Category Archives: Phillip de Wet

Daily Maverick: Alexandra threatens foreigners on housing – again

http://dailymaverick.co.za/article/2011-10-20-alexandra-threatens-foreigners-on-housing-again

Alexandra threatens foreigners on housing – again

The last time the Alexandra township turned its anger on foreigners, necklacing was resurrected and thousands ended up in refugee camps around the country. So when blatant and unashamed intimidation of foreigners is the opening gambit in a battle for housing, we tend to worry. By GREG NICOLSON and PHILLIP DE WET.

The members of Alexandra Bonafides are very clear about their message: this is not about xenophobia, and not even about violence. On Wednesday we heard any number of variations on the theme of “we’re only protecting our rights” and “we don’t want trouble again like in 2008”. But it just so happens that the group believes many RDP houses in a new section of the township, still under construction in parts, are being occupied by foreigners – and if those foreigners don’t respond to words, well… Nobody will say it, but the nature of the threat is abundantly clear.  Continue reading →

The Daily Maverick: Tembisa protests and the shadow of things to come

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http://dailymaverick.co.za/article/2011-09-20-tembisa-protests-and-the-shadow-of-things-to-come

Tembisa protests and the shadow of things to come

On Monday thousands of residents in Tembisa took to the streets to demonstrate primarily against the high price of electricity. They were swiftly dealt with, forcefully, politically and temporarily, but not before giving us some insight into what promises to be a long, hot summer of service-delivery protests. By PHILLIP DE WET.

It takes three data points to show the beginning of a trend, and Tembisa this week provided the third major service delivery protest in Gauteng in as many weeks. The direction is pointing towards “uncomfortable” at best: an increase in the number of such protests in coming months with a good chance for escalation.

Residents of the township took to the streets in their thousands early on Monday morning, blocking tens of kilometres of roads with rubble ranging from paving stones to entire trees and threatening to stone police to keep the roads closed; whether or not there was any actual stone-throwing is a matter of some contention. Though children went to school, much of the rest of Tembisa ground to a halt, with those who are employed being strenuously advised not to go to work, shops remaining closed and even a municipal service centre closed for part of the day. By early evening the protest was halted, for the time being, even though vast sections remained largely impassable to traffic.

Although it far outstripped them in sheer scope, the Tembisa protest was not all that different from similar community uprisings last week in Chiawelo, Soweto, and nearby Themb’elihle in Lenasia. The major underlying complaint is the high cost of electricity, with a laundry list of other complaints (sanitation, housing, healthcare) added as something as an afterthought. Much of the community believes its letters and memorandums and queries have been ignored by an unfeeling local government, that it has been failed by its representatives, and that causing a ruckus is the only way to get noticed.

Notably, though, many of the people we spoke to also believe the government, whether local, provincial or national, can relatively easily improve their lives should it apply its mind to the problem. That is perhaps the most telling difference between communities that try their hand at such protests and their neighbours that do not; where apathy has trumped hope, people still grumble but do little else. Faith that a government that could, for example, turn back the clock on electricity prices by five years is a prerequisite for politics to spill out into the street.

That makes for a large number of contenders, however. The increasing spread between social grants and administered prices is universal. Towns and townships were mobilised ahead of both national and local government elections with promises of change and improvement. Anecdotal evidence is showing even those who don’t closely watch labour statistics that the odds of a DIY improvement in economic circumstances aren’t great. So we wouldn’t bet against further sporadic and, eventually, long-running service-delivery protests everywhere from Gauteng and Cape Town to the rural reaches.

In Tembisa, residents officially agreed to wait on a response from the city before planning their next move, but some of the more militant and perhaps less political young men muttered darkly about petrol bombs and the ease of targeting state infrastructure as a lesson in the power of the people. They were joined by a new crop of radicalised citizens, not so youn, but incensed by heavy-handed police tactics in breaking up small groups of people quietly talking on street corners on the basis that these constituted illegal gatherings. That approach did get major roads and business nodes reopened on the quick, but the bill may come due the next time people decide to stand up to authority.

Organisers in Themb’elihle, Chiawelo and Tembisa have all promised they will not rest until their demands (mostly for electricity, or cheaper electricity) have been met. In all three communities they hope to do that through negotiations spurred by their attention-getting tactics. In all three they are likely to be frustrated and again grow impatient. In all three they have at least the tacit support of the majority of residents for protest action – without a great deal of concern about keeping such action entirely peaceful. It could be a long, hot summer.

The Daily Maverick: The curious case of the apartheid dolomite

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http://dailymaverick.co.za/article/2011-09-16-the-curious-case-of-the-apartheid-dolomite

The curious case of the apartheid dolomite

The residents of Themb’elihle call it “apartheid dolomite”, a geological formation which to their minds seems to hold danger only for the poor and powerless, and not their richer neighbours. But local governments throughout Gauteng face the same problem: they’re damned if they rush to safeguard people from sinkholes (as a case before the Constitutional Court shows), damned if they vacillate and definitely damned if they do nothing and the inevitable happens. Even if their concern for life seems a little muted when there is serious money involved. By PHILLIP DE WET.

Residents in Themb’elihle just outside Lenasia tend to be deeply suspicious about geology. As far as they can see it holds unseen danger only for people who live in shacks, while those with the money to build double-storey houses or shopping centres are, magically, unaffected. Ask a random citizen of the township about dolomite, and you’ll have a conversation that involves a lot of pointing. Your subject will point to the nice houses across the road, where fairly affluent and mostly Indian families live. There, just metres away, there is no dolomite threat. Your subject will point to a large new shopping centre just metres away in another direction. There too dolomite is apparently not a problem. Where the school stands, nope, no dolomite either. But cross one road, two lanes of tar, and suddenly the ground underfoot is supposedly unstable, unsafe, unpredictable. This, they say, is political dolomite, dolomite that discriminates based on race or class. Apartheid dolomite.

Which is partially true.

Dolomite is a porous rock which, in some cases, can be quite sturdy. However, under certain conditions certain types of dolomite starts eroding from the bottom. Over time a kind of underground dome forms, an increasingly thin roof of rock with an increasingly large void underneath it. Eventually that dome collapses, and the earth swallows whatever is above at the time – houses, cars, people.

“There isn’t necessarily any warning,” says Dewald van Niekerk, director of the African Centre for Disaster Studies and co-author of a paper on assessing the disaster risk of such dolomite sink holes. “You don’t know what is going on underground. You just wake up one morning and your neighbour has disappeared into a huge hole.”

Experts like Van Niekerk describe sinkholes as low-probability, high-impact disasters. While rare, they are catastrophic when they occur in urban environments. And in broad swathes of Gauteng the risk is high, thanks to a combination of unfavourable rock formations, the use of water by farms and mines and building types.

Themb’elihle has been identified as an area at risk of such sink holes, which is why the government does not want to supply residents with electricity. Allowing continued settlement there would be irresponsible, and connecting people to the grid would encourage them to stay. That, though, is hard to explain to people who have lived in the same spot for 20 years and have never seen any disturbance in the ground.

In Bapsfontein, not all that far from Themb’elihle, the Ekurhuleni municipality tried to explain the risks to a informal community living under much the same circumstances. Some residents took the warning to heart and agreed to be relocated. Others resisted. Things got nasty. In the end the municipality used its declaration of the area as a disaster zone (just one in which disaster had not yet struck) to force everyone to leave, razing their shacks to the ground for good measure. Because it considered this a matter of evacuation in the face of imminent threat, the municipality did not apply for a court order, as is required for evictions. Some residents, who reckon being man-handled out of homes they have lived in for more than 10 years doesn’t sound like an evacuation, turned to the courts. There they were rebuffed, until the matter reached the Constitutional Court on Thursday. That court must now decide if it will consider the case, and if so, whether the earth really could have opened up to swallow the Bapsfontein squatter camp.

The Bapsfontein case worries people in Themb’elihle, where rumours of the coming of the Red Ants, those famous removers of squatters, run thick and fast. Much like in Bapsfontein late in 2010, many are convinced that all this science talk is just a smokescreen; in Bapsfontein some believed they were being cleared out for the development of middle to upper class housing, in Themb’elihle rumour has it that Lenasia will be getting a golf course where their houses now stand. Bapsfontein then and Themb’elihle now also share a certain concern about the danger, long-term though it may be and most residents would be happy to move – so long as it is not too far.

In their Constitutional Court application, the Bapsfontein group says there is a perfectly adequate site just three kilometres away from the old camp where they could settle. That still puts them within easy reach of jobs and schools, as opposed to their new home more than 20km away, a commute that eats away a meagre income real quick. Ekurhuleni says the new site has lots of amenities, and was ready and waiting, but doesn’t dispute that there may have been more nearby locations that fall outside of the dangerous dolomite zone.

If it loses in the Constitutional Court, the municipality may well have to open negotiations with those unhappy about their relocation and find a new site in any event. The case could also set a precedent that will require all future such moves to be done under court order, which could make for a drawn-out process of years rather than months. Which may not be a problem, for communities that have seen no hint of danger for decades. Or it could lead to a tragic loss of life when luck finally runs out before a municipality can convince a court that it is not being arbitrary and can provide adequate housing acceptable to the people affected.

Building a heavy, formal house on a risky patch of dolomite is an obviously bad idea, but Van Niekerk can come up with a couple of scenarios where informal housing, light enough to blow away in a decent breeze, could also cause trouble. “Where sinkholes have occurred they are sometimes associated with leaking water pipes, which help with the erosion. If you have less formal settlements with communal taps, those are running 24 hours a day. That kind of thing can be quite risky.”

But it does seem that the rich are considered less at risk than the poor; while people in squatter camps are being evicted wholesale from risky patches, a suburb like Centurion is at no risk of being torn down.

“Centurion, that entire area should never have been built on,” says Van Niekerk. “I wouldn’t buy property there if I were you. Don’t think people don’t know about the problems either. Scientists have tried to lobby decision-makers, warn them that the risks are too high to be ignored. The knowledge is there, but it doesn’t seem to make a difference.”

If you are really determined, you could build a skyscraper in Centurion, or Bapsfontein, or Themb’elihle. You may have to dig out thousands of tons of earth and rock to reach bedrock, but it can be done. If you are fearless enough, or desperate enough to be close to job opportunities, you could stay on top of dolomite and hope for the best. If you are municipal manager, it seems, you can also close your eyes to danger when it would mean an enormous economical impact – but be concerned about life and limb when it comes to the poor. Not that either the rich of the poor will be there to back your decision when one day, inevitably, disaster does strike.

The Daily Maverick: Death and service delivery in Soweto

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AbM has always defined Operation Khanyisa as the carefully organised installation of safe (i.e. properly insulated and buried cables) by carefully trained activists. There is a struggle against the failure to provide electricity to shack dwellers, armed disconnections of self organised connections and unsafe connections crated in a haphazard way.

http://dailymaverick.co.za/article/2011-09-19-death-and-service-delivery-in-soweto

Death and service delivery in Soweto

On Friday a man died a (presumably) lonely death on the outskirts of Soweto, seemingly electrocuted by one of many illegal wires tapping electricity for use by a squatter camp. He won’t be the last either, one way or another, not even if the lessons in his death are heeded.

by PHILLIP DE WET.

About halfway between Chiawelo (where residents are demanding cheaper electricity and using illegal bridging connections to get it) and Themb’elihle (where residents are demanding formal grid connections and have used illegal connections in the interim) lay the body of a man, hidden from sight by beds of reeds and slowly sinking into the marshy ground. He was found that way, seemingly untouched but stone dead, just a hands-reach away from a naked electrical cable running centimetres above the soil.

All may not be as it seems. Neighbours describe in lurid detail a love triangle in which the dead man found himself, and variously speculate that his death may have been suicide or something more sinister, with a plausible explanation provided to throw police off the scent. Whatever the official finding in the end, some will never believe this death to have been accidental.

But if he did not stumble and land with his hand on just the wrong spot, it is simply tragedy delayed. Others will almost certainly die in this place.

In the squatter camp a couple of hundred metres away, TV antennas perch on roofs, sharing space with overhead power cables that feed into shacks. Trace those power cables back for a kilometre and a half, and you go through an area of marsh, past the dead man, over a broad, running stream, up a hill and end up at a gaping hole in a streetlight pole where an access hatch used to be. Along the way you’ll see any number of exposed stretches of wire, open splits and joins and only very occasional (and failed) attempts to either bury the wire or insulate it.

Even in full sunlight and knowing their exact location, these open wires can be almost impossible to follow through the grass, as they cross footpaths used by locals and their children. In the dark you’d stand no chance whatsoever. And the times at which they are not carrying current – such as when they are disconnected by police recovering a body – are few and far between.

“Come back tonight,” one local told us. “These people go away, maybe 10 minutes, then we’ll have power again.” Many echoed that sentiment throughout the morning: power is a basic necessity, there is no other way of obtaining it, so somebody will tap into the grid as it runs past the settlement. Then, as is the case in many other communities, he who runs the cable and maintains it may sell electricity on to neighbours. This isn’t a charity state, after all.

Mothers in particular will admit that yes, the festoon of wires may be dangerous, but point out that the number of shack fires rapidly dwindle when there are fewer paraffin stoves in use. Fathers are more likely to talk about opportunity. “I don’t want my kids to live here,” one says. “When they have light they can study at night and get smart so they can leave. I want to be able to pay to buy that for them, but I don’t have a connection so I can’t get the power. I have to steal it.”

It is a set of arguments you can hear in scores of communities that do not yet have formal power connections. Like many of them, this camp is utterly unsuited for development; some shacks will be flooded by the nearby stream this summer and there are no roads big enough to admit emergency vehicles, just for starters. But people live here, and have lived here for a long time, and anticipate being here for some time, and are determined to make the best of their situation while they are.

In Chiawelo, meanwhile, just a stream and a railway track away, residents are gearing up for what they say will be a long series of marches and protest actions. Chiawelo has a formal power supply for each house, but residents say they can no longer afford the high rates. So they wage a never-ending battle, using bridging connections to bypass prepaid electricity metres, which are removed, then replaced, then made redundant when the entire area’s supply is switched off, until street protests sees it restored. The pattern is familiar and escalation slow, but there is no resolution in sight. Nor are there coverings for the holes residents cut into supposedly tamper-proof distribution boxes, making them as dangerous for curious children playing in the street as the open wires running through the veld just down the road.