. When they told the policemen that she is sick and is supposed to go to the hospital, the police said, there are also hospitals at the police station, and then they took her.

Yesterday the whole community mobilized and went to the Sydenham police station to demand their release, and they were told to come back today. They were denied the right to see to see them. While they were still at the Sydenham police station, Mr. Mtshali, who is the owner of the shack that Nozolile was at, said that at least they should arrest him instead of her, the police refused. They insisted that they were arresting the person they found inside the shack. When today they went back again and they were told they were at the Pinetown Magistrate Court. Today, they appeared at the Pinetown Magistrate Court. They were released on R500 bail. The case is adjourned until 2 April 2009 at the Pinetown Magistrate’s Court.

The police and security officers first began disconnections at the road near a generator. They then proceeded to go house to house, arresting those who they could find inside. In some houses, they not only pulled out the electrical wires found inside, but also people’s possessions, breaking household items.

While in custody, none of the three women – despite the fact that two were known to be ill by the arresting officers prior to arrival at the police station – were able to see a doctor. After being kept in jail overnight Nozolile was not able to see a doctor.

At no point during the arrests were the women told what they were being officially charged with.

Most of those at Arnett Drive during the police and security official raid were women.

Three months ago the same security company came to the settlement to disconnect electricity, and they shot Thokozani Mkhotli through the thigh as he was coming from the toilets. Still, nothing has happened about that case. These are the same police who have often violently attacked Abahlali baseMjondolo marches and who have tortured our leaders.

We need to emphasize that while the city is still denying shack-dwellers to electrify their shacks, community connections will continue because it is not us who needs electricity, but it is our lives that need electricity. We are tired of getting burned in the shacks. Therefore we will continue to connect ourselves to electricity for as long as the government refuses to allow us to have access to electricity. If they disconnect us we will reconnect the same day. If they arrest us we will all put money together so that the bail costs are shared. We will welcome our comrades home as heroes.

Electricity is the answer while we are waiting for houses that we are being promised since 1994 and we are still living in shacks with no toilets, with no electricity, with one standpipe that caters to 600 families. These armed disconnections and arrests raise a question if this is the kind of democracy that we were all being promised when we were going to the voting station in 1994. Is this the better life for all that the ANC is always talking about in their manifestos?

Viva Operation Khanyisa!

Your Criminals Are Our Heroes!

No Land! No House! No Electricity! No Vote!

Contact

Ntombifuthi – 0733279300
Thobekile Magwaza – 0793345627
Abahlali baseMjondolo Office – 0312691822

Also see these previous entries on the Arnett Drive settlement:

* Arnett Drive AGM, February 2009
* Arnett Drive Resident Shot with Live Ammunition, December 2008
* Arnett Drive Successfully Resists Evictions, January 2008 – August 2008
* Arnett Drive Court Case August 2008
* Arnett Drive Evictions, January 2008
* Arnett Drive: Discussion About Forced Removals, August 2007

And these entries on armed electricity disconnections (and consequent fires):

* All Deserve to Have Electricity, by Mark Butler, December 2008
* The Solution to Shack Fires is Electrification, Not More Training, by Richard Pithouse, August 2008
* Armed De-Electrification in the Motala Heights Settlement, August 2008
* eMagwaveni settlement in Tongaat is under violent police attack, May 2008
* Kennedy Road shack fire, a double attack, by S'bu Zikode, February 2008
* Shack Fires Are No Accident! Electrify the Settlements Now!, February 2008
* Mass Disconnections from Electricity at Gun Point in the Kennedy Road Settlement, February 2008

And Matt Birkinshaw's report on electricity and shack fires:

* A Big Devil in the Jondolos: A report on shack fires, by Matt Birkinshaw, September 2008

And, finally, Raúl Zibechi's The Militarization of the World's Urban Peripheries:

* The Militarization of the World's Urban Peripheries, by Raúl Zibechi, February 2007

Arnett Drive Resident Shot With Live Ammunition, by Securicor Guard

Tuesday, 02 December 2008

Arnett Drive Resident Shot With Live Ammunition, by Securicor Guard

Nomhle Mkhetho, Thokozani Mkhotli & Nikiwe Zondi

On Tuesday last week (25/11) Thokozani Mkhotli, from the Arnett Drive settlement in Reservoir Hills, was shot by a Securicor Guard with live ammunition. The bullet entered his left buttock and emerged lower down in the front of his left thigh. The trajectory of the bullet shows clearly that he was shot from behind and from above. Thokozani is 33. He is from Bizana and works as a builder's labourer fixing ceilings.

Securicor Guards usually come to the settlements with the Municipality when they come to disconnect us from electricity.

The Struggle for Electricity

The eThekwini Municipality's 2001 electricity policy states that:

In the past (1990s) electrification was rolled out to all and sundry. Because of the lack of funding and the huge costs required to relocate services when these settlements are upgraded or developed, electrification of the informal settlements has been discontinued.

The decision to deny electricity to shack dwellers results in relentless shack fires. This is because people have to rely on candles for lighting and paraffin stoves for cooking and these are very dangerous in small shacks made of plastic, cardboard and wood. In order to keep ourselves safe we are forced to connect ourselves to electricity. We do this very carefully and have never had an accident. Once an area is connected the fires stop, children can do homework and life is safer and better.

For more on this see A Big Devil in the Jondols: A report on shack fires at http://abahlali.org//////?p=4013.

But the Municipality sends in their workers, sometimes with Securicor guards and sometimes with the police, to disconnect the people. These armed disconnections are often violent and people's property is often damaged or stolen. Sometimes people are arrested. Once the guards or police have gone people immediately begin the work of reconnecting themselves and everyone puts money together to pay the bail of anyone who is arrested. However there have often been fires before the work of reconnecting everyone has been finished.

For information on recent armed attacks on other settlements to disconnect the people from electricity see:

Motala Heights: (Pinetown): http://abahlali.org//////?p=3931
Kennedy Road: (Clare Estate): http://abahlali.org//////?p=3342
eMagwaveni (Tongaat): http://abahlali.org//////?p=3490

Arnett Drive

The Arnett Drive Settlement has been in Reservoir Hills since 1972. Some of the people living there came there after being evicted from Cato Manor in 1959 and then Newlands in 1971. In October last year the Municipality threatened to demolish some shacks in Arnett Drive. In January this year the eThekwini Municipality made an illegal attempt to demolish shacks in the settlement. A court order was secured to prevent the demolitions. The Municipality tried to oppose the interdict in court but judgment on the matter was handed down in August this year and the Municipality lost – the interdict defending the shacks against an illegal attack by the Municipality still stands. For more information you can read these press releasess:

Illegal evictions threatened in Arnett Drive (October 2007): http://www.abahlali.org/?p=2742

Illegal evictions attempted in Arnett Drive and stopped with a court interdict (January – August 2008): http://abahlali.org//////?p=3235

The Shooting of Thokozani Mkhotli in Arnett Drive on 25 November 2008

On Tuesday 18 November Municipal workers arrived at the Arnett Drive settlement to disconnect the people from electricity. They effected the disconnection at the electricity box near the road but did not enter the settlement, which is some distance from the road on the banks of a river running through a valley. They did not take our cables. Although disconnections are often violent this time there was no violence, probably because they did not enter the settlement, and because they did not come with security guards or police. The people reconnected themselves after the Municipality workers left. People always reconnect themselves after a disconnection. We all need electricity – especially the women. It is the same everywhere in South Africa and also in Turkey, Brazil, Nigeria – in all the places where the poor are told to live without electricity and left to burn in the fires. People will not give up their right to electricity. Governments will just have to accept this. But if they don't it is just impossible for them to disconnect everyone every day. We are many, they are few. We will keep connecting until we die.

On Tuesday 25 November two Securicor guards returned to Arnett Drive. They did not come with Municipality workers which is strange but people assumed that they had come back to disconnect again and, this time, to dig up our cables and take them. People asked them what they were doing there and they said that they had come to disconnect the electricity.

One of the guards then fired a shot across the river into the settlement. Thokozani was in the toilet in the settlement across the river from the guards at the time. He came out to see what was happening. The guards pointed at him and as he turned to run he was shot, from behind. There was no warning. The people called the Securicor guards to come and help because Thokozani needed to get to hospital and the guards had a van but they ran away. We then called the police telling them that there had been a shooting. They came quickly and we told them that Nikiwe Zondi was walking past the guards on her way to work when they shot Thokozani and that she could identify the man who had shot Thokozani. The police fetched the guards and brought them back with their boss. Their boss said that they had shot Thokozani because he was the one that had reconnected the cables to the box. The Securicor boss took the police to the electricity box to show them our connections. He also said that his guards had been attacked by women with stones. We didn't throw any stones. We just told asked them what they were doing there and told them to go away because this is our place.

We tried to open a case with the police. As usual they just ignored us. But after Abahlali baseMjondolo put a big pressure on them they opened the case. It is case number 302/11/2008 and the Investigating Officer is M.N. Pillay.

There are copies of all the documents relating to this case, including the doctor's reports etc, in the Abahlali baseMjondolo office at the Kennedy Road settlement. The office can be contacted on (27) (031) 269 1228.

The Way Forward

1. Electricity for all

We condemn this attack on our humanity. The issue of electricity is becoming an issue of bullets and blood. The solution to this problem is to electrify the shacks. If the government continues to refuse to do this then the shack dwellers will have to complete and defend this work ourselves. On 22 September this year we held a City Wide Shack Fire Summit together with our comrades in the Poor People's Alliance. We took a decision to discuss a country wide defiance campaign in all of our movements. The proposed defiance campaign would take the form of all shack dwellers and other people denied electricity across the country openly connecting themselves in defiance against unjust polices. Please see the statement from the Poor People's Alliance at: http://abahlali.org//////node/4238

2. Oppose the Privatisation of the War on the Poor

We do not know the Securicor Guard who shot Thokozani. But we might easily find that he lives in a shack himself and that he also doesn't have electricity – that he lives at constant risk of fire, that his kids can't do their homework easily.

Many Abahlali baseMjondolo members are security guards. It really distresses us that one of our colleagues decided to shoot like this – to even risk killing another poor man for one crime only – the crime of also being a poor man. The man who shot Thokozani needs to answer to us. All the Security Guards who allow themselves to become private soldiers in the war on the poor – evicting people, disconnecting people from water and electricity – need to answer to their brothers and sisters. We need to have serious discussions about this in all our communities and movements.

It is clear that one of the key problems is the Security Guard's union – SATWU. They only look at issues like wages and even then they don't take a strong stand. Security guards are heavily exploited and yet our bosses tell us to join SATWU – clearly this union is not dangerous to the bosses.

We need a union that would stand up strongly against the exploitation of security guards but would also stand strong against the use of security guards as private soldiers in the war on the poor. We need a union that would support all its members to refuse to attack poor people for the crime of being poor – a union that would refuse to offer security at evictions and at water and electricity disconnections. We intend to discuss this need for a new union very seriously in our movement and with our comrades in the Poor People's Alliance. We also need to have serious discussions about unions for domestic workers and street traders too.

In the meantime we will be discussing possible actions against Securicor. This will include protests but also legal action. In the past we have been able to get support for organisations like Amnesty International to sue the police after they have attacked us and shot our members with live ammunition. We will look for support in order to be able to sue Securicor. These companies do not understand our humanity but they do understand money and will think twice about shooting poor people if it will cost them money.

Securicor is owned by Group 4 Securicor (G4S) in England. We call on our comrades in England to register their protest with the G4S. They can be contacted on +44 (0) 7973 672 649 or media@g4s.com . As well as asking them about this shooting it would also be good to ask them why they have been working for a Municipality that has a history of routinely engaging in behaviour towards its poorest citizens that is not only unlawful but is also criminal – such as violent attacks on peaceful protests and evictions carried out without an order of the court.

For more on police violence see: http://abahlali.org//////node/3245

For more on unlawful evictions see: http://www.cohre.org/southafrica

Conclusion

It is very disappointing that this shooting happens at this time. After years of severe police violence against shack dwellers in the Reservoir Hills, Clare Estate and Sydenham areas our struggle has finally succeeded in forcing the police to recognise our humanity. After years of contempt from the Municipality, life threatening conditions in the settlements due to lack of services and forced removals to rural human dumping grounds we are now progressing well with negotiations with the Municipality to upgrade our settlements where they are. But how can we claim progress when someone can be shot, from behind, with live ammunition, because his community want to keep themselves safe from fire?

For further information and comment on this shooting or the issue of electricity and fire please contact:

Thokozani Mkhotli, Arnett Drive: 079 999 0914

Nomhle Mkhetho, Arnett Drive: 079 258 6043

Zodwa Nsibande, Abahlali baseMjondolo office: 082 830 2707

Mashumi Figlan, Security Guard and Abahlali baseMjondolo Vice-President: 079 584 3995

Armed De-Electrification in the Motala Heights Settlement

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.

The Municipal Official is known to be a friend of local gangster landlord Ricky Govender and often drinks in Govender's bar. When the official was challenged he told the community that "you are living on Ricky's land and you must go." Municipal officials are always saying this but in fact AbM went to the City deeds office in 2006 and it is clear that the settlement is on government land . In a democracy government land should be the peoples' land. In fact all vacant land should be the people's land. During the attack Bongo Dlamini, the Chairperson of the Abahlali baseMjondolo youth league whose shack burnt down on 31 July, was injured when the security guards deliberately rammed him with their car.

Immediately after the attack the entire community marched on Ricky Govender's offices to protest against the attack on the settlement, the injury to Bongo and the disconnection of electricity at gun point. Govender was informed that neither he nor the Municipality has any right to enter the settlement without the permission of Abahlali baseMjondolo. He agreed to this demand.

The Motala Heights Abahlali baseMjondolo branch will call a mass meeting of all residents in the area to discuss this latest attack and will issue a more detailed press statement after that. But right now it is important to note that:

1. The last time the City attacked Motala Heights was in 2006 when their security guards, clearly acting under the direction of Ricky Govender and many of them drunk after drinking in Govender's bar, came to demolish the settlement. That attack was stopped by legal action because the City had no court order and were illegally destroying the peoples' homes. In the end the police chased the Municipal Security out of the settlement.

2. It is a disgrace that the Municipality chooses to make its self the servant of a well known gangster who is trying to drive all the poor, African and Indian, out of the area rather than to work to develop the area with and for all the people of the area.

3. It is a disgrace that in the middle of all the shack fires the City, the same City that is responsible for the shack fires because it decided to stop electrifying shacks in 2001, continues to send men with guns to disconnect people who have done the work of making their communities safe themselves.

4. It is a disgrace that the City sends out armed security guards to attack its poorest residents rather than negotiating with them to solve their problems.

For background information on Motala Heights please see: http://www.abahlali.org/?p=2377

For information on recent armed attacks on other settlements to disconnect the people from electricity see:

Kenned Road: (Clare Estate): http://abahlali.org//////?p=3342
eMagwaveni (Tongaat): http://abahlali.org//////?p=3490

To see the recent Abahlali baseMjondolo call for a City Wide Shack Fires Summit see: http://www.abahlali.org/?p=3882

For more information please contact the following residents of Motala Heights:

Bongo Dlamini, Chairperson, AbM Youth League: 0748756234

Lousia Motha: Treasurer, AbM: 0839504122

Shamita Naidoo, Chairperson, Motala Heights AbM Branch: 0743157962

Bheki Ngcobo, Deputy Chairperson, Motala Heights AbM Branch: 0785346007

Mass Disconnections from Electricity at Gun Point in the Kennedy Road Settlement

Update: Sunday, 17 February 2008 As predicted there was a serious fire in Kennedy Road following the mass disconnections. It began in one of the shacks disconnected from electricity on Thursday. S'bu Zikode's response to the tragedy of being proven right so quickly is here, Phili Mjoli's article in Isolezwe is here and David Ntseng's photographs are here.

Friday, 15 February 2008
Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Release

City Escalates Its War on the Poor
Mass Disconnections from Electricity at Gun Point in the Kennedy Road Settlement

The day after Abahlali baseMjondolo announced that we would be challenging the legality of the notorious Slums Act in court the Kennedy Road settlement was attacked by the Municipality. They arrived with the South African Police Services, including the dog unit, and the Municipal Security. They were very heavily armed. It was clear that they were prepared for a war.

They began at one side of the settlement and started to disconnect everyone from electricity. They disconnected the people who have connected themselves and they disconnected the people who have prepaid meters in their shacks. They didn’t just disconnect the meters but they dug up the cables and destroyed them. It is clear that they have decided that our disconnection will be permanent. No warning was given and people’s homes were entered without their permission. We estimate that there were more than 300 hundred disconnections.

The Kennedy Road community immediately held a mass meeting and prepared banners. We expected them to return today to continue the mass disconnection. Many people stayed away from work but they didn’t come. We don’t know when they will come back.

Electricity is not a luxury. It is a basic right. It is essential for children to do their homework; for safe cooking and heating; for people to charge phones, to be able participate in the national debate through electronic communication (TV discussion programmes, email etc); for lighting to keep women safe and, most of all, to stop the fires that terrorise us. It has been proven that the paraffin stoves are unsafe. Many of our members have been burnt when these stoves have exploded. They have been pulled out of the shops because they have failed but the new gel stoves are failing too. Tonight we must go back to cooking on stoves that could explode any time. Why is the government sending the police to force us to go backwards? Development was supposed to be about moving forwards.

Our children have nightmares about the fires. What must we tell them tonight? What they fear is very real. On 1 November 2007 Ma Khuzwayo, an amputee who had lived in Kennedy Road for 20 years, was killed in a shack fire.

In October 2005 we lost a young child, Mhlengi Khumalo. In August 2006 we lost an old man, Baba Dhlomo. In January this year we survived a big fire without loss of life but then in April this year we lost Bennedicta Parkies and a lady we remember only as Ntombi in another big fire.

And it is not just Kennedy Road. It is Quarry Road, it is Lacey Road, it is Jadhu Place, it is Motala Heights, it is Mayville. The terror of shack fires is everywhere and it will stay everywhere for as long as we are forced to live 13 people in one shack with candles and a paraffin stove because it has been decided that electricity is not for us and that we are not allowed to expand our shacks or to build new ones as our families grow. These fires are terrorising us all the time because the municipality took a decision in 2001 to stop electrifying shacks. These fires are their responsibility.

This attack on the people of Kennedy Road by the Municipality will probably result in more people being burnt. We will hold them directly responsible, politically and legally, if one person is burnt. We will use the access to information act again. This time we will use it to find out who gave this order. If one person is killed in a fire because of this decision we will lay a charge of culpable homicide against the official that gave the order for this attack on our community.

Many of us believe that by leaving us to be killed by diarrhoea and fire and rats while they waste millions on casinos, the themepark, stadium and the A1 Grand Prix the Municipality is trying to force us to leave our homes and to accept 'relocation' (which is really 'ruralisation') by forcing us to choose between living with fires and rats and plastic bags for toilets in the city or without fires and rats and plastic bags for toilets in the relocation sites. We need our basic needs to be met in the cities where we can find work, let our children attend good schools and have access to hospitals, libraries, sport facilities and so on.

Some people have suggested that they have attacked us like this because of the national electricity crisis. If this is the case this is outrageous. Why must be the poor be paid to pay the price for government’s bad planning? The poor are the people who need the most support from government. We have the least resources. We can’t buy generators or install solar panels. Many of don’t even have enough food. The last should be put first.

Some people think that this is a punishment for taking the government to court to have the Slums Act overturned or for our victory in court were we stopped the illegal evictions in the Arnett Drive settlement. Some people have said that this is the revenge of the police who we are denouncing and suing for beating, shooting and filming themselves torturing us.

Others think that we have been attacked because the Kennedy Road settlement is where our internet and email are and the truth about our lives and the violent repression of our struggle is embarrassing the government internationally – people are even refusing awards from the government because they know the truth about what is being done to the poor in South Africa.

It is true that many people in Kennedy Road are self connected to electricity. But everywhere in South Africa the poor connect themselves. And it is not just here. Everywhere in the world – in India, in Brazil, in Turkey, in Nigeria, in Haiti, in Thailand, everywhere – people who are denied basic services by governments take them for themselves. People will always do what they have to do to survive. The solution is not to wage war on the poor. The solution is to meet the basic needs of the poor! There is no other way forward. Not in South Africa or anywhere else will the poor allow ourselves to be expelled from being citizens because we cannot afford to be consumers. The same economy and history that made the rich to be rich made us to be poor. No amount of arrests and beatings and visit by the dog unit will make people accept that the right to live in the city and the right to have electricity and the right to have safe toilets are only for the rich.

Maybe they should just put us all in a train and take us to Lindela.

On 28 September we marched on Mayor Obed Mlaba. One of our main demands was for electrification to stop the fires. Instead of being listened to we were attacked and beaten by the police. The church leaders stood up to tell the truth about what happened that day. They have also stood with us when we have mourned the people who have passed away in the fires.

But we will march against this attack very soon, people are already mobilised and the banners are ready. We will also consider all legal options to have this attack urgently stopped and reversed. We have also demanded an urgent meeting with the head of the City's electricity department. As usual they have just ignored us. We have, for a long time, also been seriously considering legal options to have the Municipality's 2001 decision to stop electrifying shack settlements declared unconstitutional.

Our struggle to be recognised as human beings continues. Our struggle to survive continues. Our struggle against a Municipality that consistently acts against us with extreme brutality in ways that are often illegal and sometimes directly criminal continues.

We ask the media and our comrades around the country and around the world to please understand that communication from Abahlali baseMjondolo will be difficult until this latest attack has been rolled back. It will not just be email that will be difficult. Even charging cell phones will not be easy. Our march today in eNkwalini was very powerful. Our clean up campaign in Kennedy Road over the weekend was very successful. Children from poor families in Motala Heights are being excluded from the school. But it will take time to put all this news out.

We ask our comrades in the churches and the unions and the democratic NGOs and in all the other organisations and movements of the poor to raise their voices loudly and clearly against the inhumanity of this municipality. We ask the municipal workers to stand together and strong in their unions and to refuse to follow orders to attack the poor, their brothers and sisters, sometimes even their co-workers and comrades.

Sekwanele!

For more information please contact:

Mzwakhe Mdlalose 0721328458
(One of the Kennedy 6, also denied electricty)

Mondli Mbiko 0731936319
(Also one of the Kennedy 6, now also denied electricty)

System Cele 0731033437
(A victim of severe police violence, now also denied electricity)