Category Archives: Landless People’s Movement

Landless People’s Movement (LPM) to have Liberation March on 16 June 2009 to Commemorate 1976 Soweto Uprisings

Landless People’s Movement (LPM) to have Liberation March on 16 June 2009 to Commemorate 1976 Soweto Uprisings

The LPM is organising a march from Maurice Issacs High School to the Hector Peterson Museum in Soweto on the 16th June 2009 to repoliticise the meaning of the 1976 Soweto Uprisings. This march is a response to the ANC’s hijacking of the 16th June as they have turned it into a bourgeois event. We as the LPM believe we should not celebrate this day, as our government does, but commemorate it by reflecting on the struggle for the liberation of the youth that is still being fought for by poor communities 15 years into our so-called democracy. We would like to invite all the civic organisations and social movements, regardless of their political affiliation, to be part of this march.

We are asking comrades to attend our meeting on the 18th of May 2009 at the Jubilee offices on the 4th floor of the Vogus House, 123 Pritchard Street (cnr. Mooi), Johannesburg. We request that all organisations email or phone us by the 14th May to confirm their attendance at our meeting. Please bring ideas and an open mind and also forward this message to others who may be interested so that we can make this march have a strong impact. Because we continue to be denied our most basic human rights, we refuse to let our government forget that our struggle for liberation is not over.

Our parents will also be doing a night vigil on the 15th June in the hope that the march on the 16th will help set us on the path towards a renewed liberation for the youth in South Africa.

For more information contact:

Bongani Xezwi – Youth Coordinator LPM Protea South Branch – 071 043 2221

Maureen Msisi – LPM Gauteng Chairperson – 082 337 4514

Or by email: bongani.xezwi@gmail.com

Leader of Landless People’s Movement (LPM) Fears for her Life and Children: Calls for Solidarity and Advice from all Comrades

12 March 2009

Leader of Landless People’s Movement (LPM) Fears for her Life and Children: Calls for Solidarity and Advice from all Comrades

Maureen Mnisi, with comrades Kajola Thebola, Lekhtho Mtetwa & Maas van Wyk – in Maureen’s home in the Protea South settlement, November 2008

As a single mother of five and a prominent activist who has come under threat by the police, government and now even the middle-class in her own community, Maureen Msisi asks for solidarity and advice to give her more courage to push forward the struggle of the poor. This is not the first time that Maureen’s life and family has been in danger because of her campaigns for the interests of poor people. In 1995, Maureen formed the branch of the ANC in Protea South hoping it would bring about a change that would better our lives. But members of the local civic at the time felt that she was challenging their power and they responded violently by attacking her. She was shot in the back and stabbed 3 times with a machete, breaking her leg and scarring her neck and hand. Almost 15 years into our new democracy, she continues struggling for the same changes in the lives of her people in Protea South, but now under the banner of the LPM. Today, she fears that if she continues on with the struggle, her life and her children’s futures will be in danger.

On the 1st March 2009, Maureen, and 7 others, were arrested and charged with public violence, assault GBH, intimidation, and unlawful gathering, and it will soon be made clear to the public that they are innocent of all charges. The LPM in Protea South views these arrests as a method by the local government councillor to suppress any activism that undermines the government’s plans to remove all informal settlements from Protea South to a far away place called Doorenkop.

Now that Maureen and the seven other comrades are going to court on the 25th March, the people in the bond houses in Protea South, the middle-class, are taking an additional step to ensure that Maureen does not remain in her community. They are signing a petition to say that she must be removed because she is promoting violence, only represents foreigners, and is blocking development in the area. The petition will submitted on the 25th March at Protea Magistrate Court as a piece of evidence to ensure that she is proven guilty. It is believed that this will assist the middle-class bond house owners because the informal settlements will go away, the bond houses will remain, and their property values will go up. The people in the bond houses seem to think that if our leader no longer lives in Protea South, the demands of the people to remain there will disappear and that people will live peacefully in Protea South.

But in reality, if Maureen is forced to leave Protea South, this will not stop the people from organising and fighting for their right to choose whether or not they want to stay or go to Doorenkop and it will not stop the government from neglecting other basic demands that are made by the poor in Protea South. If Maureen is forced to leave, the government, the police, and the community, including those who own bond houses, will be in danger because chaos and aggression will win our people over.

The truth of the matter is that Maureen has been at the forefront of maintaining peace and stability at a time when Protea South has been bordering on the edge of war. Maureen was responsible for stopping community members from attacking each other and burning each other’s shacks after a conflict on the 1st March when Community Policing Forum (CPF) members started to sing with the local government councillor while the LPM community were reading their memorandum. She convinced the community members that fighting another poor person weakens the struggle and strengthens the government’s system. After this, members of the community left Protea South to destroy the transit shack camps across the road, which are intended to accommodate people before they move to houses in Doorenkop.

When the local government councillor of Protea South learned about this, even she acknowledged Maureen’s power to maintain peace in her community when she called Maureen, who was in her home at the time and did not know about the incident, to stop this destruction.

Yesterday we had an urgent executive LPM meeting in Protea South to address the petition that was being made by the people living in the bond houses. Some members suggested that we call a mass meeting in Protea South to explain the truth that lies behind the petition against Maureen. But Maureen felt that if we call a mass meeting, it will create further divisions and also a war between the informal settlement and bond houses of Protea South. While the people living in the bond houses want the informal settlement to be removed, those in the informal settlements have actually been living there since the 1980s.

The people living in bond houses are now claiming the land as their own, based on the fact that they own property, when in fact we arrived here first. Like our current government, they have made it a matter of who has money and who doesn’t because the informal settlement, those who are poor and landless, are now being asked to leave. By claiming that Maureen only represents foreigners and is promoting violence, the owners of the bond houses hope to suppress our basic demands.

To achieve our demands without spilling blood in Protea South, the LPM has begun to create a counter petition which depicts the truth. The truth is that since 1995, Maureen has risked her life, and even been attacked, in order to represent the interests of the people living in Protea South. She continues to do so up until today as she remains committed to her people’s futures, despite the threats that she, and her family, are faced with. Her commitments, both as an activist and as a single parent of 5, have placed her in a situation that puts great pressure on her as an individual, and it is taking all of her strength to keep her morale high. She is calling upon all comrades to display solidarity with her if possible and wants to know if there is some advice or assistance she can get from comrades to make her more encouraged in this tough time.

Written by
-Bongani Xezwi (071-043-2221), youth organiser of LPM Protea South Branch and eldest son of Maureen Msisi
-With Luke Sinwell, Researcher and Activist, University of Johannesburg

Words of advice or solidarity can be sent to: Maureen at: 082-337-4514
Or emailed to: LSinwell@yahoo.com

LPM Wins Breakthrough Court Order in Jo’burg

Tuesday, 19 August 2008
LPM Protea South Press Release

The Protea South Branch of the Landless People’s Movement Has Won a Breakthrough Court Order Against the City of Johannesburg

Since 2003 the Landless People’s Movement in the Protea South shack settlement in Soweto has been trying, without success, to engage the City of Johannesburg around the future of the settlement. The Protea South LPM branch has clear demands:

1. There must be no evictions.

2. Every effort must be made to build houses for the people in Protea South.

3. If it is genuinely not possible to build houses for all residents in Protea South then discussions must be held to find the closest possible alternative site.

4. The settlement must receive all essential services while waiting for housing development.

5. All planning for the development of the settlement must be undertaken with and not for the residents.

It has become clear to the LPM that the City of Johannesburg does not take shack dwellers as human beings. It has become clear that the City will have to be forced to recognise the humanity of shack dwellers. It has become clear that the City will have to be forced to learn to think with and not for shack dwellers.

All requests for discussion have been ignored. All protests have been violently repressed. Activists, their families and journalists have been arrested, assaulted and intimidated.

For instance on 1 October 2006 over 100 SAPS officers from Protea North Station raided the settlement one day after over one-thousand residents marched in Johannesburg to demand housing. The raid resulted in the beating and pepper-spraying of the 16-year son of the LPM Protea South’s Chairperson. The incident marked the second time the Chairperson’s children have been targeted for assault by the police. At one point in the raid, police opened fire on peaceful residents, but only succeeded in shooting one of their own officers.

On the 5th of September 2007 the Freedom of Expression Institute made the following comments in a statement:

FXI staff were eyewitnesses to acts of police harassment against Protea South residents Monday morning. Maureen Mnisi, a community leader and Gauteng Chairperson of the Landless People’s Movement, was arrested while trying to speak with the media. She and at least five other community members were taken into custody and released, without being charged, after spending the night in jail. FXI staff overheard a police captain admitting that he had “always wanted to arrest” Mnisi.

We were shocked by the police violence. SAPS members fired at random towards the protesters, leaving the pavement covered with the blue casings of rubber bullets. Police also deployed a helicopter and water cannon, and we saw at least two officers using live ammunition. One Protea South resident, Mandisa Msewu, was shot in the mouth by a rubber bullet, and several other residents were attended to by paramedics due to police violence.

There has not been any apology from the City for all of this illegal violence and intimidation. In June this year the City of Johannesburg issued a press statement in which they said that Gauteng MEC for housing, Nomvula Mokonyane “warned those who attempted to derail service delivery. ‘We should be on the lookout for those people who always try but fail to destabilise our commitment to provide decent houses for our people’.”

These attitudes have forced the LPM to approach the High Court. The matter was heard in the High Court on 12 August and judgment was handed down on the same day. The court has ordered that the City of Johannesburg must, within one month:

1. Provide evidence of its plans to provide life saving basic services to the settlement including water, toilets, refuse removal, lighting and access road for emergency vehicles.

2. Provide evidence of its plans to provide housing for the residents and, in particular, to show what steps it has taken to explore the possibility of in-situ development and/or relocation to a site or sites as close as possible to the Protea South settlement.

The full text of the order is available in pdf here and attached below.

The LPM welcomes the judgment as do Abahlali baseMjondolo and the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign. The LPM would like to thank Moray Hathorn of the Webber Wentzel law firm for his pro bono work.

The LPM will, together with its allied movements, continue to struggle for land and housing in the cities and radical land reform in the rural areas. The struggle will be waged in the settlements, in the streets and in the courts.

For comment on this judgment please contact:

Maureen Mnisi, Protea South Branch of the Landless Peoples’ Movement: 0823374514.

Moray Hawthorn, Webber Wentzel Law Firm: 0832661081

S’bu Zikode, Abahlali baseMjondolo: 0835470474

Ashraf Cassiem, Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign: 0824805489