Category Archives: Corrinne Louw

Sowetan: Basic services for Durban squatters

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http://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/2011/05/11/basic-services-for-durban-squatters

Basic services for Durban squatters

11-May-2011 | Corrinne Louw

THE eThekwini municipality has announced that it will provide basic services to residents living in informal settlements around Durban

The news comes shortly before the municipal elections on May 18.

The city said it would provide roads, electricity and storm water drainage in a pilot project that would kick off at the Redcliffe and Kenville settlements.

Residents in informal settlements have had to make do with nonexistent sewerage, no roads and many have resorted to illegal electricity connections.

Sbu Zikode, president of the country’s biggest shack dweller movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo, has rubbished the news, labelling it “electioneering”.

“We welcome the news, if it’s true, but we question why this is only being announced shortly before the elections,” he said. “The city has long had a policy that says it will not provide electricity to informal households. It now strikes us as strange that they are announcing this change.”

Faizal Seedat of the city’s housing planning department said Redcliffe and Kenville informal settlements would serve as pilot projects.

“The principle of the interim services initiative acknowledges the fact that there will be a large number of informal settlements that will have to wait years to be addressed by the housing programme.

“But given their location to social and economic opportunities there is no reason why such communities cannot be immediately serviced.”

Zikode said: “No matter what the city does, the lives of people who died in shack fires cannot be returned.”

Sowetan: Outrage over desecration of temple

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http://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/2011/01/18/outrage-over-desecration-of-temple

Outrage over desecration of temple

Jan 18, 2011 | Corrinne Louw

SHEMBE worshippers living in the Motala Heights Informal Settlement in Pinetown, just outside Durban, are furious at the demolition of their temple

Lindokuhle Magwaza, of the Motala Heights Shembe congregation, said their temple had been a place of worship for the past 13 years and that destroying this sacred ground was a devastating act for the religious residents of the community.

Residents of the Motala Heights Informal Settlement, which is affiliated to Abahlali BasemJondolo, said in a statement that they were fearful that the temple demolition would lead to their homes also being destroyed.

The residents claim that the demolition has left them with broken water and drainage pipes and cut off electricity connections.

Shamita Naidoo, chairperson of the Motala Heights B branch that lies adjacent to destroyed Shembe Temple, said Hindu worshippers were successful in stopping the demolition of a Hindu Temple in Mariannhill last year.

“Logie Naidoo (Durban’s deputy mayor) said that there can be no demolition of any religious building unless it is neglected,” Shamita said.

“That Temple was then saved from demolition. The Shembe Temple is sacred ground for the Shembe congregation and it must also be saved.”

The residents allege that the demolition was orchestrated by land owner Ricky Govender, who locked horns with Motala Heights residents amid claims of intimidation and harassment.

In 2008 three residents from Motala Heights were granted an order in the Durban high court against Govender, instructing his employees or relatives to refrain from threatening or assaulting them.

The Shembe worshippers said they would be taking the matter to the elders of the church.

Sowetan article on the Kennedy Road Fire

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http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=1158456

Everytime that there is a shack fire the politicians rush to blame the victims of their criminal neglect by claiming that the fire was caused by an illegal electricity connection. There is no evidence at all to suiggest that thisfire was caused by an illegal electricity connection. Most fires are caused by candles and on this occassion the police and the fire department have ascribed the fire to both an knocked overcandle and an upturned paraffin stove. Illegal electricity connections, when done well, stop fires and save lives. It is the lack of electricity that causes fires.

This article also fails to understand that for many people where they are housed is as important as the quality of the structure in which they are housed – hence the slogan that rejects ‘reruralisation’ and demands the ‘right to the city’. It is also not true, as Dube claims here, that most people do not want to move because they want to be near the dump. The vast majority of Kennedy Road residents do not earn an income from the dump and do not want to be moved to human dumping grounds on the rural periphery of the city because they need to be near work, schools etc.

300 shacks razed by illegal electricity
06 July 2010
Corrinne Louw

DEADLY illegal electricity connections continue unabated in the Kennedy Road Informal Settlement near Durban despite being the suspected cause of a fire that razed 300 shacks on Sunday.

Three people were killed in the blaze that also displaced more than 1000 people. By yesterday morning, residents who spent the night in the open began rebuilding their shacks.

Resident Sipho Mkhize told Sowetan that he had no choice but “to do an illegal connection”.

“We do not get electricity, so we have to do it ourselves. We know it is dangerous but we know how to do it safely. I used to work for the electricity department so I know how to make it safe.

“Me and a lot of other people pay our neighbour, who has a legal connection, for our electricity,” he said.

“Once my shack is up again I’m going to connect my electricity illegally again.”

The shack-dwellers movement Abahlali Basemjondolo is furious.

“If people were given land, houses and electricity, there would be no fires and no deaths,” said spokes- person Mnikelo Ndabankulu.

“The only reason there are fires is because of the failure of the municipality to provide services.”

But KwaZulu-Natal local government MEC Nomusa Dube, who visited the shack settlement yesterday, said the residents refused formal houses offered to them in Riverdene, Newlands East and Mount Moriah.

“We asked them to move and many refused,” Dube said.

“We sympathise with them but they don’t want to move because the (present) settlement is next to the dump site which is a source of income for them.”

Sowetan: Support for shack dwellers

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Ndlovu and Mnguni were not AbM activists – please check this against the AbM statements.

http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=1138631

Support for shack dwellers
06 May 2010
Corrinne Louw

AN international civil rights housing movement has called on President Jacob Zuma to protect the thousands of shack dwellers who live in squalid informal settlements around the country.

The Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE), which is based in Geneva and has offices throughout the world, is backing Abahlali baseMjondolo (the shack dweller’s movement).

Abahlali baseMjondolo has more than 20000 members and has active members in 34 Durban settlements and 54 nationally.

In September last year the Kennedy Road Informal Settlement, the original home of the Abahlali baseMjondolo, was rocked by the murder of two of its activists, Mthokozisi Ndlovu and Ndumiso Mnguni.

COHRE’s executive director Salih Booker said they were “concerned about the alleged organised intimidation and threats against members of Abahlali baseMjondolo, including outright violent attacks”.

Sowetan: Shack dwellers up in arms

http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=1125237

Shack dwellers up in arms
23 March 2010
Corrinne Louw

There was a tense stand-off between protesters and police when members of the Abahlali baseMjondolo took to the streets of Durban yesterday to demand that the government take action to help the poor and homeless.

Shop owners closed their doors when the police tested their water spray trucks and cordoned off roads with a heavily armed police force when the marchers stormed down West Street.

The march by the Abahlali baseMjondolo (shack dwellers association) and Rural Network had to be diverted from the Durban City Hall, with the police and marchers squaring off. Earlier city officials had obtained a court order to prevent protesters from gathering near the city hall.

The protesters, whose main demand was housing, converged on Albert Park in Durban to voice their grievances.

Abahlali baseMjondolo president S’bu Zikode said: “We are not just asking for housing, we are marching for human dignity, respect, equality and justice.

“Of course we would like basic services like shelter and toilets, but our concerns are much bigger than that. The land and the wealth of this country must be shared equally.”

“It’s a disgrace and an insult that our city manager, Mike Sutcliffe, has not allowed us to march to public buildings and is violating our human rights on Human Rights Day. The city hall is a public building,” Zikode said.

The South Durban Community Environmental Alliance, Poor People’s Alliance, Abahlali baseMjondolo Western Cape, Western Cape Anti- Eviction Campaign and the Landless People’s Movement in Gauteng showed their solidarity with the protesters by marching with them.

In a hard-hitting memorandum Abahlali baseMjondolo said: “For too long those of us living in shacks have suffered without enough water and without toilets, electricity, refuse collection and drainage.

“Therefore we demand decent social services in all our communities so that we can live in safety, health and dignity.”

Alliance Coordinator Desmond de called on the crowds to boycott the 2010 World Cup.

“The government has failed the poor of this country. They have taken money that was meant for us and used if for the 2010 World Cup.

“We will boycott the Soccer World Cup because it is not for us. We must not go to the stadiums because there is a constant onslaught on the poor.”