Monthly Archives: October 2009

Street Vendor’s Support for Shack Dwellers

21st October, 2009: Durban – South Africa

STREET VENDORS’ SUPPORT FOR SHACK DWELLERS

StreetNet International, leader of the World Class Cities for All (WCCA) campaign for inclusive urban planning and preparations for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, congratulates WCCA Campaign Partner organisation, Abahlali baseMjondolo, on their successful Constitutional Court challenge to declare invalid Section 16 of the KwaZulu-Natal Elimination and Prevention of Slums Act.

Street vendors and shack dwellers have been seeing an increase in evictions from their homes and their workplaces, intensifying in the run-up to the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Participatory development plans are being scrapped at a rapid rate as the fever to make profits out of the 2010 FIFA World Cup takes hold of government (including local government) and the private sector.

StreetNet wishes to recognise the positive contributions made by Abahlali baseMjondolo, as a progressive civil society social movement, to improving the lives of the most marginalised people in South Africa. According to the Natal Mercury (15 October 2009) “the challenge to the act was brought by Abahlali baseMjondolo (shack dwellers’ movement) and was seen as a victory for all those living in shacks, as the KZN act was widely regarded as a blueprint for similar legislation in other provinces.”

Not many South Africans noticed in April 2008, when a wave of attacks broke out against foreign nationals in informal settlements in Johannesburg and Cape Town, members of Abahlali baseMjondolo went tirelessly about the informal settlements of Durban where they had members, addressing their members and urging them not to think of doing the same in their areas, pre-empting the possibility of widespread xenophobic attacks in these areas.

Abahlali baseMjondolo’s invaluable social contribution was greatly under-appreciated at the time, as attacks against foreign nationals were eventually far less widespread and on a smaller scale in Durban than Johannesburg and Cape Town.

It was with great distress that we received reports of attacks on shack dwellers in Kennedy Road in Durban on the 26th September 2009, resulting in the deaths of two, displacement of many shack dwellers, and death threats against Abahlali baseMjondolo leaders forcing them to go into hiding. Reports about the 20-hour battle which followed the first attacks were confused and contradictory, and many people tried to politicise the incident and its aftermath.

But what is clear is that it is not acceptable for leaders of a civil society organisation struggling to ensure that shack dwellers enjoy the constitutional rights to which they are entitled, making a major contribution to the peaceful co-existence of shack dwellers of South African and foreign nationalities, to be forced into hiding in a democratic country.

As Abahlali baseMjondolo (like StreetNet International) is a respected organisation in the international civil society movement, their international partners War on Want, Domestic Workers United, New York Poverty Initiative, and Picture the Homeless drew the attention of the world to the 26th September attack and its aftermath, and the fact that Abahlali baseMjondolo leaders are still in hiding. In addition to extensive internet publicity, which has become an effective weapon in all international working class solidarity campaigns, demonstrations were organised outside the South African Embassies in London and New York.

StreetNet International calls on all progressive working class and civil society organisations in South Africa to support the positive work being done by Abahlali baseMjondolo, and to make all efforts to ensure that the democratic rights of the Abahlali baseMjondolo leaders to live freely in their communities and afforded the necessary protection against death threats against themselves and their families.

Pat Horn

International Co-ordinator

Tel. 031 201 3528 (h)
076 706 5282 (cel)

Party Politic Vs Living Politic in Kennedy Road

Click here to read the version of this lecture published in The Witness.

University of KwaZulu-Natal Forum Lecture
Thursday 22 October 2009

Party Politic Vs Living Politic in Kennedy Road

The Kennedy Road settlement, like all other Abahlali baseMjondolo settlements, has been embarking on a living politic.

This politic is a living politic because it talks about the realities of our democracy – a democracy that serves the interests of a minority while the majority our people continue to live and to die in inhuman conditions.

Our living politic talks about the fact that shack settlements have been denied life saving basic services such as water and sanitation. It talks about the fact that there is no road access, no refuse collection and no electricity. It talks about the fact that people’s lives need services like electricity.

It is a politic that talks about the fact that the intelligence of the majority has been denied while all decisions are taken by a minority.

It is a politic that says that everyone has been created in the image of God and that therefore we are all equal.

It is a politic that says that everyone in our society counts be they rich or poor and without regard to what language they speak or to where they or their ancestors were born.

It is a politic of truth that can be seen by anyone driving through Kennedy Road. Anyone can see that poverty, unemployment and hopelessness remain a challenge. It is a fact that cannot be denied that crime remains high and that ethnicity – the politic of some that is used to attack the politic of all – remains a challenge.

But the Kennedy Road Development Committee (KRDC) and Abahlali baseMjondolo have been working very hard to build a politic of all – a politic that does not divide the poor.

We have long opposed the criminalisation of all shack dwellers and demanded fair and supportive policing for shack dwellers. When the state stopped criminalising our movement and agreed to negotiate with us after the March on Mlaba in late 2007 we were able to begin negotiations with the Sydenham Police. We eventually developed a partnership to work against crime. This partnership was one of the fruits of our struggle.

All of these efforts of years have been turned into a party politic, a politic from the top down, a dirty politic, a politic full of fear, threats, arrests and death. Therefore what is happening in Kennedy Road is no longer a living politic that starts from the lives and thinking of ordinary people. Most people are confused and frightened. They cannot tell you who is the real enemy or why the poor must now fight the poor. It is a party politic.

The attack on our movement in Kennedy Road was planned at a very high political level. It was planned at a level that has the power to remote the South African Police Services. It was planned at a level that can send war lords to destroy our movement. It was planned at a level that has tax payers’ money to sponsor buses to bring our attackers to court to try and render our comrades accused of murder guilty before they go to trial – to demand that they must not be given bail and must be made to stay in Westville Prison even though no court has found them guilty of a crime.

The reasons for the attack on our movement are simple.

The politicians are trying to hide the simple truth of what has happened and what continues to happen. They are trying to blame those who were attacked by shifting the focus onto the KRDC, onto Abahlali and onto our offices.

The state itself does not talk about the dead people. It doesn’t talk anything about the people who have been displaced. It doesn’t talk anything about the people who have had their homes destroyed. It doesn’t talk anything about the whereabouts of our children, many of whom are schooling. It doesn’t talk anything about the people who threatened with death for speaking the truth about their lives.

The Disaster Management unit in the City has not responded to this crisis because it has been instructed not to respond.

Our struggle was criminalised from 2006 until the end of 2007. But we did not give up. We stood firm confident that our struggle was grounded in the truth of our lives. After 2007 our movement became a platform for poor people to engage the state. We developed some good relationships including with the head of the Human Settlements Department in the provincial government. At our last meeting with her on the 27th of August a task team was set up to investigate the evidence that we had brought forward of misallocation, mismanagement and corruption in housing. As a result of this some high level officials are being investigated as we speak.

By constant struggle in and outside of the courts Abahlali baseMjondolo has successfully stopped most illegal evictions in the City. We insist that good land must be used to house the poor. Others insist that that same land must be used for the rich to become richer. Every time that we stop an eviction we make powerful enemies.

Abahlali baseMjondolo has taken the Provincial Department of Housing to the highest court of our land – to the Constitutional Court to challenge the already buried KwaZulu-Natal Slums Act. We know that this has angered most high profile officials and politicians.

The attack on Abahlali baseMjondolo is aimed at destroying our movement, its leadership, its membership and its head quarters in Kennedy Road. The aim is to replace our elected structures with a ‘comrade KRDC’ that will take its instruction from the party and not from the people – from the top and not from below.

I want to take this opportunity to express some words of gratitude to all of you that have given a moments’ silence to Kennedy Road. I want to thank all of you that have contributed to our struggle from the date when we first made our submission against the Slums Bill up until today. It has been a long journey from the shacks to the Constitutional Court and we have not walked the distance alone.

We have returned home from the Constitutional Court to a war on our movement and on our democracy. I want to thank all of you who have been collecting food hampers, making donations, organising protests and sending statements of solidarity.

I want to thank the Students for Law and Social Justice and all the students and academics around the country that have rallied to support our movement and to defend our democracy.

If the attack on our movement is not resisted there will be new attacks on other movements and other people. When you stand with us you also take a stand for your own future.

S’bu Zikode

Mercury: Time is perfect for rethink on housing policy

http://www.themercury.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=5210685

Time is perfect for rethink on housing policy

October 21, 2009 Edition 1

Imraan Buccus

THE Constitutional Court has ruled in favour of the application brought by Abahlali baseMjondolo (ABM) and declared a section of the KwaZulu-Natal Slums Act, introduced with much fanfare in 2007, to be unconstitutional.

The judgment means the Act will now not be reproduced in the other provinces, as mandated by the Polokwane resolutions. And, perhaps more importantly, the whole policy of eradicating slums by forcibly removing shack dwellers to peripheral transit camps lies in tatters.

In 2004 the government introduced the Breaking New Ground (BNG) housing policy in the wake of a widespread realisation that post-apartheid housing policy was replicating apartheid social planning.

The new policy allowed for shack settlements to be upgraded on site via participatory development techniques. It was a major break with the tendency to seek the eradication of shack settlements via forced removal to the urban periphery. The policy was welcomed across civil society as a major advance over the first decade of post-apartheid housing planning.

However, with the exception of the innovative deal signed between ABM and the eThekwini Municipality in early 2009, the new policy was never implemented.

The state ignored its progressive new policy and instead returned to the apartheid language of “slum eradication” and the apartheid strategy of forcibly removing shack dwellers to peripheral transit camps.

This was often undertaken with considerable violence on the part of the state.

Shack dwellers’ organisations across the country have opposed the return to apartheid-style urban planning and have often successfully appealed to the courts to stop evictions.

The KZN Slums Act was an attempt by the state to legalise its return to repressive urban planning practices.

The Constitutional Court has now ruled that the act is illegal and made it impossible for the state to legitimate its turn to repressive practices.

The government now has to rethink its housing policy. The obvious solution would be to actually implement the BNG policy.

The deal negotiated between the eThekwini Municipality and ABM between September, 2007 and February 2009 shows that it can be made to work if there is enough political will.

This deal provides for services to be provided to 14 settlements and for the upgrade of three, including the Kennedy Road settlement, via BNG.

ABM’s achievement in stopping the Slums Act in the Constitutional Court and, simultaneously, working out viable alternatives in negotiations with the eThekwini Municipality is a remarkable achievement.

The movement has, like the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), achieved a fundamental challenge to bad policy and practice.

It has also, again like the TAC, found and perhaps even developed progressive forces within the state to realise its objectives.

Organisations such as the TAC and ABM are precious resources for our democracy. They are both, in different ways, able to speak and act with great effect for groups of people marginalised from mainstream society.

They have, justly, both been celebrated here and around the world for their contribution to human rights. We should all, therefore, be deeply concerned about those who think that the ABM had no right to question authority and to take the government to court.

As the many democrats within the ANC will certainly agree, the kind of engagement that ABM has engaged in is the very stuff of democracy and is the right of any citizen, organisation or movement.

Open debate and judicial overview of key decisions enrich our democracy and are always to be welcomed.

There was also a time when the TAC was under attack from the state. TAC protests were violently attacked by the police in Queenstown and here in Durban and all kinds of slander was circulated about the movement – including the bizarre allegation that a movement that began its work by campaigning against the drug companies was being funded by the same drug companies.

But there is now a broad recognition that the TAC’s challenge to the ANC has resulted in a deep improvement in the ANC’s response to the Aids pandemic.

As the government, hopefully in partnership with civil society, reconsiders its housing policy in the wake of the judgment against the Slums Act, there needs to be a similar recognition of the enormous social value of the work undertaken by ABM.

In recent weeks there has been an incredible outpouring of civil support for ABM across South Africa and around the world.

No doubt this support will step up in the wake of the organisation’s achievement in the Constitutional Court.

Democrats in the ANC need to affirm the right of civil society organisations to freely advance the interests of their members even when this brings them into disagreement with the government of the day.

Letter to Jacob Zuma from the Methodist Bishop of Natal

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THE METHODIST CHURCH OF SOUTHERN AFRICA

NATAL COASTAL DISTRICT
BISHOP MIKE VORSTER
138 ESTHER ROBERTS, GLENWOOD,
P O BOX 50452, MUSGRAVE, 4062

Tel: 031 202 3662

Fax: 031 202 0099

Email: ntlcoast@mweb.co.za
Tuesday, 06 October 2009

PRESIDENT J.G. ZUMA

P.BAG X1000

PRETORIA

0001

Dear President Zuma

KENNEDY ROAD INFORMAL SETTLEMENT, DURBAN.

As the Bishop of the Natal Coastal District, Methodist Church of Southern Africa, I am writing to you, deeply grieved by the recent developments and events, which have occurred in Kennedy Road. As you will no doubt be aware, tensions in this informal settlement are not new, and the formation of the community development movement known as Abahlali baseMjondolo aims to address the ongoing dissatisfaction of many of the 7000 residents, particularly as these relate to the provision of basic service amenities such as water and sanitation.

More recently however, the residents of this community have found themselves caught up in a struggle far more insidious than a conflict between city officials and their elected leadership. The spiral of violence seems to be fuelled by partisan dynamics, which are further aggravated by structural inadequacies and alleged collusion between members of the SAPS and the local branch of the ANC.

In particular, the specific targeting of homes and offices of members of Abahlali baseMjondolo, has resulted in deaths, detentions, beatings, loss of property and the displacement of an estimated 3000 people, including women and children, who have fled the area in fear of their safety. This situation has been exacerbated by the apparent or alleged inaction on the part of local police, specifically the Sydenham police station.

In light of these developments, I respectfully call on your office to urgently address this matter, with a view to establishing a commission of enquiry into all allegations that have led to violence and atrocious acts against innocent residents. This is a matter of accountability and all those guilty of the alleged crimes must be called to task.

I would furthermore urge your office to urgently seek ways of providing immediate relief to those affected, especially to the homeless and to those who find themselves vulnerable to further attacks and victimisation. Of particular concern is the safety of all school children. Parents must be assured of this safety. The necessary protection of the rights of every resident is core to the future stability of this settlement.

As a faith community we would like to offer our assistance in mediating a peaceful resolution to these long-standing tensions. As we all know through experience, that when people are drawn together in a spirit of reconciliation and understanding, the opportunities, which arise for greater tolerance and peace are far more sustainable.

I look forward to your urgent attention to our concerns, and would again take the opportunity to assure you of our willingness to participate in all efforts aimed at ensuring a peaceful and sustainable solution to these problems.

Bishop Michael Vorster.

Intimidation Continues

This addendum to yesterday's press release was received late last night via cellphone text message from Reverend Mavuso Mbhekeseni. Please contact the Reverend for further details on the threats to the clergy, the chairperson of the AbM Women's League and others, at the court yesterday.

The ANC mob was swearing at us in court saying that we are corrupt church leaders who support criminals. They threatened to catch us and kill us in the city. They said that they would describe us to all their people by the clothes we were wearing. They also threatened the chairperson of the AbM women's league although she was not present at the court. They threatened her by name, shouted and swore at her name, and said that she is a "a thief who wears pants bought with the money from Kennedy Road people." The ANC mob was armed with sticks and other sharp objects. They were highly intimidating and it was clear that their threats were serious – they meant what they were saying.
– Reverend Mavuso Mbhekeseni

We also need to note that some of the ANC mob threatened AbM people with knobkerries, that they also claimed to have bush knives in the bus and threatened to kill people leaving the court and that threatening sexual gestures were made against elderly AbM women. One of the mob also openly said that their plan, when they attacked the AbM Youth Camp at Kennedy Road, had been to kill S'bu Zikode. Also, it is clear that the mob confused the chairperson of the AbM Women's League with her daughter – they are threatening her because she spoke on TV after the victory in the constitutional court.

Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Update
Monday 19 October 2009

Kennedy Thirteen Bail Hearing Adjourned

The Kennedy Thirteen appeared in the Durban Magistrate's Court today for a bail hearing. Once again the ANC bussed in its supporters. Once again they were hostile and aggressive and openly threatened to kill the Kennedy Thirteen if they are given bail. The arguments were heard and the decision will be given on Monday 26 October. In the meantime the Kennedy Thirteen will be kept in the notorious Westville prison.

Our movement was vindicated in the case of the Kennedy Six – we will be vindicated in this case too.

For comment on today's bail hearing please contact:

Reverend Mavuso Mbhekeseni: 072 279 2634
Shamita Naidoo: 074 315 7962

Eight More Arrests in Two More Settlements

On Thursday last week there were another eight arrests. Four people were arrested in the Foreman Road settlement and another four in the Arnett Drive settlement. This has extended the current wave of repression against the movement to 3 settlements and brought the total number of arrests to 21.

The police first descended on the Foreman Road settlement where they kicked in doors and arrested 4 people for Operation Khanyisa (i.e. connecting themselves to electricity in a city where shack dwellers have been officially denied access to electricity since 2001). They then went to the Arnett Drive settlement where they also kicked in doors and arrested 4 people for 'drinking in public'. In the previous wave of repression – from 2005 till late 2007 – this charge was often used against the movement. The police act as if a shack is not a private space and then arrest people having a beer in their own homes. This is a very dirty trick aimed at making being poor a criminal offense.

The politics of the poor developed by our movement was criminalised from 2005 till late 2007. Our movement came out of that phrase of repression stronger than we were when it began. We did not give up our struggle. We kept going. And after the March on Mlaba the City realised that it had to negotiate with us. From late 2007 until last month things were much easier in Durban (although not elsewhere) – we were negotiating with the City and making all kinds of progress. But now a decision has been taken to return to repression. We survived the first attempt to criminalise our movement and we will survive this attempt. Every arrest makes the real nature of the state more clear to more people. Every arrest makes the real nature of our democracy more clear to more people. We have no choice but to keep going forward with our struggle. Without struggle there is no hope for us or our children. We cannot accept that. Therefore we will not be defeated.

For comment on the arrests in Foreman Road and Arnett Drive please contact:

Philani Dlamini: 078 583 5451
Mama Nxumalo: 076 579 6198