The Abahlali baseMjondolo branch in Vusimuzi, Tembisa, will tomorrow take the City of Ekurhuleni, to the Johannesburg High Court over longstanding brutal and illegal evictions in the area. Since 2018 the community has suffered ongoing attacks in the name of reblocking.

Reblocking is supposed to be a process by which shacks built closely together are separated to make space for development. This is done to build passage ways, road access, provision of sewer pipes, water and sanitation and electricity.

However, in Tembisa the terms of this “development” were never discussed with the community. The terms and process were imposed from above.

The community was not told which part of the community would be affected. We were not told what budget was made available for this work etc. This was a top down and authoritarian form of development that caused serious divisions in the community, was misused by the local councillor for his own interests, and resulted in numerous people losing parts or all of their homes. The process also became xenophobic.

Some people’s houses were completely destroyed. Those whose homes were of a reasonable enough size for their families had their homes forcibly reduced into small sizes that were not viable for their families. People’s belongings were destroyed while homes were vandalised by the Red Ants, Metro police and residents loyal to the councillor. Even the allocations of the jobs to do this work were misused in the interest of local elites.

Some people were brought from outside to build in people’s yards after their homes had been demolished causing families to fight each other.

We have brought an urgent application to the Johannesburg High Court to interdict the City to immediately cease its violent and unlawful conduct. The matter will be heard tomorrow morning.

Our movement has always stood for participatory and democratic forms of development in which grassroots urban planning is taken seriously and people are included in all forms of decision making that affect them. This is what we refer to with the slogan ‘nothing for us, without us’. What is happening in Vusimuzi is a top down, authoritarian and violent form of state-imposed vandalism

Contact:

Melitah Ngcobo: 079 630 8005
Busisiwe Shabalala: 078 670 2423