This letter was sent to the Mail & Guardian earlier this week in response to a letter from Mathew Blatchford, an academic at Fort Hare, which makes some entirely untrue statements about our movement which he compares to a 'crack whore'. He suggests that we were first funded by Trotskyists and are now funded by the DA. Neither of of these statements are true.

The newspaper decided not to publish our letter.

Dear Editor

In Durban the ANC thinks that it can kill us with impunity. Mathew Blatchford thinks that he can lie about us with impunity in the Mail & Guardian. According to our understanding the ANC and academics like Blatchford are part of the same structure of oppression that wants to keep us in the dark, confined corners of this country.

We have never been funded or supported by any Trotskyist organisation. We have not taken membership of any political party and we have not received any funding from any political party. We will never take money from any political party or from any organisation that does not respect our autonomy.

It is true that we recently took a decision to vote for the opposition in KwaZulu-Natal in order to punish the ANC for the repression we have suffered at the hands of their police and assassins. However we have made it clear that this was a tactical vote that does not change our own politics. We continue to support actions like land occupations. In fact this weekend we had a very successful land summit that focused on land occupations.

Abahlali baseMjondolo