The armed forces working for the eThekweni Municipality continue to relate to impoverished black people in the city like an army of occupation, especially when poor people are organised outside of the ruling party. Today at 11 am the notoriously violent Anti-Land Invasion Unit demolished Mr Ndumiso Mnguni’s house in our Foreman Road branch. This was a brazenly illegal and criminal act.

When Mr. Mnguni went into the house to remove his possessions he was attacked and shot at by the Anti-Land Invasion Unit security. As we release this statement Mr Mnguni is in theatre in a critical condition. The doctors are trying to remove the bullet in his stomach. We are praying that the mighty God saves his life.

The very surprising part is that the only house that was demolished in Foreman Road is that of Mr. Mnguni which is in the middle of the settlement.

It’s almost a year since two weeks old baby Jayden Khoza from Foreman Road was killed after he inhaled a teargas when police attacked the community. Recently our comrades in the Good Hope settlement in Germiston, in Gauteng, were also subject to a police attack in which teargas was recklessly thrown into a community resulting in a baby having serious breathing difficulties. Our lives count for nothing to this government.

We continue to be oppressed and violently attacked when we stand up for our lives and dignity. The police, and the security that work with the Anti-Land Invasions Unit continue to tell brazen lies about their violence against us. A young man is fighting for his life in hospital as a result of the everyday violence of a government that has no regard for the poor. We, the poor, continue to die at the hands of a government that calls itself democratic. They speak of the expropriation of land without compensation yet they shoot and kill poor people with impunity when we occupy land and insist on our human dignity. How hypocritical of the ANC!

We are praying for Mr Mnguni. We are with his family at this time. No matter how many times we have lost comrades in our movement we can never get used to it. A life is important no matter how poor that person is. Every human life must count as a life.

We are about to hold an open assembly in the community to take a collective decision on the way forward.

Contact:

Thapelo Mohapi 062 892 5323
Mqapheli Bonono 073 067 3274