New Frame
Abahlali baseMjondolo is a movement of shackdwellers and other impoverished people, such as street traders, that began in Clare Estate in Durban in 2005. It now has branches in five provinces, and is growing rapidly in the eastern part of the rural Eastern Cape. Continue reading
S’bu Zikode, the founding president of the radical shack dwellers movement Abahlali baseMjondolo has had to be in hiding numerous times after threats were made against him for his fight for landless peoples and shack dwellers. His wife Sindi Mkhize spoke to the Daily Vox about the constant need for her husband to leave his family and go to a place of safety. Mkhize says her husband has been in grave danger for months now.
It all began in 2009 when people came looking for him in our home at Kennedy Road, but he wasn’t around at that time. I was victimised with my kids but we managed to escape, which I believe if we hadn’t we could have died. They were so brutal but fortunately my kids were still very young at the time, they couldn’t understand anything. Continue reading
My Family Needs Answers & Protection
For months my husband, S’bu Zikode, has been in grave danger after the threats made by Nelly Nyanisa, a senior member of the ruling party in the eThekwini Municipality, at an open meeting. Nyanisa said that my husband was making the city ‘ungovernable’ and threatened to ‘deal with’ the movement that he is elected to lead. It was also said that the movement, a democratic organisation with more than 50 000 members in Durban, and branches in five provinces, is a ‘third force’.
Leadership of a movement like Abahlali baseMjondolo carries a high price. In 2006 my husband was arrested and severely assaulted in the Sydenham police station while I had to wait outside on the road, in the dark. This arrest and assault came after senior politicians said that the movement was a ‘third force’. Continue reading
