Recent Articles on Warwick Junction Eviction & Resistance

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eThekwini council in trouble with the law
15 June 2009, 14:56

The eThekwini municipality has been accused of defying a court order after it locked traders out of the Early Morning Market on Monday despite the Durban High Court ruling that they can trade.

Chaos broke out when metro police officers fired rubber bullets to disperse hundreds of people who wanted to break the market gate after the municipality prevented traders without valid permits from entering.

Two traders were injured by rubber bullets and were taken to hospital.

Senior Superintendent Joyce Khuzwayo said:”The municipality has made it clear that it wants to sort out the issue of people who do not have permits. The traders then decided to adopt the ‘injury to one is injury to all’ strategy.”

The city locked out hundreds of traders after it emerged that many were trading without permits. The court at the weekend ruled that traders be granted occupation and possession of their stalls.

“As far as we know, the court stated that we should be allowed to trade but the council has sent police to shoot at us. The city is defying the court order and that is very sad,” said traders” spokesperson Roy Chetty.

Khuzwayo said the municipality was sorting out the issue of permits by arranging another venue for traders.

“Traders are being removed from the market to make way for the multi-million rand development of Warwick Junction which will include a mall,” she said.

She said it was important for the municipality to ensure that all traders had permits so that they would be provided with an alternative place to do business. – Sapa

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Malls are not for the poor
7 June 2009, 08:12
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By Vivian Attwood

Faced with the spectre of imminent eviction, the prevailing mood among the traders at the Early Morning Market is remarkably upbeat. While they freely discussed their concerns, it appeared most thought popular opinion would prevail, stalling development in the area.

“Our market is here to stay. Our market feeds us,” a banner at the market entrance read. Another, more sinister, promised: “Be prepared to remove coffins, not traders.” On a lighter note, a wit had penned: “Final notice of relocation. Council and their employees can now move into their new site. Traders will still be operating from this market.”

“We are not going anywhere,” said an elderly woman known to traders as “Mummy”.

“It’s our life at stake. We’re not going into any marquee”. (The city has erected two marquees to provide temporary shelter for the traders.)

“A mall is for rich people. We are the poors (sic),” said Vasie Pillay.

“How would the city councillors and developers feel in our position?” queried Mani Govender.

“When we tried to have a sit-in last week they used pepper spray on us. We have human rights; we are not criminals.”

The Early Morning Market, or “Squatters’ Market” as it was once known, has seen its fair share of conflict over the years.

Here is a summary of its history:

There were originally four distinct markets, the City Market (Warwick Avenue), a whites-only trading area; the “Native” Meat Market (Victoria Street); an enclosed Indian Market called the Victoria Street Market and a street market in Victoria Street known as the Squatters’ or Early Morning Market. About 153 000 Indians arrived between 1860 and 1911 to work as indentured sugarcane cutters.

By 1885 there were about 2 000 market gardeners. They began to supply local markets, but initially encountered a series of difficulties at the fresh produce market, which was run by the Durban Town Council. These included high fees and being forced to ask lower prices for their produce than their white counterparts.

In 1908 a Hindu priest, Swami Shankevanand, formed the Indian Farmers’ Association, and subsequently founded the Indian Market Committee to oversee the welfare of Indian traders.

It wasn’t long before the town council flexed its muscles again, insisting on August 1, 1910, that the traders move to a new site in Victoria Street. The farmers protested that the site was too small, and too close to the Catholic Church and “native” market. They boycotted, but the protest was soon quashed.

The town council divided the market into stalls selling fruit, vegetables, ice-cream, sweetmeats, birds and curios, and organised a street market in Victoria Street for Hindu farmers.

The traders lined both sides of the street with stalls and horse-drawn carts, leading to protests from colonialists.

In July 1930 the town allocated £15 000 for a proper enclosure for the Warwick Street traders, and the Early Morning Market, comprising 618 stalls, opened on January 31, 1934.

The Victoria Street Market was destroyed by fire in March 1973, and a temporary market was erected in November that year.

That structure was replaced in 1984 by the current Indian Market.

* This article was originally published on page 10 of The Sunday Tribune on June 07, 2009

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‘This 2010 mall will starve us’

27 May 2009, 11:45
Hundreds of Early Morning Market informal traders and their employees have vowed to resist the city’s plan to remove them from the market, amid allegations that city officials have tried to bribe traders to make way for development.

During a peaceful demonstration on Tuesday, traders marched in small groups to the city hall in protest against the proposed new R400-million shopping mall development, saying it would literally starve the poor.

Streetnet International co-ordinator Pat Horn addressed the rally of traders and sympathisers who gathered at the top of Dr Pixley kaSeme (West) Street to march to the city hall to hand a memorandum of demands to deputy mayor Logie Naidoo.

However, city police stopped the march at the last minute, saying the traders’ application o stage the march had been declined.

Horn said city officials had apparently walked around the market on Monday offering vendors bribes of R1 000 and television sets if they would accept the development in an attempt to prevent the march.

The allegation has been rejected by city leaders, who said anyone with evidence should present it to city manager Michael Sutcliffe. But this did not stop the traders who gathered with banners reading “Save the market, we feed the poor”, “This 2010 mall will starve us”, “Come hail, come sun, come May, our market will stay”, and, on a more personal level, “Down with Mike Sutcliffe and Porky Naidoo”.

About 460 000 commuters travel through Warwick Junction daily, generating revenue of R1 billion annually upon which the livelihood of an estimated 7 000 to 10 000 traders depends. Traders have been given notice by the city to vacate the market premises by Sunday.

The proposed development has received wide criticism from NGOs, the KZN Institute of Architects and academics who claim the municipality has not followed legal and public processes in tendering and granting a 50-year lease to the developer Warwick Mall Consortium. Informal traders fear they will be permanently removed from the area and that the mall will direct commuters away from stalls into the mall.

“Let us take notice of tactics other countries have used, like long sit-ins, which would make it extremely difficult for the municipality to evict you under South African law if you refuse to move,” Horn said.

Roothren Moodley, Warwick Precinct Plan Stakeholders Forum chairman, said: “The Early Morning Market is here to stay for another 100 years, we must tell them clearly.”

Protesters walked in small groups to the city hall where representatives, including the chairman of the Early Morning Market Traders’ Association, Harry Ramlall, met dep-uty city manager Derek Naidoo, deputy mayor Logie Naidoo and city councillors.

After the three-and-a-half hour meeting, Ramlall said traders had achieved their goal by stalling the removal process.

Independent urban planning consultant Dr Susanna Godehart said that as far as she understood, the development was “completely illegal at this stage” as an environmental impact assessment to build on the market site had not been done.

* This article was originally published on page 3 of The Daily News on May 27, 2009