We demand the national government to hold the eThekwini Municipality accountable for failure to follow the legal directions of the Minister of Justice and Correctional Services, the national directives and precautionary measures. We also demand to know why the army is being used to brutalize the poor and the working class? We amplify Abahlali baseMjondolo’s demand for the immediate provision of water, sanitation and food relief for all those starving during this period in all settlements. The leaders of Abahlali must be granted permits to enable them to assist on the ground where they are needed. If the South African government is serious about stopping the spread of COVID-19 and fighting this virus, it will urgently follow up and act on these demands!

We stand in solidarity with Abahlali baseMjondolo, the largest and most militant formation of the organised poor in South Africa. The movement has been subjected to repeated waves of repression since it was formed in Durban in 2005, and has lost a number of leaders to assassination. In the past it has had to operate underground for months at a time. However, it has come through the fire of repression with its resolve intact and currently has more than 70 000 paid members and branches in five provinces.

Rogue elements in the eThekwini Municipality, which is internationally notorious for its repeated violent and illegal evictions of the poorest of the poor, have used the national Covid-19 lockdown to launch an all-out attack on the movement. Since the lockdown began the movement has been subject to repeated armed attacks from Calvin and Family Security Services, a notoriously violent private security company acting on the instruction of the municipality. Live ammunition has been used during these attacks and a number of the movement’s members have been hospitalised with serious injuries. On each occasion people’s homes have been destroyed and the building materials burnt. In many instances people have also lost vital documents such as clinic cards, Sassa cards, school books and ID cards during the attacks.

NUMSA expresses its full solidarity with Abahlali baseMjondolo and serves notice to the eThekwini Municipality that we will not stand by while our comrades are subject to these ongoing attacks. We are fully committed to the unity of the working class and the poor, and, operating on the basis that an injury to one is an injury to all, we will confront the municipality directly if that is required. We will also extend all possible forms of concrete solidarity to Abahlali baseMjondolo during this crisis.
We support the demands made by Abahlali baseMjondolo which are the following:

1. All evictions must be stopped with immediate effect.

2. All disconnections from self-organised access to water, electricity and sanitation
must be stopped with immediate effect.

3. All shack settlements must be included in municipal refuse removal programmes
with immediate effect.

4. All workers, including domestic workers, who are not required to be on the
frontlines of working against the pandemic must be given paid leave until the crisis
has passed. Workers who are on the frontline of working against the pandemic must
be given all possible forms of protection and care.

5. A guaranteed income must be made available to all people who are not able to
earn an income during this period of crisis.

6. Steps must be taken to ensure that everyone has access to sufficient healthy food
including the provision of free food parcels. Subsidies and price caps must be put in
place on all basic food items. The measures that have been put in place against
hoarding and profiteering must be strictly enforced.

7. Water and sanitation must be provided to all shack settlements as an urgent
priority.

8. Sanitiser and all other medically required equipment must be made available to
all at no cost.

9. All residents of shack settlements who test positive for the virus must be given
safe and dignified accommodation in which they can self-isolate. Where necessary
appropriate buildings can be requisitioned for this purpose.

10. Scientifically based information about the virus, and how to protect people from
it, must be shared in all languages, in a way that is accessible and understandable to
all, and is based on the understanding that millions of people live in shacks, that
others are detained in prisons and migrant detention centres, and that millions of
people will starve if they cannot continue to earn an income.

11. Payment must be suspended on all loans.

12. Free data must be made available to all by the cell phone companies so that
people can stay in touch with family, friends, neighbours, hospitals and comrades.

13. All people detained by the state for non-criminal acts, such as being
undocumented, occupying land, participating in arranging self-organised connections
to water, electricity and sanitation, and so on, must be released with immediate effect.

14. All hospitals and all other health facilities must be available to all people living in
South Africa, including undocumented migrants, with immediate effect.

15. There must be free testing and treatment for all.

Shack dwellers remain subject to some of the harshest realities due to their precarious living conditions. With an audited membership of over 70 000 people, Abahlali baseMjondolo is a leading social movement in organizing and uniting people in the struggle against the capitalist system which systematically exploits and disenfranchises landless and homeless people.

We stand in resolute solidarity with Abahlali baseMjondolo and all people throughout the world experiencing evictions and other forms of injustice during this time. As people’s movements and organisations throughout South Africa, Africa and the world we call on an immediate stop to all evictions!

Issued by Irvin Jim
NUMSA General Secretary