Category Archives: Caryn Dolley

Cape Times: Eye lost after rubber bullet strikes

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http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/western-cape/eye-lost-after-rubber-bullet-strikes-1.681920

Eye lost after rubber bullet strikes

September 27 2010 at 06:57am

By Caryn Dolley

Hangberg resident Auriol Cloete made breakfast for her children, saw two of them off to school and felt proud as she sat in the house she had built for them.

Hours later the mother of four was partially blind, cowering on her bed, bleeding from the left eye, and screaming at her children to keep lying flat on the floor as police and residents clashed outside.

“My life changed for ever. I’ll never forget that day,” Cloete, 35, said on Sunday after attending a church service in Hangberg.

She was injured last Tuesday when violence broke out between residents and police who had entered the settlement to escort workers contracted by the City of Cape Town to demolish about 20 unoccupied dwellings erected illegally on a firebreak.

Residents threw rocks and petrol bombs and fired distress flares at officers who used rubber bullets in retaliation.

A rubber bullet hit Cloete in the left eye.

“I was standing in a flat. This big police truck was driving in the road above us. This policeman was shooting through a door in the top of the truck. I was shot. The bullet went straight into my eye. That moment I knew I lost my eye,” she said.

Cloete ran back into her house as it was too dangerous to try to get to an ambulance.

“I lay on my bed for four and a half hours without treatment. I was helpless. My children, aged two, five and seven, watched me. They could see my eyeball hanging out. They were too scared to come near me. I just shouted they must keep flat on the floor and not look outside,” she said, wiping tears from her right eye.

Later, she was taken to hospital with another resident, who was apparently also shot in the left eye, and who is now unable to see because his right eye has become infected.

As Cloete stood outside the church yesterday, a number of residents came to greet her and see how she was doing.

Others compared injuries from last week’s clashes.

A resident told her a third person was still in hospital as a rubber bullet lodged in his eye had not yet been removed.

Cloete, who worked whenever she could secure a job, has lived in Hangberg all her life and had spent more than R60 000 on a home for her children.

Yesterday she said she was worried because she did not know if it was one of at least 50 occupied structures the City of Cape Town was still trying to have demolished.

City spokeswoman Kylie Hatton said it might be known by tomorrow whether the courts would allow the demolitions.

Cloete said she was terrified further violence would break out if this happened.

“I’m very scared. My children are terrified. I want to still live here though. This is my community,” she said.

Cloete, currently unemployed, cried as she thought about how her life had changed since last week. “I can’t even pour water for myself. I can’t look after my children. I’m staying with my mother for now.”

She said she was considering lodging a complaint with the Independent Complaints Directorate about being shot. – Cape Times

caryn.dolley@inl.co.za

Cape Times: Electricity protest turns ugly

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http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=&art_id=vn20100818044334572C724348

Electricity protest turns ugly

By Caryn Dolley

Fourteen Rylands residents and a baby are in police custody after a protest over electricity became violent.

Stones were hurled at officers, who retaliated by using a water cannon and stun grenades. The protesters also stoned motorists on Pooke Road, alongside their informal settlement on a stretch of privately-owned land, and threatened workers walking in the area.

At the moment, only toilets at the back of the settlement have electricity, but the residents – some who have been without power for more than two decades – do not.

When the Cape Times team arrived at the Pooke se Bos settlement yesterday, black smoke could be seen rising from the burning tyres and debris blocking the road. Rocks and stones were strewn on the tar.
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A group of about 60 residents were shouting at heavily armed officers watching them.

“Give us electricity. We’ve waited so long. We don’t want to fight with you. Just help us,” a woman shouted.

Another said she had waited for electricity for 21 years.

Sitting in his shack nearby, a resident, who did not want to be named, said living without electricity was “exhausting”.

“It’s tough. Especially when it’s cold, we suffer. I cook with gas and struggle to keep my place warm. It’s not fair,” he said.

Police officers then warned the group of residents, milling around on the pavement and threatening to stones cars, to disperse. After a few warnings they had still refused to do so. An officer then threw two stun grenades nearby, causing them to run away. Officers then chased residents and warned them to stay indoors.

Police had earlier used a water cannon to disperse a group after stones were thrown at officers.

Athlone police spokesman Ian Bennett said 14 residents had been arrested for public violence. A baby girl was also being kept with her mother in police custody, at her mother’s request.

Bennett said the 14 would appear in court by tomorrow.

Ward councillor Musthapha Murudker said the city council had initially not been able to provide the residents with electricity because they were on privately-owned land.

About two years ago, the land owner, Kanti Patel, had agreed to let the council install electricity, which had been provided to the toilets. Residents were promised power, but then, due to issues with Eskom, the city council had decided not to do this.

Murudker said he planned to visit the area and meet the residents’ committee.

The Cape Times was not able to reach Patel yesterday.

* This article was originally published on page 1 of Cape Times on August 18, 2010

Cape Times: Police chief warns politicians wanting to visit Blikkiesdorp

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http://www.capetimes.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=5256547

Police chief warns politicians wanting to visit Blikkiesdorp

November 23, 2009 Edition 1

Caryn Dolley

Politicians planning to visit Blikkiesdorp, the temporary relocation settlement in Delft, should first let the SAPS know for safety reasons, the area’s police commissioner has warned.

Issuing the warning, Commissioner Basil Vellai said the area was “a housing time-bomb” that threatened to explode and criminals were preying on the impoverished residents of Blikkiesdorp.

He said the thousands of people living “in frustration” in the crime-ridden community were approaching boiling point.

But Mayor Dan Plato, who was slapped by an angry woman when he visited the area last week, says he is “happy” with Blikkiesdorp – to the extent that it may be extended and one or two “similar informal areas” created.

Tomorrow, at least 2 000 people are planning to march to the Cape Town Civic Centre to speak to him about their living conditions.

During his visit, angry residents also swore at Plato after he dismissed their complaints about inhuman conditions, saying the settlement was “among the best”.

Although the wood-and-iron structures provided may be better than shacks, Vellai said Blikkiesdorp was “a housing time-bomb” and plagued by crime.

“Drug merchants from all over are coming into the area,” he said.

“They’re targeting the poor people living there saying, ‘If you stash my drugs (in your home), I’ll pay you’. Or they’re forcing the people out (of the temporary homes).

“There’s housebreaking, clothes are stolen straight off washing lines. Because there are no garages, cars are broken into. Strangers and criminal elements are moving in and benefiting from Blikkiesdorp. Gangsters are capitalising on it.”

At weekends, alcohol and drug abuse became a problem in Blikkiesdorp, and this was when children were often left unattended, Vellai said.

Domestic violence was also common in Blikkiesdorp, and in eight months three murders had been reported there.

Vellai said the area was barren.

“People there are poor and living in frustration. It’s getting to them. When it’s 29 or 30 degrees Celsius outside, those homes are boiling inside.”

People from other other parts of Cape Town were living there, as were people displaced by the xenophobic violence last year. Although issues related to xenophobia had cropped up, they had been sorted out before any violence occurred, Vellai said.

About 1 452 families are staying in Blikkiesdorp. There are 215 more who have yet to be accommodated.

The number of people in Blikkiesdorp was growing, Vellai said.

“It’s like a housing time-bomb. If housing isn’t sorted out, there’ll be big problems.”

Raids were frequently carried out and a patrol van was always in the vicinity.

A neighbourhood watch had been set up, but some of its members had been threatened for giving the police information, Vellai said.

Plato said yesterday there were no service delivery problems in Blikkiesdorp and that he was “happy” with the area.

He said the social problems experienced there were the same as in other areas.

“It’s a case of because council has put (the residents) there, we must be responsible for the social problems.”

Plato said the media were using Blikkiesdorp as “a stick to hit council”.

“The dramatic story, the untold story of Blikkiesdorp, goes unnoticed. When a number of people come up and say ‘Dan Plato, thank you’. When you look at where most of them are coming from, we give them at least something.

“Where were the media when I was knee-deep in water, walking in my suit in Mfuleni?”

People were waiting to move into temporary relocation areas. If people were unhappy in Blikkiesdorp they could “go find something better”.

caryn.dolley@inl.co.za

IOL: ‘You could see the anger in their eyes’

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This meeing follows a series of anti-xenophobia meetings called by the Gugulethu Anti-Eviction Campaign. The police, who have often harassed the AEC, are now trying to take credit for the success of the sustained activism on this issue by the AEC.

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=nw20090615195308848C865193

‘You could see the anger in their eyes’
15 06 2009

By Caryn Dolley
15 June 2009, 19:57

Source: IOL

Local traders who sent warning letters to Somali shopkeepers telling them they had to get out of Gugulethu by the end of the week have apologised for their intimidating behaviour. And they now say the Somalis are welcome to stay in the area.

An interim committee of foreign and local traders from Gugulethu, has also been set up to diffuse any tensions which may still arise between the groups.

This was decided during a meeting between local and Somali traders and the police last(mon) night.

When the meeting ended last night, a number of local and Somali traders smiled and shook hands.

They said they were happy with the outcomes of the meeting.

Police had called the meeting, closed to the media, at the weekend after the warning letters were distributed.

Speaking after more than three hours of discussions with the traders, Gugulethu police spokesman Elliot Sinyangana(cor) said the meeting, at times heated, had been successful.

“Those who sent out the letters were here. You could see the anger in their eyes when they spoke. But after hearing from (the Somalis) they have apologised for the letters. They also promised to refrain from any intimidating behaviour.

“They said they had felt pressured into sending the letters but now they see what they have done and feel sorry for it,” he said.

Sinyangana said an interim committee, consisting of five local traders and five Somali ones, had been set up and members would discuss and deal with any grievances brought up by the shopkeepers.
He said police as well as the Anti-Eviction Campaign would also step in if the traders needed guidance or help.

The committee would meet today(tues) and give the traders feedback on Thursday during another meeting.

Earlier, when discussions had still been going on, Mahad Omar Abdi(cor), representing the Somali traders, said local shopkeepers had wanted the Somali traders in the area to increase the prices of their products.

“But if they force us to regulate our prices, it’s not fair to the locals. What about the poor man on the street who can’t afford much and what about the domestic worker who just doesn’t have the extra cash?

“We will be enriching ourselves at their expense,” he said.

Abdi said he felt locals had sent the letters to intimidate Somali traders because they felt they could “get away with it”.

By the end of the meeting a Somali trader, who did not want to be named as he said he still felt uncertain about his safety, said local traders had understood that their Somali counterparts did not want to sell goods at identical prices to the locals.

“They seem to understand now. Things are looking much better,” he said.

# caryn.dolley@inl.co.za