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I’ll remove you from waiting lists, says minister
N2 protest ultimatum

September 11, 2007 Edition 2

Quinton Mtyala and Sapa

HOUSING MINISTER Lindiwe Sisulu has issued a blunt warning to people whose actions led to the closure of the N2 near Langa yesterday: Continue the violent protest and be “removed completely from all housing waiting lists”.

She said residents of the Joe Slovo informal settlement had to decide whether they wanted to co-operate with the government and qualify for housing. “If they choose not to co-operate, they will be removed completely from all housing waiting lists.”

Sisulu also said the government would not tolerate indiscriminate violence in which property was vandalised.

Earlier yesterday, the protesters set up a burning barricade just off the N2, stoned police and their vehicles, broke up dwellings under construction in the N2 Gateway project alongside Joe Slovo and set a bakery delivery van alight.

Police closed both lanes of the highway for a period which included the peak morning traffic hours.

The residents were apparently protesting against a proposal to move them to temporary housing at Delft, some distance away on the Cape Flats, to make room for further Gateway construction.

Sisulu said the Gateway project management had been interacting with residents, and the violence was “completely unjustified”.

The Anti-Eviction Campaign described the situation as “absolutely terrible”. It said police had opened fire on the protesters at close range with rubber bullets. “They shot women and children, and people are seriously injured …

“Dozens of residents have been arrested and the police are refusing to say where they have taken these residents, even though some are injured.”

Housing and Local Government MEC Qubudile Dyantyi condemned the protesters, describing their action as an “act of thuggery”. Dyantyi said it had become evident Joe Slovo was over-populated and that some of the people to be moved from there would be unable to return once the whole area was redeveloped.

ANC provincial secretary Mcebisi Skwatsha said the blockade was unacceptable and that protesters were either uninformed or unreasonable in their demands.

Transport MEC Marius Fransman has called for anyone involved in protests on national roads to be arrested.

From about 4am, protesters had gathered on a vacant site earmarked for the second phase of the N2 Gateway housing development.

Their reasons for protesting varied, from a refusal to be moved to Delft, where temporary housing units had been built, to charges that residents of Joe Slovo were not consulted about planned new housing.

First National Bank and the housing ministry announced a partnership in June for 3 000 bonded housing units at sites in Joe Slovo and Delft. But residents, put off by the price tag of between R150 000 to R250 000 for the houses, are demanding free RDP homes.

One resident claimed that “no one from Joe Slovo was housed” at the first phase of the N2 Gateway project.

“Instead we have people living there from Khayelitsha, Gugulethu and other areas,” he said outside the vandalised shell of a show house.

Luthando Ndabantu, who addressed protesters, said people from Joe Slovo had been promised houses after a devastating fire in January 2005.

“They moved us to Delft to live in those shacks made of asbestos,” said Ndabantu.

Several community leaders addressed the crowd, urging them to remain calm while police stood along the outgoing lane of the N2, which had remained closed for much of the morning. The incoming lane of the N2 was reopened at 8am when police cleared burning tyres from the road.

Several journalists were threatened with arrest by police officers on the scene as they tried to interview leaders of the protest.

Just after 11.15am, police fired rubber bullets after a deadline for opening the outgoing lane of the N2 had passed.

Several people were hit as police fanned into the shacks, with some protesters responding with small rocks.

Within 10 minutes protesters had dispersed, some returning to show their rubber bullet wounds, vowing that they would be back, as police officers stood guard along the N2.

quinton.mtyala@inl.co.za