http://www.theherald.co.za/herald/news/n03_25032008.htm

Shack builders clash with security firm‘s demolishers

Khetile Thomas and Janine Oelofse GARDEN ROUTE CORRESPONDENTS

A GROUP of Plettenberg Bay township residents yesterday clashed with members of a private security company contracted to break down their illegal shacks.

The shacks were built in an area the Bitou municipality has earmarked for industrial development.

About 30 KwaNokuthula residents threw stones at a truck belonging to the company while eight security employees dismantled the handful of shacks that had been built since Friday in Phola Park.

Witnesses said a further 200 residents had been standing around nearby and heckling the security guards. They said police, although in the area, were keeping their distance. “The situation is very tense,” one resident said.

Independent councillor Memory Booysen said he had been told the security guards belonged to Valstra Transport, the same company that was contracted to smash down the shacks of squatters in Bossiesgif/Xholweni earlier this year.

In that incident, residents were manhandled and shot with rubber bullets when Valstra employees called in the police, apparently in an unprovoked attack.

Thelma Lokose Mthethwa, who co-ordinated the land invasion efforts, said the ANC had told residents to build the shacks on the land as only part of the area had been earmarked for development.

Mthethwa said yesterday: “The ANC must let people build their homes on the section of land that is not earmarked for development. We can‘t wait for service delivery.”

She said people needed to build their homes and let the municipality put infrastructure in place later.

On Friday, Human Rights Day, hundreds of ANC members took to the streets of KwaNokuthula to protest against delays in housing delivery.

The residents marched through the township streets to Phola Park and started pegging out their land and building wooden shacks.

The municipality could not be reached for comment and calls to the municipal offices were diverted to emergency services.