Category Archives: The Kennedy Five

Detention Without Trial or Evidence of Wrongdoing Continues for five of the Kennedy 12

Detention Without Trial or Evidence of Wrongdoing Continues for five of the Kennedy 12

The Kennedy 12 returned to court today.

On the 19th of February this year the previous magistrate made a ruling that ordered that the defense lawyer could have access to the police docket as well as the records of all the past hearings. However this information has not been made available to the defense lawyer.

There was a new magistrate today who did not want to hear anything about the previous hearings. The prosecuter repeatedly denied knowledge of this ruling and said that the court could not have made such a ruling. It turns out that all of the court appearances this year were not recorded. This took us back to square one and our lawyer had to reapply for access to the docket and court records.

Today the new magistrate ordered that the Kennedy 12 must appear in Y court on the 14th of May – 8 months after their arrest – where they will be given a date for their trail. She also made a ruling that the defence lawyer will be given the docket by the 14th of May. But the prosecutor said that she cannot guarantee that she could implement the order.

The five who have been held in the notorious Westville Prison will go back to the prison till 14 May. Detention without trial or without any evidence being brought to the court is oppression of the worst kind. This is, as Bishop Rubin Phillip said last year, a travesty of justice.

This is a political trial and the ongoing detention of the 5 among the Kennedy 12 that are in Westville Prison makes them political prisoners.

Our struggle for equality and justice continues.

For more information or comment please contact Mzwake Mdlalose of the Kennedy Road Development Committee on 072 132 8458

Diakonia: When liberators become oppressors

When liberators become oppressors

Revd Roger Scholtz of the Methodist Church has castigated the authorities for
turning themselves into oppressors of the people they once liberated.

He was speaking at a prayer service organised by Diakonia Council of Churches outside the gates of the Durban Magistrates’ Court on 19 February. The service was attended by church leaders who included Bishop Barry Wood OMI, Chairperson of Diakonia Council of Churches, staff and friends and family members of the
Kennedy 12.

In a powerful message Revd Scholtz said it is ironic that the service is being held just a week after the 20th anniversary of the release of Nelson Mandela from prison.

“On that day when Madiba walked free, a new song had begun, a new song of
hope. A song of promise that the long night of injustice was ending, and that a
new day of liberty was dawning”, he said.

But what has necessitated the prayer service at the courts?, Revd Scholtz
asked. “How is it possible that in this land, this land that has tasted the
sweetness of captives being set free after the bitterness of unjust bondage for
so long, how is it possible that in this land we find justice being denied in a
seemingly wilful and orchestrated way?, he asked.

Revd Scholtz asked how it is possible that the liberators of yesteryear have
become today’s oppressors. ‘How can it be, that those who are in power, who
themselves knew what it was like for the voices of the poor and powerless to
be silenced, how can it be that they now seek to silence those very voices that
are crying out in lament from under the crippling burden of poverty that they
are bearing alone?”, he asked.

He also pointed a finger at Christians and accused them of being accomplices in this darkness of injustice that has descended on the land with total depression looming over the horizon and encouraged the gathering to do a penitential service. “Let us confess our part in the injustice that is being witnessed even now. We confess that our response to the needs of the poor and the oppressed has largely been shaped by concerns for our own comfort and convenience. We confess that we have been easily seduced by invitations to stroll through the corridors of power, in the process loosing our capacity to speak truth to those who abuse the power entrusted to them”, he said.

In his act of confession lay massive criticism of authorities, “We confess
our naïveté in thinking that the long, hard lessons of oppression would be
enough to hold those who now rule to a higher standard, and for assuming that the fruits of freedom would not be hoarded by some at the expense of others”.

He ended by encouraging the church in Durban to stand in solidarity with
oppressed people wherever they may be. “But as we do, we do so as the
gathered people of God in this very place where the bitter consequences of
our complicity are so painfully evident in the lives of our brothers from Abahlali who are incarcerated inside. May this gathering be a sign of our penitence, and our firm resolve to stand as the people of faith in a new way, not just in solidarity with those from Abahlali who are victims of injustice, but with all God’s people who have been denied in some way”, he said.

Meanwhile, the new magistrate in Abahlali court appearance has admitted
that there is massive political pressure in the Kennedy 12 case.

This is the first time that a judicial officer has openly admitted what many who
have been following the case have been saying.

He was speaking at the tenth court appearance of the Kennedy 12. As a
result of this political pressure, he remanded the five in custody to a distant 4
May when they are expected to make another court appearance. The other
seven who are on bail have finally been allowed to come and stay in Durban,
but the rest of the stringent bail conditions were not changed.

Immediately after the magistrate’s admission and decision, Bishop Wood
burst with outrage at the way the Kennedy 13 have been persecuted by the
state since 26 September 2009: “This calculated act of the unprovoked and
unjustified harassment and persecution of Abahlali by the authorities who
have themselves failed to deliver on their electoral promises, this sadism of
the highest order shows to what despicable moral levels our leaders have
sunk. This must be condemned in the strongest possible terms by all people
of conscience”.

Witness: Amnesty blasts SA government

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http://www.witness.co.za/index.php?showcontent&global[_id]=33005

Amnesty blasts SA government
19 Dec 2009
Sharlene Packree

ANGLICAN Bishop Rubin Phillip has backed Amnesty International’s claims that South Africa has failed to investigate the human rights abuses at the Kennedy Road informal settlement in Durban.

Phillip has worked closely with the Abahlali baseMjondolo movement, who fight for the rights of shack dwellers.

In a statement, Amnesty International criticised the government’s failure to investigate murders, violence and other atrocities the community has faced in the past year.

Amnesty International said besides the lack of a proper investigation, the activities of Abahlali baseMjondolo (Abahlali) and the affiliated Kennedy Road Development Committee (KRDC) have been disrupted by the violence and the lives of leaders and supporters placed at risk.

Thabani Ndlovu and Thokozani Mnguni were stabbed to death during a youth camp at the settlement. Other people were injured when about 40 men carrying assegais, knobkierries and guns stormed into the premises on September 26.

Eight people were subsequently arrested and have pending court cases. Six residents are still being held by police even though no charges have been laid.

Phillip and the movement made headlines recently when they questioned the short visiting hours given to them to pray for Abahlali baseMjondolo members in police custody.

Amnesty International said that despite calls since October for an independent and impartial commission of inquiry into the circumstances and extent of the violence and its aftermath, nothing has been done.

Phillip agreed with Amnesty International and said there is an urgent need for an independent investigation into the violence.

“The community continues to be divided, with residents feeling lost because their leadership has been chased away,” he said.

He said church leaders also asked the government for an independent investigation, but this was never addressed.

“It’s important that the truth be established. Abahlali baseMjondolo feel they are being rubbished,” Phillip added.

He said the denial of access to Abahlali baseMjondolo members at Sydenham police station is an example of the abuse Amnesty International are concerned about.

“We can’t even pray for them; this is abuse. These people have suffered enough,” he said.

ANC provincial secretary Sihle Zikalala said it is wrong of Amnesty International to suggest the government is not helping the residents.

He said residents have been engaged about housing issues and have been offered alternatives by local government.

Amnesty International condemns Human Rights abuse of Abahlali members

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http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71619?oid=154870&sn=Detail

Amnesty International condemns Human Rights abuse of Abahlali members
Paul Trewhela
18 December 2009

Zuma’s government given criticism devoted in the past decades to the apartheid state

On the Day of Reconciliation in South Africa, 16 December, Amnesty International – the world’s foremost human rights organisation – has issued a damning condemnation of the conduct of the government of the African National Congress, led by President Jacob Zuma. (See here).

The ANC party/state was given the kind of criticism devoted in previous decades to the apartheid state, and to the ANC for its human rights abuses in exile, as in its Quatro prison camp in Angola.

The focus of this exemplary criticism by Amnesty International was the refusal of the Zuma government to uphold the law and even to make adequate inquiry into human rights abuses carried out by ANC party loyalists against black people in Zuma’s political home base, KwaZulu-Natal.

On the eve of the public debt-funded jamboree soon to be enjoyed by the get-rich-quick beneficiaries of ANC grace and favours at the 2010 football World Cup – not to mention the international beneficiaries of the global Roman circus that is contemporary professional football – the focus of this critique is the state’s attacks upon and its neglect of the so-called informal settlements, in which, as Amnesty states, “an estimated 10 percent of South African households are located.”

Colossall football Colosseums – for some.

Destruction of the shacks of the poor – for many.

In particular, Amnesty expresses its concern at an issue of “political control” as being at the heart of what it truthfully calls a “violent attack” upon the shackdwellers at Kennedy Road in Durban, members of a non-violent organisation of the poor, Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM).

As a result of its guilty obsession with “political control” (ie control over the goodies of the public purse), the ANC and its government have been taken to ask for undermining the criminal justice system and for placing lives at risk, in a situation in which people had been left “vulnerable to threats of violence”.

Amnesty expresses further concern that its representations met only a low-grade response from the government. The office of the Head of State had “acknowledged receipt of Amnesty International’s letter, but the organization has not yet received a more substantial reply to its concerns”.

A crucial issue is the clear implication in the Amnesty statement that local ANC political authorities and the police force in Durban/eThekwini – a predominantly isiZulu-speaking area – are responsible for a racist campaign of terror, in contradiction to the founding principles of the ANC, and that a government headed by an isiZulu-speaking President has been at least neglectful of its duties.

Amnesty notes that the pogrom gang – armed with machetes and other weapons – which launched a murderous attack on the Kennedy Road settlement on the night of 26 September “identified targets to be removed from Kennedy Road in ethnic terms, as ‘amaMpondo’ (Xhosa-speakers) or as non-Zulus”; that the houses of all 13 Kennedy Road residents arrested by the police had been demolished; and that all of the arrested men “appeared to have a specific ethnic profile as Xhosa-speakers originally from the Eastern Cape Province”.

We have here an accusation by Amnesty of racist lynch law in contravention of the law and Constitution, and of the founding principles of the ANC itself.

There could be no more damning indictment of the political structure of the so-called “New” South Africa. But also: no more damning indictment of an opposition and a press that have failed to defend, failed to hold power to account, failed to oppose and failed to inform.

What a contemptible state of affairs, on the eve of the 60th anniversary of the massacre at Sharpeville, and the 20th anniversary of the unbanning of the ANC, the PAC, the SACP and other political organisations, as well as…the release from life imprisonment of President Emeritus Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, himself an isi-Xhosa speaker.

The statement by Amnesty International, posted below, marks a sea-change in international perceptions of South Africa. It should be studied with care by every reader, in this season of revelry and festivity.

What has become of the “Rainbow Nation”, to have sunk to this condition?

Was it for this, that so much blood and tears were shed?

Happy Christmas, for the Abahlali men in jail and under charge, their families and friends, in this season of shame.

Happy Day of Reconciliation, comrades.

Diakonia: ‘Current powers threatened by the power of the poor’- Bishop Michael Vorster

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Click here to read this document in pdf.

‘Current powers threatened by the power of the poor’
– Bishop Michael Vorster

On 11 December, church leaders, family members and friends of the Kennedy 12 held a prayer service outside the Durban Magistrates? Court organised by Diakonia Council of Churches.

In his message of solidarity Bishop Michael Vorster of the Methodist Church of Southern Africa said the week had seen three significant events, namely, the launch of the climate change document, the peace procession against violence on women and children and the Kennedy 12 prayer service. “Common to the three events is the question: Will justice be done?”, he said.

After giving each one present the gift of a black cross which symbolises human rights, Bishop Vorster said, “For the accused and their families, for those whose relatives were killed in the violence and for those whose shacks have been demolished – who have no place to stay, for there is „no room for them in the inn?, this year?s Christmas will be a black one”.

He drew parallels between the Kennedy Road events as we enter Christmas with the events surrounding the birth of Christ. “Are the current powers threatened by a lowly movement of the poor – Abahlali baseMjondolo as Herod was threatened by the newly born Prince of peace that he had to kill all baby boys? Are the current powers threatened by the practise of true democracy?”,Bishop Vorster asked.

After the court session friends and relatives of the accused were addressed by Revd Mtetwa, deputy Chairperson of Rural Ministers? Network who urged Abahlali baseMjondolo not to give up, but to continue their struggle for democracy. Claude Mormont of Entraide et Fraternite delivered a message of solidarity in which he showed his appreciation of the work Abahlali baseMjondolo are doing in their quest for a better life.

In a brief hearing which was interrupted by an hour long adjournment, the five were further remanded in custody to 22 January 2010. The seven who are on bail had their bail conditions unchanged.

Immediately after the court appearance, Archbishop Thabo Cecil Makgoba, Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town issued the following statement: “We continue to say to President Zuma, please, Mr President, show mercy and compassion and hear the prayers and longings for democracy by your people”.

14 December 2009