Foreman Road residents have been informed that the bulldozers will return and resume their attempts to illegally bulldoze the shacks rebuilt after the fire at 7:00 tomorrow.
Abahlali baseMjondolo have asked our lawyers to seek an urgent interdict prohibiting the Municipality from carrying out unlawful demolitions. The community is also preparing to directly resist any attacks on their homes should this become neccessary.
It is important that everyone understands the following facts clearly:
1. In South Africa any eviction or demolition carried out without an order of the court is an illegal and criminal act.
2. The eThekwini Municipality routinely carries out unlawful (and criminal) evictions and demolitions.
3. It is clear that for the eThekwini Municipality the law is does not apply to the poor. The poor are considered to be beneath the law and the Municipality is considered to be above the law.
3. In strict legal terms the eThekwini Municipality is a criminal organisation.
4. Every single time that Abahlali baseMjondolo has approached the courts seeking an order to prevent an unlawful eviction the courts have ruled in favour of the movement and against the Municipality.
5. ‘Slums Clearance’, ‘Shack Eradication’ and ‘Transit Camps’ are all apartheid policies that shoud never have been bought back into a democratic society. Around the world progressive governments support and develop shack settlements. It is only the most reactionary and cruel governments that aim to destory shack settlements.
6. The eThekwini Municipality never consults with shack dwellers. It just imposes its policies, sometimes at gun point. In this country every one has the right to be consulted.
It is important that people are also aware that the resources that were bought to the Foreman Road settlement after the fire by Councillor Yakoob Baig and others in a cavalcade of Mercedes Benzs have openly been denied to Abahlali baseMjondolo members. A loudhailer was used to openly say that the blankets, food etc bought by the government are only for ANC members and not for the ‘red shirts’ (AbM members).
The whole country is discussing Judge Nicholson’s judgment about political interference in the state but no one talks about the fact that housing and other resources, like disaster relief, are openly and routinely used to support one political party and are openly denied to people who make their own politics.
Is it not time to seek the arrest of Municipal officials that instruct their employees or contractors to carry out unlawful evictions? Is it not time to bring officials and politicians that you state resources for party politics before the judges?
To hell with evictions, demolitions and forced removals to rural human dumping grounds.
To stay in touch with the situation in Foreman Road please contact:
George Bonono, Foreman Road Abahlali baseMjondolo Branch Chairperson: 0782245441
Mnikelo Ndabankulu, Abahlali baseMjondolo Spokesperson: 0797450653