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Weekend attack on S.African shanty town allegedly led by police

Human rights groups have claimed that the police attacked Pemary Ridge, an informal community in Durban, South Africa on November 14th, randomly beating people.

A local group that unifies and advocates for shack dwellers in South Africa claims that the Sydenham Police in Durban, South Africa raided Pemary Ridge on Saturday night. Arriving in vans, the police are alleged to have terrorized the community by breaking down doors, shooting at people and randomly beating residents. While some people created a tire fire, supposedly in protest of the raid, others fled their homes to hide in bushes for the night. The November 14th attack was preceded by two other attacks on Pemary Ridge and one in September on a shanty town on Kennedy Road, Durban.

Abahlali baseMjondolo said 13 residents of Pemary Ridge were arrested in Saturday’s violent raid, but all charges against them were dropped Monday. The group outlined tactics the police have taken against shanty town residents on their website.

“The police always make their arrests on Fridays or on public holidays as it is difficult to get a lawyer at these times and people can be held (and sometimes assaulted in detention) until the courts reopen. The police are systematically abusing their powers to arrest and detain people as a form of intimidation. They routinely arrest and detain people when they know very well that they have no evidence against them will not be able to go to trial.

The Pemary Ridge community are planning various strategies to hold the police accountable for this attack and to prevent future attacks. The media are encouraged to seriously investigate the systemic unlawful and violent abuse of the poor in general, and grassroots activists in particular, at the hands of the police.”

Shanty towns likely go back thousands of years. Modern shanty towns are created by people who have left their rural homes to seek a better life in the city. Usually poor and landless, they are people who either cannot get housing or cannot afford available housing, and who subsequently build their own homes on the outskirts of the city. The unplanned neighbourhoods that arise are found in urban centers in Africa, Asia and South America, and are not municipally ordained. Lacking infrastructure, such as water, sanitation and electricity, the communities can be extremely unhealthy for their residents. Shanty towns have largely been under threat. Some countries, such as Kenya, have been working to upgrade the slums to provide residents with better housing, while other countries have been bulldozing the intentionally-built communities.

The South African government tried to enact a law that would allow police to destroy shanty towns earlier this year. However shanty town residents successfully challenged that law. In spite of having won the right to live in their self-made homes, Durban’s shack dwellers have been under attack in the past few months, and community leaders say that they are forced to conduct their legal activities in secrecy, as if they were living under apartheid. A movement is building in South Africa, calling on the President to hold an inquiry into the violence.

An attack in September on another informal settlement in Durban left two people dead. The attack is said to have been the responsibility of the ANC, and the religious community is decrying the apparent lack of police protection for the poor.

South Africa will be holding the FIFA World Cup in 2010 and there have already been violent clashes between the country’s poor and police during demonstrations protesting the spending of money on building a new stadium. Durban will be hiring 41,000 new police officers to help keep the peace during the FIFA World Cup next year. It is expected that half a million people will come to South Africa for the World Cup.

Jacob Zuma was elected as South Africa’s president this summer with a platform that promised to improve life for South Africa’s poor.

About one out of every ten people in South Africa lives in a shanty town — about 1 million people. South Africa has been hard hit by the recession and has an unemployment rate of 23%.