Category Archives: Graeme Hosken

The Times: Evicted residents win court victory

http://www.timeslive.co.za/thetimes/2012/10/10/evicted-residents-win-court-victory

Evicted residents win court victory

GRAEME HOSKEN and SIPHO MASOMBUKA

Miore than 5000 people evicted from the Schubart Park block of flats in Pretoria a yearago scored a major victory yesterday when the Constitutional Court ruled the evictions illegal and ordered the City of Tshwane to restore their residency.

The ruling is a slap in the face for the municipality, which has been at loggerheads with the residents for over a year.

The ruling, which cannot be appealed, states that not only must the city renovate the block of flats but must find suitable accommodation for the residents during the renovations.

The city has been embroiled in numerous legal battles with the residents since they were evicted in September last year following the disconnection of the building’s water and power supply.

The ruling was made after Lawyers for Human Rights appealed in the Constitutional Court against four judgments in the Pretoria High Court granting the council permission to evict.

Lawyers for Human Rights national director Jacob van Garderen said the residents’ rights had been “brutally violated”.

“The court has made it clear that the city cannot ignore the country’s laws,” he said.

City of Tshwane spokesman Nomasonto Ndlovu would not comment because the municipality was “still studying the judgment”.

Van Garderen said: “The city’s dubious technical report, which indicated that the building was structurally unsound, was refuted by an independent structural engineer, who showed that the only thing that needed to be done to make it habitable was renovation.”

He said the city had been saddled not only with the latest legal costs but also with the costs of the renovations.

“The mayor has invested a lot of political capital in this case, threatening to sort out Schubart Park before December,” he said.

He said the court ruling sent a strong message to city officials contemplating the large-scale eviction of poor, vulnerable people.

“This ruling shows that the law must be followed when it comes to evictions.”

Aubrey Ramotlhale, a member of the Schubart and Kruger Park Residents’ Committee, said residents were ecstatic.

“We were harassed and our rights were trampled on but today I have reason to have faith in our legal system. It’s time the politicians we voted into power proved that they deserve those positions,” Ramotlhale said.

The Times: ‘Pride is all we have left’

http://www.timeslive.co.za/news/2012/05/21/pride-is-all-we-have-left

‘Pride is all we have left’

by Graeme Hosken

The 4000 Randfontein landfill residents, most of whom survive by scavenging for food, have resigned themselves to their fate.

“Our currency is plastic and booze. That’s how we live,” says Ursula Johnson.

For Johnson, the only reason to keep going is her three young children.

“They are my life. I survive for them,” she says. “I do what I can to keep them alive, to buy them food and clothes. What I earn from selling plastic bottles from the dump is not much, but it is something.”

To these people, you are wealthy if you earn R200 a week scavenging. But, with the dump’s security guards rationing scavenging times, forcing these men and women to alternate days, the prospect of earning more than R100 a week is slim.

“It is hard. None of us wants this. We all want out. We want out for our children,” says Johnson. “I want the best for my children. I want a better life for them, but I cannot give it. “It is too dangerous to send our children to the closest school. It is too dangerous to walk at night. It is so dark that you do not see someone walking past you. This is when criminals strike.”

With an icy wind blowing the putrid stench of rubbish and smoke from the dump over the settlement, Johnson pulls her children closer to her, closing the door of her tarpaulin-roofed shack.

A pile of plastic containers stacked outside her home is a sign of wealth.

“The more you have, the richer you are. Even though some have little, no one will steal. To steal here is a death sentence. Not for the thief, but for the collectors.”

The community is close and people look out for each other. Unemployed grandmothers act as child minders, those not scavenging sweep the “streets”, removing dangerous medical waste and used condoms, and fetching water for all from a single communal tap. The sick are fed and looked after by neighbours.

“We might be poor, ignored by the government and forgotten by others, but we are still proud. Our pride is all that we have left,” says Johnson.

Asked about government assistance, she laughs: “Like the people who throw out their rubbish and forget about it, the government has forgotten about us. They promise this and that, but nothing comes.”

For Elizabeth Ditsi, a grandmother of three, life is beyond unbearable.

“We have been forgotten. Not even the dump’s guards care any more. For 10 years no one has cared,” she says.

“For all of us, there are only five long drops. Things just get worse. The flies, disease, dirt, smell and cold.

“We are all dying slowly, even the children. They get sicker and sicker. There are no doctors near us. The nearest clinic is a 30-minute walk away, but we cannot go there because it is too dangerous to walk and no one has a car .

“Everything we have we get from the dump. Our food, clothes and houses. I just want freedom, proper freedom. I want someone to come and help my grandchildren. They do not have to help the adults, but they must help the children.”

Human Settlements spokesman Xolani Xundu said children were a priority when trying to address the immense housing challenges.

“Children’s rights and the provision of houses for young people is where some of our biggest priorities lie .

“Our biggest challenge is getting children out of squatter camps to areas of safety. While we have multiple strategies to ensure that informal settlements are upgraded to appropriate human standards, the housing backlog remains huge and is increasing.”

SOBERING STATISTICS:

HEALTH

* 1 in 5 children malnourished
* 1 in 3 experience hunger
* 1 in 8 children infected with HIV globally live in SA
* 51 8000 children under the age of 15 have HIV
* 39% of girls aged 15 to 19 pregnant

SECURITY

* 10000 to 12000 children arrested monthly
* 1200 to 1400 children detained at correctional services facilities monthly
* 520000 in foster care
* 14012 in child and youth care centres
* 54225 children victims of serious crimes such as murder, rape and assault
* 29% of sexual offences victims aged 10 and younger
* 4000 child neglect cases reported to police annually

EDUCATION

* 660 000 children out of primary and high school
* 40% of pupils finish high school
* 32% of reported rapes committed by teachers
* 27% of pupils feel unsafe at school
* 19% belong to gangs, 15% carry weapons, 9% carry weapons at school
* 16% high school pupils threatened/attacked with weapons at school

HOUSING

* 1.7 million children live in informal settlements
* 100 000 child-headed households

IOL: Torture, murder, kidnap rife in cop ranks

http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/torture-murder-kidnap-rife-in-cop-ranks-1.1147848?showComments=true

Torture, murder, kidnap rife in cop ranks

Torture, assault, kidnapping and unexplainable murders. These are the alleged tactics of rogue police officers – especially prevalent at Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal stations – as they enforce law and order.

The revelation, backed by human rights activists and policing researchers, comes as the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD) released its annual statistics on police criminality on Thursday.

Of the 2 493 criminal complaints laid against police, 70 percent related to police brutality – attempted murder, assault, torture and rape.

With reports of torture up from five to 41 cases, and rape reports almost doubling from 24 to 46 cases in the past two financial years, human rights activists fear the situation is getting worse and more widespread

– a fear Deputy Police Minister Maggie Sotyu is aware of.

Among KwaZulu-Natal’s statistics of shame are 30 deaths during escapes from custody, 87 during apparent arrests and 27 during investigations.

Gauteng accounted for 48 deaths during the course of an arrest and 23 during investigations.

Hillbrow police station and Weirdabrug in Centurion are the country’s worst, according to ICD head Francois Beukman.

He also ranked the Joburg and Tshwane metro police departments as the worst metro policing departments in terms of criminality.

An ICD investigator said KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng were problem provinces, especially when it came to rogue members within units such as the Hawks. “The problem is on the increase. There are rogue elements who operate with the consent of their commanders.”

KwaZulu-Natal human rights activist, Mary de Haas, said they received reports of deadly crimes being committed by rogue police gangs on a monthly basis. “The (Hawks), organised crime units and public order policing units feature prominently.

“We believe these actions are sanctioned by commanders turning a blind eye as their members act as judge, jury and executioner in the killing of so-called suspects who in some cases are not guilty.”

The biggest challenge to fighting these rogue officers was getting people to speak out. “People are petrified. They see what happens and just keep quiet,”she said.

“The ICD’s figures are the tip of an iceberg.

People are sick and tired of crime and, like police commissioner Bheki Cele’s tough talk, they think it is alright to shoot suspects, but these people are suspects not yet proven guilty.”

Pretoria News: Shacks outside luxury estate burned down

Click here to read this article in German.

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=vn20100722044540942C703998&singlepage=1

Shacks outside luxury estate burned down
July 22 2010 at 09:42AM

By Graeme Hosken
Crime Reporter

Good enough to build and clean the “madam’s” multimillion rand home, but too poor to live outside the walls of a luxury Pretoria security estate, a Malawian family watched as Tshwane Metro Police torched their shack along with dozens of others.

The mom begged not to be identified for fear of being fired and losing the measly R50-a-week salary she is paid to clean her employer’s multimillion Woodhill Estate home.

The woman – a mother of three children, including a seven-month-old infant – described how she and her young family were getting ready to sleep on the streets.

“It is freezing. I don’t know what to do. I am scared my children will die,” she said.

Their crime: They, along with 400 other people, are an eyesore and destroy the property value of the residents living in five luxury housing estates around their little community of migrant workers and illegal immigrants, known as “Cemetery Estate”.

The “estate” is on council land between the Pretoria East Cemetery and Woodlands Boulevard shopping centre.

Close by, are the multimillion rand Woodhill, Mooikloof, MeadowGlen, MeadowRidge and Hillside security estates.

Accused of being illegal immigrants and of being behind the area’s apparently skyrocketing crime rate, many “Cemetery Estate” residents worked as cleaners in the luxury homes on the posh estates.

That was until Wednesday when metro police, on the orders of lawyers representing those living in the estates, burnt down their shacks and ordered them to leave the Pretoria East area.

Using a court order from 2008 to control the occupation of council land along Garstfontein Road, the estates’ lawyers on Wednesday demanded that police destroy the 50 or so shacks in “Cemetery Estate”.

Within less than 24 hours of an “eviction notice” being served on “Cemetery Estate” residents, heavily armed metro police, guarded by the Garsfontein SAPS, oversaw the shacks’ destruction – torn down with spades and crowbars.

Plastic sheeting, cardboard partitions and wooden planks were dragged into piles and torched.

While city and law enforcement authorities have accused those living in “Cemetery Estate” of being illegal immigrants and criminals, no one was arrested or held for deportation.

A “slip-up” saw metro police failing to notify Home Affairs officers about illegal immigrants living in the area, or alerting the council’s housing and social services departments about the need for alternative accommodation.

Asked why no one was arrested, police said they didn’t have time to check fingerprints.

The Malawian mother, a qualified teacher whose husband was paid R600 a month to build her ‘madam’s’ multimillion rand house, said: “We can work inside the estates, but can’t live next door.

“Council does this because we are poor and our ‘madams’ are rich; because we have plastic roofs and paraffin stoves and they have tiles and electricity,” she said.

Mariza Oelofse, representing residents from the luxury estates, said: “We were approached by our clients to have these squatters removed. We went to the council and requested they adhere to the court order and remove these people, which is what they did.

“We are satisfied with the way the city responded.”

Oelofse said the land could not be occupied because it was agricultural land and a nature conservancy. “Highly endangered plant and animal species have been decimated because these people have eaten them and polluted the Moreleta Spruit with human waste.

“There are strict regulations regarding land occupation. Our clients have expensive rates and people can’t just stay here.”

Asked where the people should stay, Oelofse said: “It is not our concern.”

Metro police spokeswoman Alta Fourie said the informal residents posed a “serious” problem, especially regarding crime.

“Housebreakings, breaking into cars, rape, and smash-and-grab attacks have increased, mostly because of these illegal immigrants,” she said.

Asked for the crime statistics and why no one was arrested, Fourie referred the Pretoria News to the SAPS whose spokeswoman, Aveline Hardaker, referred the newspaper back to Fourie.

Fourie said residents were given 24 hours to move. “We told them we would destroy their shacks if they didn’t move, which is what happened. It is now their responsibility to relocate and find their own accommodation,” she said.

Attorney Louise du Plessis, representing “Cemetery Estate” residents, said the court order was not against her clients.

“There is no court order on that property. The existing court order says the municipality must bring an application to have the people evicted, which it has not done. This order is not an eviction notice and the council’s actions are criminal.

“Evictions can’t happen by torching people’s property. This is a declaration of war by the city on civil society and homeless people and we will now see them in court,” she said.

Mark Napier, of Urban Landmark, said regardless of whether there was a court order or not, the city had to find alternative accommodation for evicted people.

He said: “Virtually all cities’ policy statements, including Tshwane, talk of integration of poorer people into the city. But, as soon as a real opportunity arises, the city listens to the wealthier residents and evicts the poorer residents.”

Asked to comment, council spokeswoman Dikeledi Phiri, said: “I can’t respond… due to the unavailability of key officials in the housing department.”

* This article was originally published on page 1 of Pretoria News on July 22, 2010

Pretoria News: Mamelodi mayhem

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=15&art_id=vn20100324042902824C118956&singlepage=1

Click here to see some pictures.

Mamelodi mayhem
March 24 2010 at 07:15AM

By Graeme Hosken, Barry Bateman and Lesego Masemola

Violent service delivery protests erupted in Mamelodi yesterday, with police fighting running battles with angry residents.

Police reinforcements were brought in from across Gauteng to quell the violence.

The protests, which saw nearly 4 000 people from the township’s eastern informal settlements take to the streets, led to the closure of Mamelodi’s tertiary institutions and saw demonstrators prevent thousands of people from going to work.

While nearly 1 000 protesters hurled stones at police in running street battles and blockaded roads outside the University of Pretoria’s (UP) Mamelodi campus, 3 000 protested outside Metrorail offices at the Pretoria railway station.
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City law enforcement authorities admitted they had been caught “off-guard” by the latest demonstrations which began on Monday night with “street committees” barricading roads with rubble and burning tyres.

The committees are alleged to have blocked families with children, seeking the safety of relatives’ homes in other parts of the township, from leaving the violence-racked areas of Phomolong informal settlement and Extension 11 near Pienaarspoort railway station where rioting broke out.

The violence continued through yesterday and last night a tense calm prevailed.

Protesters from Extension 11 were demonstrating over the lack of trains in their area. Metrorail suspended trains after a spate of violent attacks in October.

The demonstration in Phomolong was over a lack of housing, which residents claimed they were promised from April 1.

Protesters from both areas joined forces against the police, who were issued with rounds of buckshot.

Dozens of protesters were injured, most after being shot with rubber bullets. At one stage, the protesters told police to retreat if they wanted an end to the violence.

Nearly 1 300 Phomolong residents are set to be moved ahead of construction of the new Greenview railway station.

Community leader Nelson Ngala said they were upset because the people identified for relocation should have been moved three weeks ago. “The city was meant to address our concerns, but they never did. They ignored us and our plight,” he said adding that they would continue striking until their concerns were addressed.

Community Safety MMC (member of the mayoral committee), Dikeledi Lehobye, who admitted the city had been caught off guard by the protests, said they had called on the provincial government to dispatch reinforcements. “The situation is volatile and we are worried about the violence,” she said.

She said the protests were a surprise because they thought they had an agreement with residents.

“We reached an agreement with Phomolong residents two weeks ago over when the moves would take place, which will be done in phases.

She said the violence was unacceptable and that as government they would restore law and order.

Metrorail spokesman Sibusiso Ngomane said the decision to re-instate services to the area had been approved, but they were awaiting the findings of several reports .

“We need to asses the condition of the rail line and perform a risk assessment.

“We have been working closely with the Tshwane Metro Council, commuter representatives and the railway police,” he said.

Ngomane said this information was relayed to the commuter representatives at a meeting at the Pretoria railway station, but it was too late to stop the violence.

He said a plan to build a train station near the Greenview informal settlement had been approved.

Last year, on several occasions commuters forced train drivers to make unscheduled stops at the area to allow commuters to alight. “The tender to build the new station has been closed and the contractor appointed.

“We will build a new platform and double railway lines to allow more traffic and ensure the communities who live close to the rail reserve are catered for.

“The population explosion in the area required that we invest in infrastructure,” he said.

UP spokesman Sanku Tsunke said the campus was closed after students struggled to gain access to it.

“Access to the campus has been compromised and buses transporting students to and from the campus were not operating” he said, adding that 480 students been affected by the protests.

Tsunke said the university was due to assess the situation today and, should protests continue, it would remain closed.

He said no damage was reported at the campus and security personnel at university had been placed on high alert until further notice.

Meanwhile, Karabo Seanego reports that police foiled plans by a group of Soshanguve residents to extend their protest action for the second day.

Community leader Devilliers Makgakane said: “They told us to go home and we if we returned they would start to shoot. We decided to disperse and wait for tomorrow (today) when the premier comes here.”

Gauteng Premier Nomvula Mokonyane and members of her executive council were expected to visit Soshanguve to assess progress in the delivery of services.

# March 8 – Fed-up residents of Soshanguve take to the streets.

# March 8 – Mamelodi residents barricade the streets with burning tyres and rocks.

# March 9 – Mamelodi continues to burn as State of City address is given.

# March 11 – Residents of several informal settlements in Atteridgeville embark on a service delivery protest that results in the arrest 11 people.

# March 22 – Bullets fly in Soshanguve Block R as protesting residents in Ward 27 call for the removal of their councillor, William Maluleka, whom they claim is failing them.

* This article was originally published on page 1 of Pretoria News on March 24, 2010