Khayelitsha’s shackdwellers march and speak for themselves!

Cape Argus 23 October 2008

Event: AbM Western Cape March
Date: Wednesday 22 October, 2008
Time: 11h00-14h00
Assemble: In between Site-B Day Hospital and Train Station. March to Stocks & Stocks.

It begins. The shackdwellers of Khayelitsha will no longer be spoken about. We will speak for ourselves.

Abahlali baseMjondolo, the shackdweller’s movement that has wrecked havoc on the oppressive town planning of the KwaZulu-Natal government, is now a force to be reckoned in the Western Cape.

At least 10 informal settlements from Site-B and Site C will be joining Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape as they march from Site-B to Stocks and Stocks Local Municipality Offices.

We are fed up. We demand our constitutional rights to sanitation, to electricity, to water, to safety from fires and to housing. But we also demand a new kind of service delivery and housing process. A truly peoples’ process that revolves around the communities themselves.

This is only the beginning.

Nothing for us, without us!

For more information, contact AbM Western Cape at 073 2562 036
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Abahlali baseMjondolo is a community-based and community-controlled movement. We are not a political party or an NGO. We do not believe in the so-called ‘stakeholder approach’ to development which seeks to make top-down government policies seem democratic. We are committed towards seeking alternatives with regard to these neoliberal-based policies which affect people living in informal settlements. We believe in the principles of participatory democracy where such alternatives come from below and to the left.

MEMORANDUM TO THE MAYOR OF CITY OF CAPE TOWN

Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape

Email: abmwesterncape@abahlali.org
website: www.khayelitshastruggles.com

Dear Madam Mayor
Date: 22 October 2008

We (the shack dwellers of Khayelitsha) would like to bring our concerns into your attention and we note with great concerns that people who are living at informal settlements within the City of Cape Town are ignored and undermined by the City and we therefore call on the City of Cape Town:

1. To scrap its comprehensive plan for informal settlements (i.e. City’s Master Plan) as we believe that this is a top down approach and it undermines people’s right to participate meaning fully towards their development, and we oppose to one size fits all approach as carried by the plan.

2. To recognize all people that are living at informal settlements as legal occupants not as illegal occupants, as this does not give people a security of tenure and it allows Government to forcibly remove people to the dumping sites.

3. To upgrade all the informal settlements where they are, and we oppose DA housing policy/approach of one plot one house, this strategy is apartheid based and it forces lot of people outside well located land instead of keeping more people within the City

And we further demand that:

Ø All the bucket system must be phased out and Power flash toilets must be upgraded to pure flash system before 2009 elections.

Ø All the informal settlements must be electrified

Ø All the informal settlements must be serviced with water, toilets and with access roads

Ø City must directly talk to us not about us

Last but not least we call on City of Cape Town to release a detailed report of walk about informal settlements of Khayelitsha (which were: CH site C, DT opposite fire station at Site C, TR section Site B, VT Site B, VV Site B, WA Site B, WB Site B, TT Site B, UT Site B, XA Site B) which were conducted on the 16th of August 2008 with Dan Plato who is a Housing mayco member and his officials.

Abahlali baseMjondolo of the western Cape declares that:

No House! No Land! No Vote!