MEDIA STATEMENT
Issued by: Abahlali baseMjondolo and Socio-Economic Rights Institute of SA (SERI)
19 September 2012

VICTORY FOR FORGOTTEN SHACK DWELLERS

High Court orders eThekwini Mayor, City Manager and Director of Housing responsible for ensuring compliance with court order to provide houses to evicted Siyanda occupiers

Today the Durban High Court handed down a ground-breaking judgment in Mchunu and Others v Executive Mayor of eThekwini and others, following a hearing held on 17 September 2012. The decision, given by Acting Judge Nigel Hollis, requires the Mayor of eThekwini, the City Manager and the Director of Housing to take all the necessary steps, within three months, to provide permanent housing to 37 poor families living in a transit camp near KwaMashu, Durban. If they do not, they may be fined or imprisoned.

18 September 2012
Abahlali press statement

Abahlali baseSiyanda vs eThekwini Municipality

The failure of the eThekwini municipality to comply with an order of the court that compels it to house the residents of Siyanda who have been left to rot in the Richmond Farm transit camp has clearly indicated that the City is law unto itself.

Yesterday the Court heard both the sides of Abahlali and eThekwini and held the judgment. The judge said it was going to handed down in few days. We have just received a call from our legal team saying that tomorrow, Wednesday, 19 September 2012 at 9am the judgment will be handed down at the Durban High Court.

DEAR MANDELA UNITED STATES SCREENING TOUR

This month, the Poverty Initiative, together with Sleeping Giant Films, National Economic Social Rights Initiative and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), will host two youth leaders from the Abahlali baseMjondolo (Shackdwellers) movement of South Africa for a month-long exchange and film tour. AbM leaders, Zodwa Nsibande and Mnikelo Ndabankulu, are featured in the award-winning film Dear Mandela. These inspiring leaders will share their experience and analysis of the largest social movement of the poor in post apartheid South Africa, and will engage with young people in 7 cities in a conversation about innovative leadership, bottom-up democracy, and the role of the youth in fighting for our human rights to housing, healthcare and a decent wage.

16 September 2012
Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Statement

Abahlali baseRichmond Farm are taking the eThekwini Municipality to Court

In 2009 Siyanda residents near KwaMashu were evicted by the Dept. of Transport and relocated from their shacks into Transit camps so they could build the road which is known as Dumisani Makhaye (R577). The residents contested the eviction in the streets and in the courts but an eviction order was granted by the Durban High Court and the residents were evicted and relocated on 17 March 2009. However the court order that was given stated that all basic services should be provided in the transit camps and that the residents should all be moved to formal houses within 12 months. Water, electricity and sanitation were not provided and the residents are still rotting in the transit camp. The municipality has simply ignored the court order. Moreover for the past 3 years their children have suffered the pain of walking a long distance to their schools because of the relocation.

Marikana Memorial Service: Praying for a Just Peace

Presider: Bishop Ebenezer Ntali
Preacher: Prof. Barney Pityana

The Cathedral of St. Michael & St. George, Grahamstown, 30 August 2012

Excerpt from The Prayers of the People

Help us to shatter the structures
which prosper the rich at the expense of the poor
so that all people of this land
may experience economic emancipation

The service was followed by a march on the local police station.

31 August 2012
Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape Press Statement

Housing Development Agency trying to illegally evict resident in Langa TRA - today

For months, the local residents committee in Langa Temporary Relocation Area has been illegally selling government built shacks. Many of the people buying the shacks already have alternative accomodation and are doing it in the hopes that they will 'cut the line' and be allocated a RDP house. They don't need a TRA structure. This corruption has been supported by the Housing Development Agency and we now have evidence that at least one member is directly involved in the corruption taking place. On top of that, HDA apparently has decided to demolish some of the TRA structures – we don’t know why because they refuse to communicate this to us.

Abahlali BaseMjondolo Press Statement
30 August 2012

KwaNdengezi Protest to Councillor Ngcobo of Ward 12

The KwaNdengezi community of Ward 12 under Councillor Mduduzi Ngcobo, will be having a protest on Friday. The reason for the protest is that the councillor has failed to engage with the community and has also failed to fulfil his promises to the community.

In 2010 the Cllr called a consultation meeting with the community and the Housing Department about the housing project that would take place in the community. Before accepting the project the community raised concerns about their families’ grave yards. They said that a housing project should not frustrate people but improve people’s lives. It was agreed that before the project starts another community meeting will be called, to discuss how it should be structured. It was also agreed that as this is a community project therefore it should be driven by the community.

Marikana Massacre Memorial Service
Friday, 24th August 2012, Emmanuel Cathedral

And so, again, the truth of our country is in dead black bodies littering the ground. Once again, the truth of our time is that people asserting their rights and dignity against systemic injustice have been brought down in a hail of bullets. Has nothing changed in our place, when its truth remains that the armed might of the state acts for the elite of powerful and wealthy, and against our people? No self-righteous declarations of 'tragedy'; no insisting on 'complexity'; no obfuscatory 'commissions of enquiry'; are enough to hide that truth. The truth is plain to masses of the people of South Africa, it is an affront to God.

Churches & the Organised Poor

By Thina Khanyile, IUM-SiCiLi Barefoot Consultation, Pretoria, 28 August 2012

Abahlali baseMjondolo is an egalitarian and democratic organisation of the poor. It is dedicated to the self-improvement and self-education of people who have been made poor by an unjust economic system. We organise ourselves to be able to discuss and understand our situation better and to be able to struggle for justice.

AbM is not a political party. We are a an independent poor people's organisation. We accept people regardless of the political parties that they are coming from but we keep party politics out of the movement and all our leaders must agree to remain independent from all political parties.

23 August 2012
Abahlali baseMjondolo Press statement

Marikana Massacre Memorial Service

Abahlali baseMjondolo has held a number of serious discussions about the Marikana Massacre within our movement and with our comrades. It has also been very important for Abahlali to send a delegate straight to Marikana in the North West province to meet directly with striking workers and struggling residents of the Wonderkop shack settlement. We, together with the Unemployed People's Movement, were also able to send two delegates to the meeting held to discuss the massacre at the University of Johannesburg last night. We wish to set the record straight and to say clearly that the account of what has happened that has been given in the media has mostly come from the state. The views and experiences of the striking workers and struggling residents of Marikana has been silenced. It is essential that the media must talk to the striking workers and struggling residents of Marikana and not just about them.