Solidarity: Hout Bay shackdwellers plan resistance to forced removal

Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign Press StatementHout Bay shackdwellers plan resistance to forced removal

About 75 shackdwellers and one family living in a house in a section of Hangberg in Hout Bay, Cape Town are facing eviction from their land by South African Sea Products.

The community will appear in the Cape High Court on Tuesday 29th January 2008 to oppose the eviction order. They will be assisted by the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign in opposing their forced removal.

The community is angered and intends to resist the forced removal because they say that some of the land belongs to the City and not to South African Sea Products, so the company does not have the right to evict them. In addition, most of the residents work in Hout Bay as fisherpeople and some work as casuals at the company itself.

Michelle Yon of the Hangberg Solution Seekers Association (the community organisation) says that most of the residents have worked at South African Sea Products at many points in their lives, with some of them starting work at the company as children and only finishing later in life once they were injured on duty.

There were other South African Sea Products workers and former workers living in a hostel near the shacks but recently, the company closed it down and relocated those workers to proper houses in Mitchells Plein. South African Sea Products has started tearing down the hostel even while it is surrounded by the shackdwellers, thereby creating a very hazardous environment. They have not even put up a signboard stating that the area is a demolition site and that people must stay away.

The one house that remains in the shack area belongs to a man who was injured on duty at South African Sea Products some time ago. The family says that South African Sea Products offered them R63 000 to buy their two bedroom houses, which directly faces Chapmans Peak. The market value of this house, small as it is, is estimated to be around R1 million.

Michelle Yon says that the community will not allow South African Sea Products to forcibly remove them without alternative accommodation being provided.

In addition, the Hangberg Solution Seekers Association, is very concerned that this forced removal signals the beginning of a speedy elimination of the entire community of Hangberg by property developers who want to gobble up all the scenic land facing the sea and Chapmans Peak. For this reason, the community has vowed not to move from the area.

The community tried already to buy the hostel themselves to set up a low cost housing project and were under the impression that the company would still sell it to them.

“Why should they sell our land to a private developer? To our knowledge we had a deal to buy the hostel for low cost housing but now they have a private investor and they want people to vacate. We are not going to allow this. If the private developers are going to get the right to remove us, they will try to remove everyone else in Hangberg. We are already living in poverty because we didn’t get fishing quotas as real fisherpeople because the companies got given all the quotas,” said Yon.

“Our demands are that those people must not be evicted unless South African Sea Products gives us alternative accommodation like they did for the people in the hostels. But apart from this, we want something back for the community. That parcel of land is part of our history. Everyone who stays there was born and bred in Hout Bay and many are working for South African Sea Products to this day,” said Yon.

For comment call Michelle Yon on 074 2855473, Chairperson of Hangberg Solution Seekers Association or Mzonke Poni from Anti-Eviction Campaign on 073 2562036