Daily Vox: How Abahlali Basemjondolo are trying to improve the lives of shack dwellers
https://www.thedailyvox.co.za/abahlali-basemjondolo-trying-improve-lives-shack-dwellers/
Members of ABAHLALI BASEMJONDOLO held a conference in Durban last weekend to discuss the progress of the organisation and to elect a task team to oversee a participatory development project that aims to improve the lives of shack dwellers. QINISO MBILI was there.
Singing their own versions of struggle songs, the members of Abahlali Basemjondolo attended a conference in Durban last week. The organisation is part of a new participatory development project, named Siyakhisana, that aims to encourage government to include dwellers in service delivery tasks in order for them to ensure the legitimacy of these services. Continue reading
Al Jazeera: Has Zuma lost his grip on South Africa?
Niren Tolsi, Al Jazeera
In the Pretoria High Court 2D, Advocate Kemp J Kemp hunched his shoulders and pushed his head out like a heron about to snaffle its prey.
The 2009 decision to drop more than 700 fraud, corruption, racketeering and money-laundering charges against his client, President Jacob Zuma, was a “message”, Kemp argued, that the National Prosecuting Authority’s “enormous powers” would never again be used to “decide who will be the president of the country” or “to engineer political results”. Continue reading
IOL: Private security to fight eThekwini land invasions
http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/private-security-to-fight-ethekwini-land-invasions-1998144
Durban – eThekwini wants to use private security to help its land invasion unit combat illegal occupations – and it is willing to bypass regular tender processes to obtain their services.
“In the past few days, land invasion has been prevented in Umlazi – next to Mega City – Cato Crest and in a lot of other areas,” the city’s deputy manager for community and emergency services, Dr Musa Gumede, told Exco on Tuesday. Continue reading
Abahlali baseMjondolo Policy Conference
Saturday 12 March 2016
Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Statement
Abahlali baseMjondolo Policy Conference
Abahlali baseMjondolo will hold a policy conference on Sunday the 13th of March at 9 am at the Surat Hindu Association Hall (Prince Edward Street) in Durban. Each of the 28 branches currently in good standing has been invited to nominate 9 delegates to attend the conference. The delegates will all be expected to report back to their branches for further discussion.
CLP: Anna Selmeczi “Haunted by the Rebellion of the Poor” : Thursday 17 March
Padkos and the Paulo Freire Institute, are very pleased to welcome Anna Selmeczi back to Maritzburg. Join us at 4:30 to hear the talk and share some drinks and snacks together.
We last met Anna when she did such a great job as our guest speaker at the launch of our second “Padkos Digest” volume in 2014. Anna currently holds the South African Research Chair Initiative (SARChI): Social Change, at the University of Fort Hare and has been a consistent partner in our journey to uncover paths towards emancipatory praxis in our South African context. Continue reading
The Marikana land occupation in Cato Manor, Durban, in 2013 and 2014: A site where neither the state, the party nor popular resistance is fully in charge
by Richard Pithouse
This chapter provides an account of some of the contestation around a landoccupation in Cato Manor, Durban. It shows that none of the actors aspiring toexercise control – party structures, the local state, the courts, NGOs and popularorganisations – were, in the period under study, able to exercise full control over thepeople or territory in question. It also shows that actually existing forms of contestationfrequently operated outside the limits established by liberal democratic arrangements
Attachments
The Marikana Land Occupation in Cato Manor
The Struggle for Human Dignity Continues in the Shadow of Death
Friday, 12 February 2016
Abahlali basemjondolo press statement
The Struggle for Human Dignity Continues in the Shadow of Death
Life is always difficult in the shacks. If you are poor and black you can be killed with impunity. But it is not only the politicians and their izinkabi, or the police or private security companies that take our lives. We live in life threatening conditions every day. We die in the fires, from disease, drugs and crime. Our children die from diarrhoea. Our neighbours die because the roads next to the settlements are not made safe for pedestrians. The economy excludes us. The development of the cities excludes us. We are denied access to land, electricity, water, housing, education and work. We are also denied the right to participate in the discussions about the future of our society and in decision making about our lives and communities. Continue reading
The Times: ANC councillors facing murder charges to return to court
Two ANC councillors facing charges of murder are due to appear in the Durban high court on Monday.
Abahlali baseMjondolo said in a statement on Friday that the two men were alleged izinkabi (hitmen).
“We have witnessed a t least 40 people being killed in the hostels in Durban‚ particular in Umlazi and KwaMashu townships”‚ the movement said. “The provincial government has failed to act decisively to protect lives.” Continue reading
ANC councillors facing murder charges to return to court
Friday, 29 January 2016
Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Statement
ANC councillors facing murder charges to return to court
Two ANC councillors facing charges of murder, Mduduzi (Nqola) Christian Ngcobo and Luvelile Lutshelu, are due to appear in the Durban High Court on Monday, 1 February 2016. These alleged izinkabi (hitmen) are charged with assassinating Thuli Ndlovu, Abahlali baseMjondolo KwaNdengezi Chairperson and a senior leader member of our movement, on 29 September 2014. Both suspects are councillors of the ruling party and the party has protected them despite these serious allegations. We are told that they are still working for the party and receiving their normal salaries. Continue reading