Category Archives: 2010 Fifa World Cup

Daily News: Marchers protest against World Cup

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http://www.dailynews.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=5517586

Marchers protest against World Cup

June 17, 2010 Edition 1

Kamcilla Pillay

THE sound of vuvuzelas cut through the air in Durban yesterday – but for one large group there was little to celebrate.

Amid cries of phansi ngama-fat cats, phansi (down with fat cats, down), and a sea of banners proclaiming the government cared only for the rich, civil rights organisations took to the streets protesting against poor service delivery and the World Cup.

Abahlali Base Mjondolo, KwaZulu-Natal Subsistence Fisher’s Forum, Clairwood Social Forum and about 17 other organisations gathered for what they dubbed an “anti-Thiefa” protest march which started at Dinizulu Park and ended at City Hall yesterday.

“The R40 billion the government has spent on the World Cup could have comfortably housed three million homeless South Africans,” said Alice Thomson of the Durban Social Forum.

“Soccer will not make a better life for all – it will only make the rich richer and the poor poorer,” Thomson said.

This week, Thomson was arrested for distributing anti-Fifa pamphlets at the Fifa Fan Fest in Durban.

Bongani Mthembu, of the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance, said that the decision to hold the protest on Youth Day was deliberate.

“Youth Day is an opportunity for us as the youth to air our grievances and raise our concerns. We can show the foreigners here the truth about what’s happening behind the World Cup,” he said.

Chairman of KZN Subsistence Fisher’s Forum Essop Mohamed said: “Some people were ‘tired of falling by the wayside’. We are marching against oppression.

Fish

“They let Fifa come here and do what they want, but they won’t let us fish,” he said, referring to a city ruling to bar fishing in certain areas along the beachfront.

Said Shamitha Naidoo, community chairwoman in Pinetown of Abahlali Base Mjondolo: “We need to show them (tourists) what’s happening. How will these poor people benefit from the World Cup?”

Protester Kirubavathi Pillay, 68, was also angry at what she said was the inability of the eThekwini Municipality to deliver adequate services.

“No one worries about us. We can’t manage without some help from the government,” Pillay said.

“They are not fighting for us. We must fight for us,” added Jaysh Ramphul, another marcher.

Deputy Mayor, Logie Naidoo, said people were not seeing the “bigger picture” and were “a bit narrow-minded”.

Naidoo charged. “In terms of infrastructure and upgrades, the World Cup has made a positive difference. We knew what we were getting ourselves into. What difference does it make to protest now?” he asked.

“Anyhow you cannot put a value on the free marketing the city is benefiting from. The world’s spotlight is on us now” Naidoo added.

kamcilla.pillay@inl.co.za

Archbishop Thabo Makgoba: Fires in Kennedy Road and Encouraging Lessons from the World Cup

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http://archbishop.anglicanchurchsa.org/2010/07/fires-in-kennedy-road-and-encouraging.html

Monday, July 5, 2010

Fires in Kennedy Road and Encouraging Lessons from the World Cup

The following Statement on the fires in Durban’s Kennedy Road Informal Settlement was issued on Monday 5 July 2010

Shack Fire In Kennedy Kills Three; 3000 Homeless

Click here to read this statement in Italian.

4 July 2010
Abahlali baseKennedy Press Statement

Shack Fire In Kennedy Kills Three; 3000 Homeless

At 2am in Kennedy Road last night, on 3 July 2010, approximately 3 people were killed after eight hundred shacks were destroyed in a fire. It is thought that one of those killed in the blaze was a young child.

An estimated three thousand people were left homeless, all their belongings burned. Now, they have nowhere to go. Emergency vehicles came to the scene but could not control the flames.

If people were given land, houses and electricity, there would be no fires. The only reason that there are fires in the shacks is because they are un-electrified. The only reason there are fires in the shacks is because of the failure of the Municipality to provide services.

We have said this since 2005. Meanwhile, the Municipality has made it illegal to electrify informal settlements. Since January 2010, the Municipality has been disconnecting shacks from electricity on a daily basis in Kennedy Road. Abahlali has been very clear that this policy contradicts the Constitution of the Republic.

After Abahlali was attacked in September 2009, Nigel Gumede from the eThekwini Housing Department came to Kennedy Road. He promised that houses and electricity would be brought to the people of Kennedy by February 2010.

The Provincial Minister of Transport, Safety and Security Willies Mchunu also came to Kennedy Road. He said, after the attacks, that the settlement had been “liberated.” He also promised that development would start anytime soon.

Instead of bringing houses or electricity, Gumede and Mchunu brought the Amatins, also known by the people as government shacks, or transit camps. Instead of bringing development, for the few months of the World Cup, the government spent billions of Rands on stadiums, fan parks, airports, and tollgates.

The government can bring the World Cup, but cannot bring housing, electricity, rubbish collection, water, toilets, or land for the poor.

Abahlali had a march in the city on 22 March 2010, which was initially banned by the Municipality. At that march, we raised our concerns. Up until today, there has been no response from government.

Abahlali condemns the Municipality for making these promises, and for failing to deliver. Abahlali calls for support for all victims of the fire, and for a fair distribution of relief.

When fires have happened in Abahlali areas in the past, it is only the Councillor’s friends who first receive support. After a fire that left 2000 homes destroyed at Foreman Road, the ANC Committee demanded that the community show ANC membership cards before receiving blankets, food, or any relief.

Today, on 4 July 2010, Abahlali was asked to come to Kennedy Road after the fire. A delegation, including Abahlali President S’bu Zikode, went there. More than 700 people openly attended an Abahlali meeting in the settlement that was addresed bu S'bu Zikode. The Municipality sent no one, as they were all too busy working on the World Cup.

Among the immediate concerns by Kennedy residents are the following:

– A demand for the supply of building materials, so that the people can rebuild their homes, for themselves.

– A demand for the reinstatement of the development project that was negotiated by Abahlali baseMjondolo and planned for Kennedy Road. An Abahlali technical team for this project met on the 21st of this month with the Municipality, calling for immediate action.

– The people of Kennedy Road are tired of the lies and promises from government. They are sick and tired of Nigel Gumede, the Chairperson of the Housing Porfolio in the eThekwini Municipality. They are sick and tired of their suffering being exploited.

– The people reject the Amatins as adequate housing. They also reject the tenders and tenderpreneurs that bennefit from building the Amatins. It is the focus on the teneders to build Amatins instead of giving the people what they need – land, hopusing and electricity – that is giving rise to these shack fires.

Abahlali would like to remind the media that the Constitutional Court, in overturning the Slums Act, made a statement against the Amatins. These Amatins are unconstitutional, and undermine human dignity. Abahlali will not rest in peace until each and every shack-dweller is housed in decent housing.

We invite all the footballs fans and journalists who are in Durban for the World Cup to come to Kennedy Road and to see for themselves the human cost of misdirecting resources into stadiums and so on in a country where the poor are still suffering. We are dying while you are celebrating and we are dying because of the way in which you are celebrating. This tournament should have been organised in such a way that we could all celebrate together.

Abahlali would like to send condolences to the families who have died in this shack fire, and in past shack fires. There have been a total of five shack fires in Kennedy Road since January 2010. In all these shack fires, the Municipality has sent no one. Abahlali, lastly, would like to ask: Whose child must be burned before the authorities act?

Contacts:
Busisiwe 078 191 3021
Nozuko 082 259 5492
Bandile (AbM General Secretary) 031 304 6420

M&G: Evicted shack dwellers seek legal recourse

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http://www.mg.co.za/article/2010-07-02-evicted-shack-dwellers-seek-legal-recourse

Evicted shack dwellers seek legal recourse
KARABO KEEPILE | JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA – Jul 02 2010 14:18

Evicted shack dwellers from Gauteng and Ekurhuleni — accused of illegally occupying council land — are now seeking legal recourse after their shacks were demolished recently. Their legal reprentatives believe they stand a good chance of winning the case because an eviction without a court order is unlawful.

Shack evictions across the country

In the lead up to and during the Soccer World Cup, South Africa experienced a string of shack demolitions.

While Durban’s Moses Mabhida stadium was being completed, thousands living in informal settlements around the area were threatened with eviction.

Residents living at an informal settlement on Durban’s Kennedy Road claimed an armed gang of about 40 men attacked residents, killing at least two people and destroying 30 shacks.

Residents, now living in Blikkiesdorp in the Western Cape — a temporary relocation area — said they were forcibly evicted from their former homes before being transported to the area.

They blamed the Soccer World Cup for the evictions.

On June 28 2010, Johannesburg shack dwellers living in Sandown claimed that 55 shacks were burnt by the Johannesburg Metro Police Department (JMPD).

The JMPD said it had the authority to demolish the shacks but denied setting them alight.

Evictions in Kliptown

Eight shack dwellers from Kliptown’s Freedom Charter Square informal settlement in Soweto have sought legal representation from the Socioeconomic Rights Institute (Seri) of South Africa, after their shacks were demolished by Johannesburg metro police officers on June 28.

The institute, which is a new NGO set up to provide legal assistance with housing, basic services, and migrant rights, said the shack dwellers had their affidavits taken on Tuesday before an urgent application was filed in the South Gauteng High Court on Wednesday. The shack dwellers want the city of Johannesburg and the metro police to restore their possession of their land and reconstruct their homes.

The eight shack owners said they had received notices from the Department of Housing’s implementation and monitoring unit, stating they had illegally occupied council land. The notices, dated June 21, were pushed under the doors of many of the shacks and gave residents seven days to vacate their premises.

The unit is responsible for ensuring that plans drawn up by the city’s housing department are implemented, such as the upgrading of informal settlements and the redevelopment of hostels.

Zoleka Ton was one of the eight Kliptown shack dwellers the M&G spoke to this week.

The Freedom Charter Square informal settlement is dusty and overpopulated. Used condoms and dead rats litter the ground between the streams of raw sewage. Longtime residents claim the informal settlement has been around since the signing of the Freedom Charter in 1955.

Ton arrived in Kliptown in 2001 from the Eastern Cape, looking for work.

“I came to live with my mom but after I had a child I decided to move.”

Ton and the father of her child built a shack in the informal settlement they call home.

She said she had refused to accept the eviction notice from an official because it did not have an official stamp but a Soccer World Cup logo instead.

“I asked them where they expected me to go but they said it wasn’t their problem.”

Ton and her child have now squeezed into her mother’s tiny shack nearby.

Zoliswa Mdleleni, also from Eastern Cape, is Ton’s neighbour.

‘I am scared to build again’

Mdleleni and her boyfriend built their two room shack when they had nowhere to live.

Mdleleni, pointing to a dusty patch which used to be their dining area and bedroom, told of how she had been planning on buying more furniture for the room.

She was was on her way to the informal settlement’s spaza shop when residents warned her to lock her shack and leave.

“I ran back so I could collect my stuff,” she said, only to find armed metro police and over a dozen men demolishing the dwelling.

Mdleleni is currently unemployed and now lives with a woman she has come to know in the area.

“I don’t know what to do and I am scared to build again because they may bring it down again,” she said.

Ekurhuleni shack dwellers evicted

Evicted shack dwellers from Gabon informal settlement in Daveyton, Ekurhuleni, gathered outside Constitutional Hill in Johannesburg on Thursday to consult with a legal team about the evictions.

General Moyo from the Informal Settlement Network in Ekurhuleni said they were signing confirmatory affidavits.

On May 15, the Informal Settlement Network’s Gauteng provincial leadership met with residents of the Gabon informal settlement in Daveyton, Ekurhuleni, after they were served a “24-hour notice for eviction for having illegal structures”, said Benjamin Bradlow, a research and documentation officer from Shack/Slum Dwellers International.

According to Bradlow, on May 11, “Red Ants [security guards known for the colour of their overalls] and other unknown people destroyed about 350 shacks and stole many residents’ belongings”.

Also gathered at Constitutional Hill this week were evicted shack dwellers from Chris Hani Informal settlement.

Chris Hani community leader Mdumiso Langeni said 20 shacks had been demolished by the police on May 17.