Category Archives: The Kennedy Thirteen

Politicsweb: “Five minutes to pray – and then leave”

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http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71619?oid=151965&sn=Detail

“Five minutes to pray – and then leave”.
Paul Trewhela
23 November 2009

Paul Trewhela on the Diakonia Council of Churches and the Kennedy 13

“Five minutes to pray – and then leave”.

This was the order of the station commander of Sydenham Police Station in Durban, Senior Superintendant Nayager, to the Diakonia Council of Churches last week, when it requested permission to visit 13 impoverished members of the shackdwellers’ movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM), to pray with them.

The Diakonia Council accuses the Sydenham police of having stoof idly by when a xenophobic pogrom gang associated with local ANC political authorities in the Durban area attacked the AbM community at Kennedy Road on 26 and 27 September, killing four people, destroying houses, causing thousands to flee in terror, seizing property and setting themselves up as unelected dictator over the residents.

Police from Sydenham Police Station allowed the murderers to flee unscathed, and then arrested 13 of the residents who had been attacked.

In a subsequent statement, issued on Saturday 21 November, the Council acccused Sydenham police of having once again stood idly by last Friday when the same semi-fascistic gang – reminiscent of Hitler’s Brownshirts – was permitted freely to attack and demolish houses of AbM residents at Kennedy Road all over again.

The Kennedy Road 13 have been refused bail at the Durban Magistrate’s Court on six separate occasions, most recently on Wednesday 18th November, when more than 30 clergy, headed by Bishop Rubin Phillip, Anglican Bishop of Natal, held a prayer service outside the court to stand by the detainees. (See “Church and state collide at Kennedy Road”, here).

Describing the incarceration of the 13 as amounting to “detention without trial”, the trial itself as a “political trial” and the court a “kangaroo court”, Bishop Phillip called for “people of conscience outside of the state” to join him and fellow clergy in setting up “an independent inquiry into the attack on Kennedy Road on 26 September; the subsequent demolition of the houses of Abahlali baseMjondolo members, the ongoing threats to Abahlali baseMjondolo members, [and] the role of the police, politicians and courts in this matter.”

The Diakonia Council of Churches described Superintendant Nayager’s attitude in limiting access to pray with the 13 in his police station to five minutes as “hard and callous”, reflecting a “blatant disregard for human rights”.

In its statement of 21 November, the Council said that despite many phone calls to the Sydenham Police Station to intervene, not one person had been arrested for last Friday’s attacks.

The Diakonia Council of Churches states that it “condemns these ongoing attacks in the strongest possible terms. The Council furthermore condemns the inaction of the police, and the silence from our government on this issue.”

The silence of the government of President Jacob Zuma on this basic issue of constitutional governance suggests at least toleration of these criminal attacks on what ANC political structures in KwaZulu-Natal clearly view as an intolerable affront: the successful mobilisation of the poor by what they view as a rival source of authority.

With justice, the Council believes that what is at stake is “the preservation of our democracy”.

The Council began in the 1970s when the late Archbishop Denis Hurley sought an ecumenical organisation to work for justice in the Greater Durban Area. He was motivated by awareness that the church should have been doing much more about apartheid: but how could churches which were themselves divided have any impact on the problem, unless they first overcame some of their own barriers? Archbishop Hurley looked to Durban to take the lead in setting up an inter-church structure that would concentrate on the sufferings of ordinary people: “Working together to alleviate suffering and to humanise society is perhaps the most promising and exciting opportunity for ecumenism”, he said.

Archbishop Hurley started discussions with the other church leaders in Durban, looked for the right person to head up this work, and founded Diakonia – using a Greek word which means serving the people. This was in March 1976 and the person was Paddy Kearney, who continued to serve Diakonia until 2004.

Since the first democratic elections in 1994, the work of the Council has increasingly focused on poverty.

Membership of the Diakonia Council includes:

* Anglican Church of Southern Africa (ACSA)
* Dutch Reformed Church (DRC)
* Ethiopian Episcopal Church
* Evangelical Lutheran Church in Southern Africa (ELCSA)
* Evangelical Lutheran Church in Southern Africa (Natal-Transvaal)
* Orthodox Church
* Methodist Church of Southern Africa (MCSA)
* Reformed Church in Africa (Observer Status)
* Religious Society of Friends
* Roman Catholic Church
* Salvation Army
* United Apostolic Church (UAC)
* United Congregational Church of Southern Africa (UCCSA)
* United Methodist Church
* Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa
* Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa

All political parties, civic organisations, law associations and academic institutions should take up this issue, following the lead set by the Diakonia Council.

Citing a “severe threat to the credibility of South African democracy”, a seminar was held at the premises of the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) in Johannesburg on 4 November, under the heading: ‘Democracy under threat? What attacks on grasssroots activists mean for our politics”. Organised by the Centre for the Study of Democracy, based at Rhodes University and the University of Johannesburg, the seminar was addressed by Steven Friedman (CSD), Pregs Govender (SAHRC) and Andile Mngxitama (Foundation for Human Rights), as well as by representatives of AbM including its chairman, S’bu Zikode, who had to go into hiding after his house was wrecked and looted in the attacks on 26/27 September.

The silence of most of the mainstream press is, however, a scandal.

Diakonia Dismay at Nayager’s Restricting of Pastoral Access to the Kennedy Thirteen

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19 November 2009
Diakonia Council of Churches Press Statement

MEDIA STATEMENT

Diakonia Council of Churches wishes to express its deepest dismay at
the decision by the Sydenham Police Station Commissioner Nayager to
restrict pastoral access to the Kennedy Road 13.

Immediately after the sixth postponement of the bail application of the Kennedy Road
13, on Wednesday 18 November, and upon hearing they were to be removed from
Westville Prison and further incarcerated at Sydenham Police Station, a group
consisting of clergy, representatives of Diakonia Council of Churches, and Abahlali
baseMjondolo, visited the police station and met with the Station Commissioner,
Senior Superintendent Nayager. The purpose of the visit was to plead with the
Station Commissioner for adequate visitation times for clergy, friends and family to
visit the Kennedy Road 13.

Nayager responded by granting no more than 5 minutes per day for pastoral visits
with the Kennedy Road 13, which could only be availed of between 12pm and 1pm or
5pm and 6pm. “When pastors come and pray with my policemen, they are done and
gone in two minutes. How much longer does one need to pray?” he responded.
When asked whether he considered the needs of free police officers to be different to
those of the Kennedy Road 13 who have been detained without trial for two months,
and who have been subjected to extreme violence and stress, he refused to be
drawn into further debate.

The Kennedy Road 13 have made it clear that they refuse to eat food served to them
at this station, and when asked whether they would be allowed food from friends and
family, Station Commissioner Nayager responded that all food would be examined
and searched for drugs and weapons.

In response to Nayager’s statements, S’bu Zikode, Chairperson of Abahlali
baseMjondolo noted that “I am not surprised by the response from Nayager. He has
never viewed us as human beings and continues to be satisfied in ensuring that we
live in sub-human conditions. Like others he is happy for us to remain in squalor and
filth and be satisfied with the least possible.”

Diakonia Council of Churches expresses its deepest concern for the spiritual and
mental welfare of the Kennedy Road 13, and is deeply saddened by the hard and
callous attitude of the South African Police Services, as displayed by the Station
Commissioner of Sydenham Police Station. Bishop Barry Wood, the Chairperson of
Diakonia Council of Churches, said, “We believe that our request was made in good
faith and we remain disappointed and disturbed by this response. We call on all
people of faith to pray and protest against this blatant disregard for human rights –
our need for prayer and communion with our Higher Power and one another, are at
the core of our common humanity.”

All media enquiries to:

Roland Vernon
COMMUNICATIONS COORDINATOR

DIAKONIA COUNCIL OF CHURCHES
Cell: 074 311 0000
Office: +27 31 310 3551
Fax: +27 31 310 3501

Please visit us at www.diakonia.org.za
“33 Years of Working for Human Rights”

Church and state collide at Kennedy road

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http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71619?oid=151726&sn=Detail

Church and state collide at Kennedy road
Paul Trewhela
20 November 2009

Paul Trewhela on how the clergy are once more speaking truth to power

Something wonderful took place in Durban/eThekwini on Wednesday 18 November.

Continuing a tradition well over 50 years old in South Africa, the Church spoke truth to power.

The point is: that power was no longer the party/state governed by the National Party but the party/state governed by the African National Congress, its successor. This is the only difference, but it has great implications for the present and the future.

True, the ANC won three by-elections in KwaZulu-Natal the same day from the Inkatha Freedom Party, consolidating its position as the principal repository of the vote among isiZulu-speakers.

But in the provincial capital of KwaZulu-Natal, the political authority of the state – as represented by the courts, the police and the governing political apparatus – was confronted outside Durban Magistrate’s Court by a far older and universal authority, the authority of Christian conscience.

At the time of writing, there are still no readers’ comments at the foot of the publication on Politicsweb of the Order of Service held outside the court, when 13 members of the shackdwellers organisation, Abahlali baseMjondolo, appeared before a magistrate.

More than six weeks after an armed pogrom mob burst in upon them, killed four, wrecked homes, seized property and threw hundreds into flight – when all the while the police stood idly by, presenting themselves only after the event to seize innocent victims of the party/state – it is still too early for most people to recognise what is happening in the society.

Firstly, operating with what it perceives to be total impunity, the party/state acted with lethal violence at Kennedy Road in Durban through its auxiliairies, in defiance of law and constitution and the moral law.

Secondly, its constitutional instruments – the police, the prosecutorial service – then acted to conceal a crime of first degree through recourse to the forms of law and constitution, by arraigning the victims.

Thirdly, this act of despotism and abuse of law and constitution was then confronted yesterday outside Pilate’s seat by the Christian conscience, spoken by spiritual authority of the diocese of Natal of the Church of the Province of South Africa, in association with representatives of the Methodist Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Southern Africa, and carrying with it the spiritual and moral authority of the Catholic Bishops’ conference and the South African Council of Churches.

Church made representation to State.

State, as so often before in the political history of South Africa, declined the voice of Church. Church, represented in living memory most powerfully by the witness of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, then summoned up the deep well of Christian moral conscience in the society – and well beyond that – in holding unaccountable State to account.

The statement issued immediately after the latest court hearing by Bishop Rubin Phillip, the most senior voice of the Anglican Church in KwaZulu-Natal and chairperson of the KwaZulu Natal Christian Council, continues in that magnificent tradition. It speaks across race, class, party, tribe, religion and all forms of division in a society increasingly fragmented, demoralised by greed and the lust for power – as Bishop Phillip says, “in the moral wilderness of a country that is losing its way”.

This is moral witness in a heritage that reaches back beyond the Revd W S Gawe (tried for treason), Archbishop Trevor Huddleston, Bishop Ambrose Reeves (author, Shooting at Sharpeville, 1960), Archbishop Joost de Blank and Cardinal Owen McCann (former Catholic Archbishop of Cape Town), to the very formation of the Native Native Congress by Revd Walter Rubusana and Revd John Langalibalele Dube and others in 1912, and to the outrage in the mid-19th century of Sobantu (Bishop John William Colenso, the first Anglican Bishop of Natal) at the state’s trampling on the lives of human beings.

Bishop Phillip, Bishop Barry Wood (chairperson of the Diakonia Council of Churches), Revd Sikhumbuzo Goge (Evangelical Lutheran Church of Southern Africa) and over 30 other members of clergy who were present at the court are deeply conscious of their place in this heritage in South Africa, just as they are conscious of the Christian outrage at massacre and human rights abuses in Zimbabwe of the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace.

From its own history, the ANC and its government and provincial authorities should know that no power, in the end, withstands this authority of conscience in South Africa. It may take a long time. Innocent blood might flow like water.

Yet, while the holders of a little brief authority might engrave the features and the methods of their predecessors upon their own tenure of office, the end has already begun for their reign of abuse when a voice like that of Bishop Phillip arises against them.

There should be all support for Bishop Phillip’s call for the “immediate release of the Kennedy Thirteen from prison, on the grounds that justice has been delayed far beyond the point at which it was clear that it had been denied.”

Further, “in light of the fact that this is quite clearly a political trial in which the rules that govern the practice of justice are not being followed”, there should be support for his call “for people of conscience outside of the state” to join him and his colleagues in setting up “an independent inquiry into the attack on Kennedy Road on 26 September; the subsequent demolition of the houses of Abahlali baseMjondolo members, the ongoing threats to Abahlali baseMjondolo members, [and] the role of the police, politicians and courts in this matter.”

This is an historic moment.

Sowetan: Call for release of ‘Kennedy Road 13’

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http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=1089880

Call for release of ‘Kennedy Road 13’
20 November 2009
Mary Papayya

Anglican bishop and KwaZulu-Natal Christian Council chairperson Ruben Phillip has called for the immediate release of the “Kennedy Road 13”.

The 13, who were arrested after the September attacks on the Kennedy Road informal settlement in Durban, are members of the homeless movement Abahlali baseMjondolo.

On Wednesday they made their 6th appearance in the Durban magistrate’s court for a bail hearing.

Phillip said the proceedings against the 13 were a clear case of “detention without trial”.

“It is clear that the legal process for the Kennedy Road 13 is a complete travesty of justice.” the bishop said.

He said in April he had visited another six members of Abahlali baseMjondolo, who had been on a hunger strike for 14 days at Westville Prison.

“The murder charges that had been trumped up against them were dropped.”

He accused the ANC of having taken a political stand on the matter.

Local government MEC Willies Mchunu visited Kennedy Road soon after the incident in September. He held meetings with some community members and appointed a special task team to probe the conflict.

The Kennedy Road 13 case has been postponed to next Friday.

Meanwhile, a Pinetown magistrate on Monday dropped all charges against another 13 members of Abahlali baseMjondolo arrested at the nearby Pemary Ridge informal settlement.