Category Archives: Glynnis Underhill

M&G: Protester’s death not an isolated case

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http://mg.co.za/article/2011-04-15-protesters-death-not-an-isolated-case/

Protester’s death not an isolated case
ILHAM RAWOOT AND GLYNNIS UNDERHILL Apr 15 2011 07:31

The death of a protester in Setsoto, Ficksburg, on Wednesday, apparently at the hands of riot police, is not an isolated incident. The Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD), according to its 2010 annual report, investigated 1 769 cases of people dying in police custody or as a result of police action.

Video footage of the protester, identified as 33-year-old Andries Tatane, caused shockwaves when it was broadcast on SABC (South African Broadcasting Corporation) prime time news on Wednesday evening.

SABC chief executive Robin Nicholson, told the Mail & Guardian the broadcaster was currently assessing whether it had breached its own code of conduct by showing the footage.

Tatane was participating in a 4 000-strong march to the Setsoto municipal offices to demand a response to a memorandum on service delivery failures that the community had sent to the mayor, Mbothoma Maduna.

David Bruce, a senior researcher at the Centre for Violence and Reconciliation, said there was a high level of killings by police. “There isn’t a proper leadership engagement on the use of force,” he said.

“Leaders have an ambivalent attitude that this type of policing is needed to get the job done.

“One can expect more such incidents — until the police recognise the need to engage on standards that their members should uphold when using force.”

The ICD has taken over the investigation of Tatane’s death, although the South African Police Service is conducting an internal investigation.

A different story

Colonel Sam Makhele, the spokesperson for the Free State police commissioner, said that deaths in police hands were rare. “It’s unfortunate that someone lost his life, but it is an isolated incident,” he said. “We’ve never experienced such a thing in the province.”

But according to the ICD’s annual report, in the Free State seven suspects died while they were being arrested and 47 died as a result of police action or in police custody.

The footage flighted on SABC shows Tatane being beaten and kicked by armed policemen, and then collapsing. He died 20 minutes later, before an ambulance had arrived.

The Times Live website also reported that he was shot twice with live ammunition, but that is not shown on the video. The site claimed that he was attacked by police after he had asked why they were firing a water cannon at an elderly protester.

A post-mortem examination was held on Friday.

On Thursday Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa released a statement promising to investigate Tatane’s death. He also emphasised the need for protesters to abstain from violent and destructive behaviour.

“The ministry issued a public statement almost two months ago where we emphasised that strikes are democratic and constitutional rights of every citizen to express themselves, which government fully respects,” the statement reads. “However, what the Constitution does not prescribe are violent, barbaric, destruction of property and intolerant conducts, including provoking and touting [sic] police.”

Jackson Mthembu, the African National Congress’s national spokesperson, condemned the beating but attacked the SABC for screening the footage. “We are concerned that the public broadcaster showed such shocking and disturbing images on its prime time news slot with disregard to young viewers and other sensitive people who obviously would have been disturbed to various degrees by such images,” Mthembu said.

“We, therefore, also call upon the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa to investigate whether the public broadcaster has not overstepped its mandate in this regard.”

“The footage was carried with a warning and it reports what happened without prejudice,” said Nicholson. “It was in graphic detail and it was not sanitised. The question is: did it comply with our editorial policies? Our senior editors will advise us and the matter will be dealt with accordingly.”

M&G: ANCYL admits to role in Cape protest

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http://www.mg.co.za/article/2010-11-19-ancyl-admits-to-role-in-cape-protest

ANCYL admits to role in Cape protest
GLYNNIS UNDERHILL | CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA – Nov 19 2010

The ANC Youth League has openly thrown its weight behind continuing service delivery protests in Khayelitsha township, which turned violent when vehicles were stoned and a City of Cape Town bus for the physically disabled was ­petrol-bombed.

While there was initial confusion about who was involved, Andile Lili, the treasurer of the ANC Youth League in the Dullah Omar region, said residents had invited the league to take part in the protests, which took to the streets last weekend.

The barricading of roads in Mew Way in the township’s TR section has disrupted traffic and there have been growing reports of stone-throwing and torching of vehicles.

School children en route to a year-end camp in Villiersdorp were pelted with rocks last Sunday, injuring two.

The ANCYL has come under fire for piggybacking on the protests to weaken the Democratic Alliance’s hold on the Western Cape.

The violence follows last month’s five-day protest against living conditions in townships, including Khayelitsha, organised by social movement Abahlali baseMjondolo. But Msonke Poni, Abahlali’s regional chairperson, said he was concerned about the continuation of the protests and the fact that they were becoming violent.

“The ANC Youth League is behind the protests. We know it is directly involved,” said Poni. “The ANC is simply playing its political hand in the area. We believe it is behind the protests at a regional level.”

But Lili insisted the league’s involvement was not part of the ANC’s campaign for next year’s municipal elections. “We haven’t even started campaigning. We’re leading the people because they have hope in us and we have the energy to fight for them,” he said. “People from formal and informal settlements are joining in because they’ve just had enough of the lack of service delivery and broken promises by the Western Cape government.”

Lili lashed out at Western Cape premier and DA leader Helen Zille, saying it was propaganda that she had been chosen World Mayor in 2008. She was selected because she was white, he said.

‘Better service delivery under the apartheid government’

“We had better service delivery under the apartheid government,” said Lili. “At least it built our people covered toilets. Now, we’re given open-air toilets and a new bucket system. We’re going backwards.”

Lili insisted that the league did not approve of the violence, which arose from anger. A meeting this week would decide whether the protests would continue non-stop for 14 days, he said. In spite of Lili’s open admission of the ANCYL’s role, Luvuyo Hebe, the ANC chairperson in Khayelitsha’s ward 190, denied that the party was involved in organising the protests.

Residents had simply had enough of appalling living conditions, he said. Hebe said he was arrested last week after being wrongly accused of damaging the Khayelitsha community hall. “There was no case against me as I haven’t been involved in the protests,” he said.

However, he did say that the ANC supported the aims of the protest. “The premier is not helping the African people,” he said.

Cape Town mayor Dan Plato agreed that parts of the township stood on sodden, low-lying areas that were not habitable, but he said residents had not heeded council advice to erect shacks on solid ground.

Plato said he had recently met top local leaders, including the Khayelitsha development forum and all ward councillors. “I was told these protests had nothing to do with service delivery, that it was about vigilantism, hooliganism and barbarianism,” he said.

“I was told the metro police and the South African Police Service were not doing enough about the violence.”

Plato said many ward councillors were “living in the shadow of death threats. A créche was closed by the protests the other day. And now a Dial-A-Ride bus for the physically disabled has been burned. How long can the police tolerate it when people throw stones and petrol bombs?”

The Western Cape minister of community safety, the DA’s Albert Fritz, said two people had been arrested on public violence charges and would appear in court shortly.

M&G: Gateway never had a chance

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http://www.mg.co.za/article/2009-08-20-gateway-never-had-a-chance

Gateway never had a chance
GLYNNIS UNDERHILL | CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA – Aug 20 2009 06:00

Cape Town’s disastrous N2 Gateway project began without a funded budget and was starved of agreed funding by the National Housing Department, according to a confidential report by independent forensic auditors, which was leaked to the Mail & Guardian.

Envisaged as a model solution to South Africa’s housing backlog, the Gateway project was to be delivered by the three spheres of government, which, in the Western Cape, were all run by the ANC at the time.

In January 2005 Lindiwe Sisulu, then minister of housing, publicly declared that 22 000 houses would be built in six months. Two years later the project had delivered only 821 units.

The new DA-led Cape Town council asked independent forensic auditors SizweNtsaluba Forensics to conduct an investigation and the company’s report was handed to the auditor general for use in his special audit of the N2 Gateway. The project is being scrutinised by the standing committee on public accounts (Scopa).

The auditors found that the National Housing Department failed to facilitate funding for the project and the Western Cape government had to “reprioritise” its funding to help meet the shortfall.

It provided about R294,6-million — far below the R2,3-billion budget.

“Numerous attempts were made by the City to procure funding commitment from the National Department of Housing, but to no avail,” says the report. “This is contrary to the stipulation of the MOU [memorandum of understanding], which required the National Department of Housing and province to facilitate funding.”

The project made use of funding from the upgrading of informal settlement programme (UISP), the housing subsidy and the emergency housing programme.

While the UISP funded a portion of the units built, the auditors found no evidence that beneficiaries were identified or that the intended beneficiary community qualified for housing subsidies.

CONTINUES BELOW

The MOU stipulated that the National Housing Department was required to ensure that the project complied with national legislation, to facilitate policy and to channel financial support to the city.

Mziwonke Dlabantu, deputy director general of the Department of Housing, said the Gateway project was conceived by the Cape Town council before Sisulu became housing minister.

When the MOU was signed it was recognised that the National Department of Housing had already allocated funding to the province for housing development, Dlabantu said, which included some precincts seen as part of the Gateway project.

“The role of the national department was then to solicit funding, over and above that which could be allocated by the province from the funds which the national department had already allocated to it in terms of the Division of Revenue Act,” he said.

“As the business plan was developed, discussions with treasury on the project were then initiated and these took place until allocations were made in subsequent years.”

The government’s “breaking-new-ground” designs for the housing specified that units should be no smaller than 40m2. The price hike made them unaffordable by backyarders and shack-dwellers who had been moved off land to make way for the project.

Under the existing subsidy, of about R36 900 a unit, there was a national government-funding shortfall of R44 000 a unit.

SizweNtsaluba found that a statutory separate operating account (SOA) at the City was used as a funding mechanism for the first phase of the project. The account is subject to statutory audit, but the report recommends that internal procedures and policies be developed to ensure “transparency and accountability” in the use of its funds.

“The City was responsible for the SOA and the only requirement for the use of funds from the SOA is that the expenditure is used for an approved housing project,” the report states. “The SOA does not form part of the council’s budget and can be used for unplanned expenditure without conforming to the City’s budget processes.”

Last month hundreds of angry Gateway residents marched on the Western Cape government to complain about structural defects and plumbing problems.

Residents also complained that they were originally told they would be renting with an option to buy, but that the purchase option seemed to have
disappeared.

Sisulu has moved up the ministerial hierarchy, becoming minister of defence in President Jacob Zuma’s Cabinet.

M&G: Small victory for homeless

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http://www.mg.co.za/article/2009-06-15-small-victory-for-homeless

Cape Flats families given a reprieve from eviction, writes Glynnis Underhill

Ashraf Cassiem and 139 families who have set up home under the stars along Symphony Way in wind-swept Delft on the Cape Flats cele-brated a small victory last week after being given a reprieve in their fight against eviction.

“We’ll gladly move to houses that are safe, clean and adequate to our families’ needs,” said Cassiem, chairperson of the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign.
On Tuesday residents were granted a postponement of the eviction application by the City of Cape Town, acting for the Western Cape government.

Cassiem, who represented them, was delighted when acting Judge Jake Moloi ordered the families to file answering papers by June 30, and that the matter be heard on September 3.

“I’m happy that the court is finally listening to poor people who can’t afford legal representation,” said Cassiem.

The Symphony Way families illegally occupied newly completed homes intended for beneficiaries of the government’s N2 Gateway project in Delft.

When police evicted them in February last year, they erected makeshift shelters in Symphony Way, resisting removal to Blikkiesdorp, a crime-ridden “temporary relocation area”.

Cassiem said the battles of the Symphony Way community bore a striking similarity to moves to evict 20 000 shack-dwellers of the Joe Slovo informal settlement in Langa in Cape Town.

These residents are being evicted to make way for housing for the controversial N2 Gateway project and are uncertain whether they will be offered housing in the “flagship” development.

Five judges of the Constitutional Court unanimously ruled on Wednesday that they would allow the eviction of Joe Slovo residents but that they had to be given alternative housing.

Joe Slovo representative Mzwanele Zulu said he had mixed feelings about the judgment.

“I’m happy, but I feel an element of disappointment. There’ll have to be negotiations with our lawyers before there are relocations.”

Welcoming the Joe Slovo judgment as “groundbreaking”, the director general of human settlements, Itumeleng Kotsoane, said it made the fast-tracking of integrated human settlements and organised progress towards “the achievement of a South Africa free of slums and informal settlements” possible.