Category Archives: Siyanda Abahlali baseMjondolo

Siyanda Abahlali baseMjondolo Letter to the State Attorney

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09 December 2008
Mr. B.M. Kunene
The State Attorney
391 Smith Street
Durban

Dear Mr. Kunene

We Siyanda Residents Will Not Be Leaving Our Shacks for Your Transit Camp Today

On Saturday 6 December 2008 the Sheriff of the court served us with your letter in which you demanded that 61 families leave our homes by 16h00 today and move to your transit camps.

Four families have decided to comply with your demand. The other 57 families, all members of the Siyanda Abahlali baseMjondolo branch, have decided to refuse to comply with your demand.

The reasons for our refusal are as follows:

1. We have land tenure in Siyanda. We were given certificates of tenure by Councillor Inba Naidoo just after 1994. We have these certificates. If you wish to remove us from land to which we have tenure in order to build your road then you will have to offer us compensation and you will have to provide us with adequate alternative houses. There is no compensation and there is no adequate alternative housing and therefore we will not go.

2. When you built a road through KwaMashu people in the brick houses got compensation after their houses were destroyed. Why are shack dwellers being treated differently to middle class people? Four families recently got compensation in the Kennedy Road settlement when their homes had to be demolished to build an access road for refuse and fire trucks. If Kennedy Road people can get compensation why not us? And it is not just our homes that you want to destroy. We all put money together to buy a long pipe so that we could have a tap. That pipe has already been destroyed by your Department without any consultation or compensation. The collective work of the community went into that pipe and you just destroyed like it meant nothing.

3. A transit camp is not a house. A transit camp is not fit for a human being. A transit camp is not and can never be an acceptable form of alternative accommodation for a human being. This is obvious to everyone. We are sure that none of the people in your department would ever accept being moved to a transit camp. Even the international human rights organisations agree. The Centre on Housing Rights & Evictions in Geneva recently wrote a letter to Mayor Obed Mlaba about Siyanda. They said that they “condemn the existence of so-called ‘transit camps’, which are found to be highly inadequate and serve to destroy the already fragile socio-economic fabric of people’s lives.”

4. Now that we are refusing to leave our homes officials in your department are telling our lawyers that the transit camps will be temporary. We have never been told, not verbally and not in writing, where we will go after the transit camp and when we will leave the transit camp. In fact when we were first told that we had to go to the transit camps we were only told that we mustn’t worry because they can last 30 years. As far as we know we could die there. For as long as we do not have a legally binding written agreement stating when we will leave the transit camps and where we will go we will not consider them to be temporary. Verbal promises about this from your department will count for nothing. Your department have lied to us from the beginning and broken every promised made to us. We have very good reasons not to trust you.

5. We did not apply for RDP houses. We were happy with our own homes on our own land. Your department decided to move us from our homes to RDP houses. You decided to move 570 families from Siyanda to make a space for your road. The first problem was that this 570 left out the renters which was really not fair – they are often the poorest people. You divided the 570 into three groups. The first group were relocated to RDP houses in Mount Moriah. The second group were relocated to RDP houses in Ntuzuma. We are part of the third and last group of 313 families. We were all promised RDP houses in the Kalula Housing Project here in Siyanda. But only 252 families got houses. The remaining 61 families did not receive the promised houses because they were fraudulently sold to people from outside Siyanda. We hold Nthuthuko Zulu from your Department, as well as Duke Ngcobo from the eThekwini Municipality, responsible for this fraud. As we said in our memorandum to the MEC for Housing after our recent march Zulu is also the one who tried to offer a family an RDP house in exchange for their daughter. We have complained about this fraud through every channel. We have marched and protested against this fraud. The Municipality said that they will do some research about the fraud but we all know who did it and which people got our houses fraudulently. At the last meeting the Municipality said that their research showed that there had been fraud and that they will correct that. Therefore they must correct it and give the houses to us, the people who were promised them. We cannot accept to have our homes demolished and to be moved to a transit camp with no guarantees of when we will leave and where we will go while other people sit in the houses promised to us. We want the houses that were promised to us. We cannot accept that the promise of house has been downgraded to a place in a transit camp.

6. Your information about us is full of mistakes. Your letter starts by saying that you want to force 66 families into your transit camp but you only list 61 families. The first person listed in your letter is Precious Mhlongo. You are saying that she must vacate her home today and move to the transit camp but Precious Mhlongo moved to the Kalula Project, upstairs, more than a year ago. There are many other mistakes on your list. People can’t accept that the government will take such important decisions for them when the government is working with basic information that is completely wrong. You need to get your information right and then talk to us – instead you are getting your information wrong and then just assuming the right to tell us what to do with our lives.

If you respond to this announcement of our refusal to obey your instruction and to leave our homes by trying to demolish our homes unlawfully, as happened in C section of Siyanda earlier this year, we will immediately go to court to interdict you against demolishing our homes without an order of the court. We will also mobilise all our people, and our comrades elsewhere, to rush to the scene to oppose the eviction.

If you respond to this announcement by going to court to seek an order to have our homes demolished then we will stand up for truth and justice in court. We have very good arguments about your fraud, your lies, your failure to consult, your failure to give any guarantees about the next step after the transit camps and the fact that transit camps can never be an acceptable form of accommodation for human beings. We will be happy to have the opportunity to tell our story to the judge.

If you respond to this announcement by requesting negotiations we would like to say that we have always wanted to negotiate with the government and your department. But all the meetings we attended since 2004 were not for negotiating – they were for you to give us instructions. But we accepted the promises that you made. But all the promises that you made to us were broken! You violated us. We do not trust that you will be honest in any future negotiations. You did not just break your promise that we would all be housed in the Kulula Project. There have been lots of other broken promises. For instance you promised that each family would get one of the four room double story houses house in the Kalula Project but then you put two families in each house.

However we have seen all the progress made in the negotiations between Abahlali baseMjondolo and the Municipality on upgrading and servicing 14 settlements. We are prepared to negotiate with your department under the following conditions:

• There must be an independent and credible mediator who is respected and trusted by both sides.
• We must be given time to tell our story.
• We must be taken seriously.
• All agreements reached in the negotiations must be written, legally binding and public.

We await your response. Please respond to us via the Abahlali baseMjondolo office.

The Siyanda Abahlali baseMjondolo branch

Bheki Cele Threatens 61 Siyanda Families with Forced Removal

Sunday, 07 December 2008
Siyanda Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Statement

Transport MEC Bheki Cele Threatens 61 Families in Siyanda with Forced Removal to one of the Notorious “Transit Camps”


Mamu Nxumalo speaking at the meeting against forced removals, 7 December 2008

On Saturday the Sheriff of the Court served a letter from the State Attorney on 61 families in Siyanda, KwaMashu. This letter instructs us to leave our homes by 16h00 this Tuesday, 9 December. More than 300 hundred people in our community are now at risk of forced removal to the notorious ‘transit camps’.
The letter states that our homes will be demolished after Tuesday and that we will be moved to “temporal houses” or “transit camps” to make way for the new MR 577 Freeway. The letter warns us that should residents “refuse or resist the relocation in any manner, whatsoever, the MEC for Transport will bring an application on an urgent basis to evict them from the road reserve and further seek costs against them.”

This is pure intimidation. Bheki Cele has no court order demanding our eviction and if he tries to have us evicted without a court order he will be guilty of a criminal act. If he tries to evict us legally he will have to make an application to the court and we will have the right to defend our community in the court – this is due process as laid out in the law. We have a right to oppose any eviction and this is not something for which Cele can claim costs against us.

As the Siyanda Abahlali baseMjondolo branch we state clearly that we know our rights with regard to the Prevention of Illegal Evictions from Unlawful Occupations Act, and the protections afforded to us by the Constitution. We are well aware of the victories won in court against attempts by the eThekwini Municipality to evict our comrades in settlements like Motala Heights and Arnett Drive. We are working closely with our comrades from these settlements who have experience in these matters.

We also know and insist on our rights as human beings.

We state clearly that we consider any forced removal from a shack to a transit camp as an eviction because it is clear that “transit camps” – what the people call amatins – are not decent accommodation and that they can not be considered as an acceptable alternative to our shacks.

We state clearly that we refuse to comply with the notice of eviction and that we will always refuse to accept any relocation to any “transit camps”. The office of the state attorney will be informed of this in writing first thing on Monday morning.

The main reasons for our refusal to allow our shacks to be demolished so that we can be moved to “transit camps” are as follows:

• We have lived on this land for many years. In 1994 Inba Naidoo, the first councillor after apartheid, allocated plots of land to us. We were given signed certificates indicating that the land was ours. We still have these certificates. These certificates were a promise from the government to the people, a promise that we would be able to live in safety and without fear of eviction after apartheid. We intend to insist that this promise is honoured.
• We never even put our names on the list for RDP houses. We were happy how we were living on our land. The government approached us saying that they needed us to move us for the freeway but that they would give us houses in the Kulula project here in Siyanda. They came to us to promise us the RDP houses. We also intend to insist that this promise is honoured.
• The houses in the Kulula Project that had been promised to us were allocated to families not affected by the freeway construction and not from Siyanda. Promises made to us were broken – and it is clear that there was fraud left, right and centre in the allocation of the houses.
• Now, after the houses promised to us have been given to other people, we are told that we have to move to a ‘transit camp’. A ‘transit camp’ is not a house. This is the third promise to us that has been broken. We will refuse to accept that the promise of a house can be downgraded to a promise of a place in a “transit camp.”
• There has never been proper consultation with the community. Some sections, such as eNande, have never been included in meetings with consultants and developers of the freeway. Those in the community selected to meet with consultants and developers, they were promised that the entire community – not half, or only certain sections – would be given houses in the Kulula Housing Project adjacent to the land on which they currently reside. This promise has since been withdrawn, without consultation.

So called “transit camps” are unacceptable for the following reasons:

• Transit camps are not houses.
• Transit camps are not an acceptable alternative accommodation to our shacks.
• Transit camps are government-built shacks.
• We are not prepared to move from one shack to another.
• In fact the government shacks are worse than the shacks that we have built for ourselves.
• Government shacks are too small for family life
• Government shacks do not have electricity.
• Government shacks are too hot when it is hot and too cold when it is cold, because they are made entirely of tin.
• Government shacks do not have toilets, which is a concern especially for women.
• Government shacks are allocated to a single household, without any consideration for the size of the family.
• The allocation of government shacks is decided by the government, without consultation from the community. That means the government decides who should be your neighbours.
• “Transit camps” are not safe. Siyanda residents that have already been relocated to the government shacks were attacked and chased by those living in the surrounding area.
• Once people have been put in the government shacks there is no guarantee that they will ever get out.
• Government shacks take away people’s dignity.

As we stated our last press release, those made homeless by the illegal and criminal Municipal demolitions earlier this year still have not been provided any alternative accommodation – in the Kulula houses, or elsewhere. Not only were these evictions carried out illegally but the residents were prevented from removing their personal belongings from the shacks before the demolitions began.

We will not accept removal from our own shacks to government shacks.

We are only prepared to accept houses.

We wish to send a strong warning that we will not accept anyone coming to our settlement – not the government, their lawyers, their security or other representatives. From now on all documents and communications with our community must take place through the Abahlali baseMjondolo office or through the Abahlali lawyers.

Bathengisa Ngathi!

For further information and comment please contact Mamu Nxumalo (076 3339386) or Thembi Zungu (074 3423607) from the Siyanda Abahlali baseMjondolo branch or Louisa Motha, Abahlali baseMjondolo co-ordinator (078 0720499).

Also see:

  • Siyanda residents wounded by police rubber bullets during road blockade, 4 December 2006
  • What Happened at or to the SMI, 18 December 2006
  • Abantu abampofu namaPhoyisa, 14 January 2007
  • The Strong Poor and the Police, 19 January 2008
  • Victory in Court While Evictions Continue Outside, 26 August 2008
  • Isolezwe: Bebesho ukubakhipha ngodli ezindlini zomxhaso, 16 September 2008
  • Siyanda Crisis: Evictions, Police Intimidation, Unjust Housing Allocation etc., 17 September 2008
  • Siyanda Pictures, 17 September 2008
  • Letter to Obed Mlaba on the Siyanda Crisis from the Centre on Housing Rights & Evictions, 24 October 2008
  • Siyanda – the day before the big march, 9 November 2008
  • Memorandum of Demands by the Siyanda Abahlali baseMjondolo Branch, 10 November 2008
  • Pictures of the Siyanda March (1), 10 November 2008
  • Pictures of the Siyanda March(2), 10 November 2008
  • Pictures of the meeting to plan resistance to Bheki Cele’s evictions & pictures of the transit camp to which people are supposed to be forcibly removed, 7 December 2008
  • Bheki Cele Threatens 61 Siyanda Families with Forced Removal, 7 December 2008
  • Siyanda Abahlali baseMjondolo Letter to the State Attorney, 9 December 2008
  • Pictures of the removal to the transit camp (accepted by 2 families), 11 December 2008
  • Siyanda on Google Earth, uploaded 12 December 2008
  • 64 Families Remain in the their Homes and Refuse Eviction to “Transit Camp” Under Heavy Police Presence, 18 December 2008

    • Memorandum of Demands by the Siyanda Abahlali baseMjondolo Branch


    Siyanda 9 November 2008, the day before the big march. For pictures of the march click here and here.

    10 November 2008
    Siyanda Abahlali Branch

    Demands addressed to Mike Mabuyakulu, the MEC for Housing in KwaZulu-Natal, by the Siyanda Abahlali baseMjondolo Branch

    1. We demand adequate land and decent housing in the city.

    2. We demand one house per family and not one house per shack.

    3. We demand that the city (eThekwini) comply with the laws of the country.

    4. We demand an immediate and permanent end to forced evictions and demolitions.

    5. We demand that there must be an independent commission of enquiry to investigate the rampant and blatantly corrupt sale of government houses by government officials. There must be action against all the corrupt government officials. This is not only a problem here in Siyanda. All Abahlali members are aware of the situation in the Joe Slovo settlement where one of the founders of that settlement, Busisiwe Gule, remains in a shack while with all the papers to her house while Nomaxabiso is still living in Mrs Gule’s house. All complaints about this corruption, right up to the national minister, have just been ignored.

    6. We demand fair and transparent allocation of government houses.

    7. We demand safe, quality houses built on proper foundations.

    8. We demand that there must be inspectors to make sure that all houses are of a quality standard. A certificate must be issued for each house by an independent evaluator that guarantees its quality and safety.

    9. We demand compensation to those who have been forcefully removed for the construction of the MR 577 freeway.

    10. We reject the current situation where people are only given orders as if in a dictatorship and we demand proper consultation and full participation in the discussion and decision making with regard to all issues affecting the shack dwellers.

    11. We demand the creation of job opportunities and that first preference for local jobs to be given to the poorest people in local communities.

    12. We demand that the Slums Act be immediately scraped and its notorious transit camps be immediately shut down.

    13. We demand that our shacks be upgraded where they already are through the use of Chapter 13 of the Housing Code and not demolished via the notorious Slums Act which is hated by the poor because it is an attack on the poor.

    14. We demand that all people of 21 years and older be entitled to a house as they are all expected to vote.

    15. We demand compensation as we were exploited to guide the development of the houses that were later corruptly sold to people who do not live in Siyanda.

    16. We demand an end to abuse by government officials and we demand that government officials who abuse the people must be investigated and that appropriate action must be taken. For instance there is the case of Npuphuko who offered a family RDP house keys at midnight in exchange for their daughter. She is the daughter of all of us and therefore Npuphuko is the abuser of all of us.

    17. We further demand that a meeting be scheduled with us within two weeks so that a way forward can be discussed on these demands.

    Contact Mzo Dlamini the March Convener on 073 8701244 and Mxolisi Mtshali on 072 5550965, Mamu-Nxumalo 076 3339386 and Thembi Zungu on 074 3423607

    Abahlali baseMjondolo March in Siyanda – Monday 10 November 2008

    Abahlali baseMjondolo will march against evictions, corruption, dictatorship and abuse by the state in Siyanda (between Newlands East & KwaMashu) at 9:00 a.m. on Monday 10 November 2008.

    The marchers will procede from the Siyanda settlement to the magistrates’ court where Mike Mabuyakulu has been asked to accept the memorandum.

    An attempt by the police to unlawfully ban this march was overturned yesterday after intense counter pressure. Abahlali baseMjondolo was prepared to go the high court at 2:00 p.m. yesterday afternoon to interdict the police against the unlawful march ban if they did not back down.

    This march will be supported by Abahlali baseMjondolo members from settlements across Durban and Pinetown.

    For more information and comment contact Thembi on 0743423607 and on Mzo 0738701244.

    http://www.abahlali.org/node/4154


    Siyanda Residents March

    Breaking News: Siyanda shack-dwellers, facing eviction from the MR577 Freeway site, are staging ongoing marches to halt building and allocations at the Kulula Housing Project. The contractors have just been stopped from proceeding with the patently unfair allocation of housing that has been undertaken without any form of meaningful consultation. There is a heavy police presence again today and the situation is tense. (There is an article in yesterday’s Isolezwe here.)

    Forced Relocations in Siyanda to Make Way for New Freeway

    Wednesday, September 17, 2008 13:01
    Press Statement by the Siyanda Abahlali baseMjondolo Branch

    DURBAN – Shack-dwellers in Siyanda, KwaMashu, have been threatened with forced relocation to make way for construction of the MR577 Freeway. The eThekwini Municipality has demolished at least 50 shacks in the area this year, without notice or a court order. These demolitions are illegal and criminal acts. Street marches by residents, peacefully protesting against relocation, have been met with violent police action and intimidation.

    According the eThekwini Municipality, all those displaced by the new freeway would be moved to the adjacent Kulula Housing Project, concurrently under construction and facilitated by Linda Masinga & Associates (See: http://www.ethekwini.gov.za/durban/government/munadmin/media/press/506) (See also: http://www.ethekwini.gov.za/durban/government/munadmin/media/press/521).

    Residents have since been informed that an unspecified number of families affected by the freeway construction will be relocated to eNtuzuma and placed in “transit camps” – government-built shacks or temporary structures, ordinarily used for emergency relief, which are increasing supplied by municipalities in lieu of formal housing.

    As those in Siyanda undergo or await eviction – without knowing how, when and where they would be relocated – further controversy has erupted over the decision to move families from other parts of the Durban-metro, as far away as Umlazi and Lamontville, into the finished Kulula houses.

    Siyanda shack-dwellers point out that those made homeless by the illegal Municipal demolitions earlier this year still have not been provided any alternative accommodation – in the Kulula houses, or elsewhere. Not only were these evictions carried out without notice or a court order, occupants were prevented from removing their personal belongings from the shacks before the demolitions began.

    In marches and memorandums submitted to state and corporate partners in the Kulula Project, Siyanda shack-dwellers have stated that they do not want to move to eNtuzuma, away from jobs, schools and farther on the periphery of the city, where transport costs are much higher. They have moreover refused to accept any relocation to “transit camps,” which cannot be considered suitable alternative accommodation.

    Metro police have responded violently to peaceful marches by Siyanda residents. On Monday, 15 September, approximately 60 residents gathered to protest further allocation and occupancy of finished Kulula houses by those who are not affected by the freeway construction. Amid heavy police presence, a metro police officer reportedly brandished a loaded weapon at the crowd, shouting that he would shoot them with live ammunition if they did not disband.

    Following shack demolitions earlier in May this year, residents marched to the Kulula Project contractor’s office to submit a memorandum, where they were fired upon with rubber bullets by police and sprayed with water canons. Five people, including a pregnant woman were shot, injured and rushed to hospital. These five were arrested by police at hospital, upon charges of “public violence.” All charges were subsequently dropped.

    In addition to concerns over relocation, the allocation of houses and police brutality, residents in Siyanda say that the Kulula houses are unsound, unsafe and have not built with substantive consultation from the community, despite claims to the contrary by the Municipality.

    Siyanda launched a new Abahlali baseMjondolo branch on Sunday and residents are determined to oppose state intimidation and to demand genuinely democratic planning.

    For up to the minute information and comment on the crisis in Siyanda contact:

    Thembi 0743423607
    Mzo 0738701244

    Click here to see some pictures.

    http://abahlali.org//////node/4266

    Letter from COHRE on the Siyanda Crisis

    The Honorable Cllr Obed Mlaba
    Office of the Mayor of eThekwini

    City Hall, West Street
    Durban 4001
    Republic of South Africa

    Re: Forced relocation of shack-dwellers in Siyanda, KwaMashu

    Dear Cllr Mlaba,

    The Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) is an international human rights non-governmental organisation based in Geneva, Switzerland, with offices throughout the world. COHRE has consultative status with the United Nations and Observer Status with the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. COHRE works to promote and protect the right to adequate housing for everyone, everywhere, including preventing or remedying forced evictions.

    COHRE recently learnt of the threatened forced relocation of shack-dwellers in Siyanda in KwaMashu, to make way for the construction of a freeway in the area. According to a press statement by the newly-formed Siyanda branch of Abahlali baseMjondolo, at least 50 shacks have been demolished this year in the area by the eThekwini Municipality without notice, a court order or the provision of alternative accommodation. COHRE has learnt that eThekwini Municipality promised that all those displaced by the new MR577 freeway would be moved to newly-constructed houses in the Kulula Housing Project. Siyanda residents have now been informed that an unspecified number of families will be moved to eNtuzuma and placed in ‘transit camps,’ which consist of government-built shacks or temporary structures, ordinarily used for emergency housing. As eNtuzuma is further on the periphery of the city, transport costs will be much higher for families as they will be further from jobs and schools. At the same time, the Municipality has reportedly decided to move families from other areas like Umlazi and Lamontville, who are not affected by the freeway construction, into the newly constructed Kulula houses. This has understandably caused much confusion within the community, and the situation is extremely tense at present.

    COHRE is disturbed with the trend in Siyanda, and in Durban in general, to use state repression against peaceful protestors legitimately airing their grievances against housing rights violations. In May this year, residents protesting shack demolitions in Siyanda marched to the Kulula project contractor’s office to submit a memorandum of grievances, where they were fired upon with rubber bullets and sprayed with water canons by Durban Metro Police. During this incident five people, including a pregnant woman, were shot and injured, and subsequently arrested at the hospital for ‘public violence.’ The charges were eventually dropped against all of the protestors.

    On 15 September 2008, a peaceful protest held by affected Siyanda residents to air their grievances about the allocation process of alternative housing in Siyanda, was again met with a heavy Durban Metro police presence, with one police officer allegedly brandished a loaded weapon at the crowd, shouting that he would shoot them with live ammunition if they did not disband.

    COHRE has maintained that the manner in which unlawful evictions of shack-dwellers has occurred in Durban is unacceptable, and people have been treated inhumanely and without dignity in the process. In terms of international human rights law, for evictions to be considered as lawful, they may only occur in very exceptional circumstances and all feasible alternatives must be explored. If and only if such exceptional circumstances exist and there are no feasible alternatives, can evictions be deemed justified. However, certain requirements must still be adhered to. These are:

    1. States must ensure, prior to any planned forced evictions, and particularly those involving large groups, that all feasible alternatives are explored in consultation with affected persons, with a view to avoiding, or at least minimising, the need to use force.
    2. Forced evictions should not result in rendering individuals homeless or vulnerable to the violation of other human rights. Governments must therefore, ensure that adequate alternative housing is available to affected persons.
    3. In those rare cases where eviction is considered justified, it must be carried out in strict compliance with international human rights law and in accordance with general principles of reasonableness and proportionality. These include, inter alia:

    § Genuine consultation with those affected;

    § Adequate and reasonable notice for all affected persons prior to the scheduled date of eviction;

    § Information on the proposed evictions, and where applicable, on the alternative purpose for which the land or housing is to be used, to be made available in reasonable time to all those affected;

    § Especially where groups of people are involved, government officials or their representatives to be present during an eviction;

    § All persons carrying out the eviction to be properly identified;

    § Evictions not to take place in particularly bad weather or at night unless the affected persons consent otherwise;

    § Provision of legal remedies; and

    § Provision, where possible, of legal aid to persons who are in need of it to seek redress from the courts.

    In the past the eThekwini Municipality has not complied with the above principles, particularly with regard to obtaining a court order and providing adequate notice for evictions. On 6 October 2008, COHRE released a report on the situation in Durban entitled Business as Usual? Housing rights and ‘slum eradication’ in Durban, South Africa. The report found that unlawful evictions are commonplace in eThekwini Municipality, and while the Municipality is to be commended on building a considerable number of houses each year, the houses that are being built are often located so far out of town that living there is unviable for many of the urban working classes due to unaffordable transport costs to work, schools, and hospitals. The report also expresses serious concern about the size and quality of the houses that are being built and over the failure to provide adequate levels of basic services to shack dwellers while they wait for formal housing.

    While COHRE approves of the provision of adequate alternative accommodation in the event of an eviction, we condemn the existence of so-called ‘transit camps’, which are found to be highly inadequate and serve to destroy the already fragile socio-economic fabric of people’s lives. COHRE also condemns the current practice that effectively entails moving people from their own well-located shacks into government shacks on the urban periphery, without any certainty of the time period they will be there, or indeed what permanent housing options will made available to them in the future. If the Siyanda forced relocations are allowed to proceed it will only add to the excesses of the eThekwini Municipality documented in the recently released report, and roll back the significant recent progress made to improve relations between organised shack dwellers’ and the eThekwini Municipality.

    COHRE therefore urges the Municipality to immediately halt all forced evictions of shack dwellers within its jurisdiction, and to cease the use of violence against those peacefully and legitimately protesting against their housing rights violations. COHRE appeals to the Municipality to ensure that all Siyanda residents affected by the new freeway are provided with housing, as promised, in the Kulula Housing Project, and to investigate the allocation of these houses to other residents from outside Siyanda.

    We look forward to your response and to an ongoing dialogue with the Municipality on the rights of its people to adequate housing. Thank you for your time and consideration.

    Sincerely,

    Salih Booker
    Executive Director

    cc.

    The Honorable Lindiwe Sisulu
    Minister of Housing

    Dr Michael Sutcliffe
    eThekwini City Manager