Please note that one person was killed in eTwatwa and one killed in Protea South. No one was killed in Harry Gwala.
CDL Condemns repression of Landless Peoples Movement and Abahlali baseMjondolo
The Conference for a Democratic Left condemns in the strongest terms the unrelenting campaign of repression directed at the LPM and ABM (affiliates of the Poor Peoples’ Alliance including the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign and the Rural Network). The CDL calls for an end of the repression against them and for a community and labour movement inquiry into the repression against them and the prosecution of those involved in assault, murder, arson and malicious damage to property.
In what can only be described as a conspiracy of repression, the state, politicians, criminal associations masquerading as community-based organisations, the police and the courts have combined their forces with one apparent objective: to crush these organisations for the crime of defending the interests of the poorest of the poor in society.
The actions taken against these organisations are drawn straight from the manual of apartheid-style repression: assault, murder, assassination attempts, wit doek-type vigilante action, the burning of homes, tribal chauvinism, ethnic cleansing and mass eviction, the raising of homes, detention without trial, trumped up charges, plainclothes police and intelligence officers and biased magistrates as well as a media blackout.
On Monday 12th July, 2010 the day after the World Cup Final, 5 members of the Kennedy Road settlement, will be appearing in court after 10 months of detention without trial, along with 6 others out on bail of R5 000 each on charges under a piece of legislation developed by the apartheid regime against those struggling to overthrow it: the Criminal Procedure Act. Added to what now constitutes a standard suite of repressive charges meted out routinely by the democratic state against service delivery protestors — public violence, malicious damage to property and arson — the state has thrown at them charges ranging from murder, attempted murder and assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm.
The Kennedy Road trial is the outcome of an attempt to crush ABM, drive it and it members from the settlement and to permanently remove its leadership from society. A panga-wielding gang shouting slogans of tribal hatred under the direction of local ANC councillors rampaged through Kennedy Rd assaulting, burning and seeking out ABM president ….in particular. …members of the Kennedy Rd victims remain homeless to this day.
In a similar fashion, the state has driven the LPM through the gates of an apartheid-style hell in Gauteng. In the Harry Gwala informal settlement in Ekhuruleni, one person was shot down and two injured by police using live ammunition. No investigation into the deaths and injuries has been conducted. The policeman involved in the shooting has not been charged. The homes of two LPM members were burnt to the ground. The local ANC councillor has issued an apartheid-style banning order against the LPM, denying its local structure the right to operate there. The repression has been directed in particular against the LPM chairperson, the elderly Johnson Nokutwana, by slapping him with trumped up charges of using a fire arm to threaten someone. He is out on R1 000 bail.
In Protea South, Soweto, 5 LPM members are under arrest following an attack on the LPM by the Homeowners Association (HA) representing the wealthier residents in bonded homes. Armed members of the HA had mounted a wit doek-style vigilante invasion of the adjoining informal settlement to disconnect shack dwellers from the electricity grid which they had illegally tapped into. In the ensuing clashes two LPM members were killed. The attempt to assassinate LPM leader Maureen Mnisi and raze her house was prevented only the intervention of LPM member who barred the HA wit doeke’s path to her house with burning barricades. Consistent with the pattern elsewhere, the victims have been charged. 5 LPM members have been arrested.
The CDL views these developments with alarm. The actions of the state in concert with politicians and community members and the courts constitute a serious threat to the democratic against of the struggle against apartheid. With the exception of one weekly paper, the media has ignored these attempts to roll back democracy, freedom of association, freedom of speech, the right to organise and protest without fear of repression by the state.
Regrettably the organised labour movement especially Cosatu, which played a central role in the struggle against apartheid, has maintained a deafening silence in the face of these developments. We appeal to them to raise their voice in protest. For the actions against the LPM and ABM, and the methods of repression being used are being perfected for deployment against the organised working class movement itself. To remain silent and not to resist these attacks is to allow them to become a norm. Already there have been several incidents where rubber bullets have been used to disperse trade union marches and demonstrations against which Cosatu has protested.
But it would be a mistake to regard these incidents as an aberration. They should be viewed against the background of a growing appetite for a repressive state by a government yearning for the fleshpots of apartheid kragdadigheid as reflected in the call for the banning of trade union rights for soldiers and the right to strike of health workers and teachers. In a state where a youth leader’s orders to attack his opponents in the same organisation, the police service has become a police force and its ranking system militarised as under apartheid.
The CDL call upon all communities, the labour movement, student and youth organisations to unite in protests.