Category Archives: Kowthar Solomons

Sunday Tribune: No home, no four walls, no warmth

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http://www.sundaytribune.co.za/no-home-no-four-walls-no-warmth-1.1082149

No home, no four walls, no warmth

June 11 2011
By Kowthar Solomons

WEEKEND ARGUS

Three-year-old Jim-Bop clutches a white teddy bear. It’s a gift for Imaan – the baby who will soon come home from hospital to live in a field.

The 10-day-old girl is the latest member of a community who live in makeshift shelters next to Kapteinsklip train station.

Jim-Bop idolises Spider-Man, but the toddler and the rest of the 120-strong community living on a field in Swartklip don’t need fictional heroes – there are real heroes living next door.

It’s getting dark on Thursday evening, and the 20 families are setting up their makeshift tents. A High Court interdict prevents them from putting up any solid structures and their materials have been confiscated by City of Cape Town officials.

The community instead uses branches as support poles and a blanket or plastic sheet as cover. They put up the shelters at night and take them down before the regular inspections. If the structures are up for more than 48 hours, law enforcers cannot pull them down.

While the tents are being set up, Jim-Bop runs across the field, helping to get wood for tonight’s fire. His real name is Neville, but he answers only to Jim-Bop – the nickname his dad gave him.

The toddler has spent the past six months living in the field with his mother, Renecia Davids, 25, and his brother, one-year-old Jermaine.

Davids claims she was beaten by her drug-addict boyfriend, Jim-Bop’s father, who often threatened her with a knife. When Jim-Bop sees a knife, he hides.

Davids was so scared that her boyfriend would attack their six-year-old daughter Chanice, who tried to protect her mother from the abuse, she sent her to stay with a relative.

She thought the abuse would never stop, but help arrived in the form of “land invaders”, who moved on to a nearby field a month ago. These people, her heroes, saved her and her children.

“They noticed the bruises on my face and continually tried to get us to move to their camp. Eventually I took my children – and my boyfriend left us and never came back. Since then we’ve become a part of the community here, and this is how we survive.”

It’s 7pm and the fire that Jim-Bop helped make is roaring. The last group of commuters walk home from the nearby station. Many live in the camp and are greeted with smiles and a hot plate of food. Tonight’s supper is a pot of fish breyani, donated by Rene Adams, a nearby resident and another one of the community’s heroes. If it weren’t for her act of kindness, there would have been no food on the crates that serve as a table.

It’s a special night for the camp. New mother Ilhaam Abrahams, 27, has come home after giving birth to Imaan, Arabic for “faith”. Imaan, who was born six weeks prematurely and had to be delivered by Caesarean, remains in hospital. The camp residents helped to get Abrahams to the hospital after she started bleeding.

The area is barren except for the bushes which provide firewood. Some of the residents have dug underground shelters to protect themselves from the gale-force winds and heavy rains.

The camp’s residents offered to pay for a room for her to stay in with the baby, but Abrahams declined the offer, saying she wanted to stay at the camp with the people she knew cared about her and her child.

“It hurts so much to think I’ll have to bring her home to a field but I can’t give up my baby. I plan to look after the baby during the day, but I will leave her with relatives at night to keep her away from the harsh conditions here,” she said.

Residents chat about politics. They want new mayor Patricia de Lille to visit them – to see how they are living. They discuss Albertina Sisulu’s death. A man with a Manchester United beanie and scarf is chided by Liverpool supporters and told he’ll have to take off the kit or they’ll “evict him”. Everyone laughs – even the United supporter.

The residents catch up with each other until 1.30am, when they finally call it a night and retreat to their tents and trenches. The men take turns watching over the camp while the others sleep. There is no space in the camp for me or photographer Neil Baynes. We retreat to the car.

It is 6am and cold on Friday morning when the camp wakes up to start taking down the structures before law enforcement arrives.

Adams arrives at 8am to see how the people are doing.

A former member of the camp, Adams moved into the backyard of her parents’ house.

She often prepares food for the camp and stores any meat they receive. The children wash every second day at her house, and spend the day there when it is too wet and cold.

“I understand what the people go through because I went through the same thing, but I was fortunate enough to have a place to go back to after the raids started. The people here are like family and I’m only too happy to help where I can,” she says.

Faeza Meyer, one of the camp’s leaders, says the group has become stronger as a result of their adversities.

“Every challenge that comes our way we face together, whether it’s law enforcement taking down our tents or dealing with problems inside the camp.

“We are a real family and our bond will only become stronger.”

They have faith, none more so than Ilhaam Abrahams, who was about to make her way to hospital to feed Imaan.

“I’ve miscarried twice before, but with the faith of Allah, I knew I would give birth to my beautiful baby girl. I have faith that this child will live a blessed life.” – Weekend Argus

kowthar.solomons@inl.co.za

Timeline of the ongoing battle at Tafelsig

* May 15: Thousands of backyard dwellers invade four sites in Tafelsig, earmarked for housing development over the next four years.

* May 16: Violent clashes between the invaders and police follow, after hundreds of shacks are demolished at Swartklip, one of the four sites. Eighteen people are injured and 14 backyarders arrested during the incident.

* May 17: The day before local government elections, and the City of Cape Town wins a Western Cape High Court interdict, allowing them to demolish the illegal structures and prevent the building of any new structures on city land. The city also applies for an eviction order.

Police and residents continue their battle on the Swartklip sports field, with police taking down dozens shacks rebuilt overnight. Police force the invaders off the field only for ANC provincial head Marius Fransman to lead them back moments later. Albert Fritz, then Community Safety MEC, calls for an investigation into Fransman’s actions.

* May 18: Most of the invaders comply with the interdict and the numbers at the four sites start to drop.

* May 20: The city is accredited to build houses by national government and newly elected mayor Patricia de Lille admits housing is still a major problem for the province.

* May 22: Land invaders drop to a few hundred. The city announces its plans to take invaders to court on June 1.

* May 26: More than 500 invaders march through the CBD against eviction order.

* June 1: Hundreds of backyarders from across the city demonstrate outside the High Court in support of the Tafelsig land invaders, as the court hears the application for the eviction order. Both sides agree to postpone the case until July 27 to allow invaders to find legal representation.

* June 5: Nine Swartklip families press charges of assault against city law enforcement. A pregnant woman is rushed to the hospital undergoing contractions after she claims she was assaulted during an inspection.

* Present: Law enforcement continues to patrol the four sites. A group of around 120 remain on the Kapteinsklip site, despite the threat of eviction.

Cape Argus: Protests to go on ‘until plans drawn up’

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Once again destruction of property is being called ‘violence’….Funny that no one calls death and mutilation by shack fires ‘violence’….That is always a ‘natural disaster’….Structural violence is invisible. Protest that damages property is hyper visible

http://www.capeargus.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=5679027

Protests to go on ‘until plans drawn up’
MEC baffled by protest as building of new housing scheme to start in two weeks

October 08, 2010 Edition 1

KOWTHAR SOLOMONS Staff Reporter

FORTY hectares of land and alleged political agendas are at the centre of the controversy that has led to running battles between police and Khayelitsha residents, who have staged service delivery protests for two weeks.

That is the view of Housing MEC Bonginkosi Madikizela, who says residents’ claims that the provincial government is doing nothing to resolve the area’s housing crisis have left him baffled, considering the development of housing is imminent on the land in question.

He explained that the 40ha, on plot number 1892 between Eerste River and Blue Downs, had been set aside for the Nuwe Begin (New Beginnings) housing project.

Construction is set to begin in two weeks.

Over the past week, residents have burnt tyres, set up barricades and made a failed attempt to petrol bomb a fire station.

In the latest incident, a Golden Arrow bus was torched on Monday night.

The bus was the second to be destroyed by protesters. The first was set alight in Nyanga.

At least 10 other buses have been stoned and 27 windows smashed.

Madikizela said the new scheme was set to deliver 1 809 houses, 609 of which would be “affordable market” homes.

A date for the completion of the project was not given.

The MEC explained that the project was initiated in April last year, but had since hit problems.

When the development was announced by then-MEC for housing Whitey Jacobs, it had not been approved yet by the city, which meant the council would not contribute funds for the project.

Madikizela then approached the national Housing Department and was given R50 million, an excess from the budget of the N2 Gateway project.

After these funds were made available, the sewerage plant at Zandvlei became a problem because it could not accommodate so many new homes. An agreement was, however, reached recently to channel sewage from the housing project to Makhaza.

Madikizela said he had been in continual contact with community leaders throughout the process – the same leaders who now claimed to know nothing about it.

“To me this entire issue sounds like political interference. I scheduled a meeting this past Sunday to discuss the progress on the scheme, but fewer than 10 people showed up,” he said.

“I even heard rumours of intimidation by community leaders to stop residents from attending the meeting.”

Golden Arrow spokeswoman Bronwen Dyke says each of the two buses that were torched would cost about R1.3m to replace.

Also, R15 000 damage was done to the Lansdowne fire station when a group of protesters attacked it last Sunday night.

City spokeswoman Kylie Hatton said the fire station’s engine room doors were damaged and the front windscreen of one of the new Warrior fire engines was shattered.

Community leader Mzuko Poni, from Abahlani baseMjondolo, said while they did not condone the violence, it seemed “petty” compared with the daily suffering of residents “because of the idiots at provincial government”.

“Because of poor housing conditions we have diseases such as tuberculosis running rampant and fires.

“The damage may be a few million, but you cannot put a price on a human life and the hardships these people have to go through.”

Poni said residents would continue protesting until the city met their demand to see plans being drawn up, or implemented, to solve the housing shortage.

When questioned about the Nuwe Begin development, a surprised Poni said he had not heard of it.

Cape Argus: Angry residents attack off-duty cop ‘We’d rather die than live here’

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http://www.capeargus.co.za/?fArticleId=5128396

Angry residents attack off-duty cop
‘We’d rather die than live here’

August 17, 2009 Edition 1

KOWTHAR SOLOMONS and FRANCIS HWESHE

AN OFF-duty policeman who was attacked and beaten over the head with a large rock by protesting Khayelitsha residents is in a serious but stable condition in hospital, police said this morning.

The officer, whose name police have declined to release, was attacked when he tried to drive through a barricade erected by residents of BT Section, Site C, Khayelitsha yesterday.

He is stationed in Stellenbosch, and was off-duty and not in uniform at the time.

Police used rubber bullets to disperse protesters late last week, but angry residents took to the streets again at the weekend.

Residents in BT Section started protesting on Thursday night.

Street committee spokeswoman Nosisa Mgoduka said the residents were angry with mayor Dan Plato.

She said Plato had promised to move the community to a piece of land where there were services.

“On (last) Monday he said there was no place for us.

“He said that he would look for a place for us in the next six months.

“That is what angered people. Police have also said that they are going to kill us if we keep protesting.

“We would rather be killed by police while protesting than live in this place. It’s not safe here. We want a better place,” said Mgoduka.

Yesterday the section of busy Lansdowne Road that runs through the area was barricaded with an empty shipping container and strewn with litter.

Protesters stoned passing cars and dug trenches in the road. Rocks and cardboard were used to make barricades.

Tempers flared when the off-duty officer, driving a Fiat Cento, tried to drive through part of the barricade. He lost control of the car and crashed into the pavement.

Residents surrounded the car while the policeman and his passenger, who has not been identified, tried to start it.

Angry words were exchanged, and the policeman pulled out a gun.

This made the residents back off at first, but then they raced back to confront him again.

A struggle ensued, and the police officer was knocked unconscious.

Residents started assaulting the man and his gun was taken away.

As he regained consciousness and tried to get up off the ground, one resident picked up a rock and slammed it into the policeman’s head and upper back.

He collapsed again. His companion, bleeding from the forehead after also being attacked by protesters, fled into an alleyway between nearby houses.

Police who were stationed nearby managed to get to the unconscious officer, who was taken away from the area in an ambulance.

Plato said this morning that “violence and other forms of intimidation” would not be tolerated.

He said residents of BT Section should use the city council’s “existing political structures” – such as ward councillors and ward forums – to air their concerns.

The area was quiet this morning.

* Additional reporting by Murray Williams

Cape Argus: Cop fires on Cape Argus team

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http://antieviction.org.za/2009/08/14/media-cop-fires-on-cape-argus-team/

Note: The police routinely shoot unsuspecting residents and their children without warning. Generally, police justify their actions by saying residents are throwing rocks at them (this is often a lie). It takes police shooting the media for newspapers to actually public the truth.

http://www.capetimes.co.za/?fSectionId=3531&fArticleId=vn20090814121211575C326184

Cop fires on Cape Argus team

Picture Gallery

14 August 2009, 12:22
By Kowthar Solomons

A policeman fired a rubber bullet at a Cape Argus news team during a service delivery protest in Khayelitsha’s Site C – despite the reporter having identified himself as a journalist.

The reporter and photographer ran for cover when police opened fire at about 9pm last night on a small group of protesters burning tyres, clothing and furniture along Lansdowne Road.

Police had closed the road and started firing, allegedly without warning. Everyone in the area, including the Cape Argus news team, ran for cover, finding refuge in a near-by shack. There they and two residents were approached by a policeman and asked to raise their hands.

The Cape Argus reporter complied, with his notebook still in one hand, and identified himself as a media member.

Soon after the policeman lowered his gun, a colleague ran in. Ignoring the first policeman’s warnings that the group was media, the second policeman fired a rubber bullet into the shack without warning.

Earlier the photographer had been shot in the leg by a rubber bullet that had ricocheted off a nearby dustbin.

The team was on the scene to cover renewed service delivery protests in the area, the first of which took place about three weeks ago, with people demanding action from Cape Town mayor Dan Plato.

He met the residents at the time, promising them that he would address their grievances in two weeks. The angry residents at the scene said last night that they had waited long enough for the mayor.

Resident Xolani Ngcube said they were sick of empty promises.

“The mayor said he would deal with our problems in two weeks. That was three weeks ago. We want decent housing and electricity and all the other things he promised,” he said.

Children were among the crowd of protesters when police opened fire with rubber bullets, prompting residents to question their use of force.

Resident Thandi Mswai said she could no longer trust the police.

Police were still patrolling by late last night and the only signs of the protest were the fires still burning on the roadside. The police were unable to respond before the Cape Argus went to print today.