The Daily Maverick
S’bu Zikode
An attempt has been made on the life of Abahlali baseMjondolo president Zikode, according to a statement released by the shack dwellers’ movement on 7 July.
A statement released by Abahlali baseMjondolo on 7 July 2018 claimed that its president S’bu Zikode’s vehicle had been maliciously tampered with and his life was “in grave danger”.
Lamontville Transit Camp residents were evicted on Friday by the City of eThekwini
Residents of Lamontville Transit Camp were evicted by the City of eThekwini’s Security Management Unit and the Department of Human Settlements, in Lamontville South of Durban on Friday. The Durban High Court allowed them to return in a court ruling on Monday. Photo: Rethabile Phakisi for New Frame Continue reading
Nation Nyoka & Dennis Webster, The Daily Maverick
Residents of the Good Hope settlement in Germiston have occupied vacant land on the border of Germiston and Boksburg, partly in response to lack of space at the existing settlement. On Thursday morning, Ekurhuleni Metro Police dispersed them with rubber bullets.
New Frame witnessed a brutal attack by Ekurhuleni Metro Police Department (EMPD) officers on residents of the Good Hope shack settlement in Germiston, Ekurhuleni, in the early hours of Thursday morning.
At least one resident, Siyambusa Mpolase, was arrested.
The police action was in response to the occupation of a piece of nearby land which began on Friday 11 May. Continue reading
Dennis Webster, The Daily Maverick
Recently burnt veld crunches under foot. Beneath the ash, green shoots are beginning to reappear. But the grass is not the only new growth.
It is early afternoon on Friday 11 May 2018. Around 30 members of Abahlali baseMjondolo’s Good Hope branch in Germiston move swiftly across a large and vacant piece of land owned by the Witwatersrand Gold Mining Trust. The land sits between Germiston and Boksburg. They are mapping out the grid of a new shack settlement. Some carry hammers, axes and tape measures. Continue reading
Dennis Webster, Daily Maverick
Abahlali used its UnFreedom Day rally to repeat a call for progressive political movements in South Africa to transcend the limits of the factory floor or the shack settlement.
Morakane Moloi left her home in Tembisa, Ekurhuleni at midnight on Saturday, 21 April, bound for Abahlali baseMjondolo’s annual UnFreedom Day rally more than 600km away.
Moloi was among Abahlali members who gathered for the rally at the foot of the now historic Kennedy Road shack settlement, outside Durban, where the shack dwellers’ movement began in 2005.
It was her first UnFreedom Day. She made the trip to Sunday’s rally at the Springfield Park sports ground together with the other members of a fledgling Abahlali branch in Vusimuzi shack settlement, east of Johannesburg. Continue reading