Update:20 August 16:46 Word has just been received that another home in Motala Heights is burning....

19 August 2008
Press Release from the Motala Heights Abahlali baseMjondolo Branch

Armed De-Electrification in the Motala Heights Settlement

This morning an eThekwini Municipal official invaded the Motala Heights settlement with a group of security guards. They drew their guns, said that they were there to disconnect what they call 'illegal electricity connections' and what every one else calls 'lifesaving community connections' and threatened to shoot anyone that resisted.

Call to demonstrate at Constitutional Court 21 August — against Joe Slovo eviction
17 08 2008

No evictions from Joe Slovo shack settlement, Langa, Cape Town!

Asiyi eDelft!

We, the residents of Joe Slovo shack settlement in Langa, Cape Town, are going to the Constitutional Court to contest the order obtained by Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu in the Cape High Court in March to evict us and send us to the outskirts of Cape Town in Delft! She wants to house better-off people along the N2 highway to make it pretty for tourists to the 2010 World Cup!

Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Statement
Friday August 15, 2008
–
Date: 16th August, 2008 (Saturday)
Time: 14h00 - 16h30
Assembly Point: Mew Way Hall, Lansdowne Road

QQ Section - Tomorrow, the recently formed AbM Western Cape will be hosting a walkabout through Khayeltisha's informal settlements for Cape Town mayoral committee member Dan Plato and other city officials.

After assembling at Mew Way Hall, we will visit over a dozen informal settlements on foot, including QQ, RR, VT, VV, TR, AT, XA, QA, LB, and YA.

This walkabout will provide the residents of these communities with an opportunity to demonstrate directly to city officials the lack of even rudimentary services in their communities. Residents will be able to show officials what they have and what they lack, what they want and how they want it. It will offer our communities a chance to instil the accountability lacking in the process of upgrading informal settlements.

Tuesday, 19 August 2008
LPM Protea South Press Release

The Protea South Branch of the Landless People's Movement Has Won a Breakthrough Court Order Against the City of Johannesburg

Since 2003 the Landless People's Movement in the Protea South shack settlement in Soweto has been trying, without success, to engage the City of Johannesburg around the future of the settlement. The Protea South LPM branch has clear demands:

1. There must be no evictions.

2. Every effort must be made to build houses for the people in Protea South.

3. If it is genuinely not possible to build houses for all residents in Protea South then discussions must be held to find the closest possible alternative site.

Abahlali baseMjondolo (eThekwini) Press Statement
Friday, 08 August 2008

Let us Work Together to Stop the Plague of Shack Fires
Abahlali baseMjondolo Calls for a Shack Fire Summit

This weekend the eight people that burnt to death in two shack fires in Cato Crest will be buried. This weekend we will continue to rebuild the Kennedy Road settlement after two fires in two weeks.

We do not accept that the poor must burn in shack fires. This is not God’s will.

We cannot be silent while facing these fires. If we were silent we would have no right to exist.

Some councillors just take the people’s votes and then leave them to burn with the fire. The people have put these councillors on trial and found them guilty. In Abahlali baseMjondolo we buried our councillors. Community organisations across Durban and across South Africa have rejected these councillors. The time of the councillors is over. The time of the people has come back.

Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Statement
Friday August 8, 2008 - For Immediate Release

Date: 9th August, 2008 (Saturday)
Time: 14h00 – 16h00
Venue: QQ Revolutionary Community Crèche

QQ Section – Tomorrow, the newly formed AbM Western Cape will be holding a workshop for over 10 informal settlements in Khayelitsha on the City's 'Comprehensive Plan' for Informal Settlements.

Speakers at the workshop will include: Mzwandile Sokupa, Director of Informal Settlements for the City of Cape Town, Helen Macgregor from Development Action Group, Professor Martin Legassick, and others.

The aim of the workshop includes the following:

"Hands off the MST Brazil!" say South African social movements

7 August 2008

To the poor of the world, to all people of good will who work for progressive change

We, the landless and homeless people and associated activists of South Africa, decry the secret campaign by the so-called Workers' Party (PT) government of the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul to criminalise, outlaw and otherwise illegitimately harass our landless comrades of the MST.

Under PT governance, Rio Grande do Sul has made substantial sums of money off hosting four World Social Forums – and yet that same government is now cynically using its militarised police forces to wage a clandestine war against Brazil's most important, poor-driven social movement.

Two weeks ago hundreds were left homeless and robbed of all their possessions by a fire at the Kennedy Road settlement. There was another fire at the Kennedy Road settlement today – the 6th this year.

No one was hurt and people managed to bring it under control quite quickly. The fire brigade, as they always do these days, arrived quickly and put out the remaining blaze. They worked with the community and worked effectively and bravely (fighting shack fires is quite dangerous as gas cylinders blow up unexpectedly in large balls of flame).

Update: Click here to see some pictures and to read Bongo Dlamini's story.

Bongo Dlamini, 19 year old struggle artist elected as the chairperson of the Abahlali baseMjondolo youth league on 16 June 2008, has just lost his shack in a fire in the Motala Heights settlement in Pinetown. Neighbours were able to put the fire out quickly and it did not spread to other homes. But Bongo has lost everything he owned. He was going to design the new Durban Abahlali banner after the old one, designed by Mbongeni Msomi from Mpola, was given to the comrades in QQ Section in Cape Town to celebrate the launch of their AbM branch.

Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Statement:
31 July, 2008 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Khayelitsha – QQ Section, Abahlali baseMjondolo's newest member community, has been one of the most deprived informal settlements in Cape Town: they have been waiting for services from government for the past 20 years. The last 14 years of 'democracy' has been meaningless to residents of QQ Section.

After living so many years without rudimentary services, abahlali (residents) find it very appalling for the City of Cape Town to claim that This City Works for You and the the Western Cape is a Home for All. They have sought to marginalise us and incited devisions between us so that we fight their ANC/DA political battles.