Press Release
13 August 2006

ANOTHER PERSON DIES IN ANOTHER DURBAN SHACK FIRE

At around 8:30 p.m. on Friday 11 August a candle fell over in the front room of a shack in the Kennedy Road settlement. Four people lived in the large shack. They were all able to get out except for Mr. Zithulele Dhlomo whose room was at the back of the shack. He was an old man, around 70 years old, and the way out was blocked by fire burning hot from the plastic sheeting in the roof. He was burnt to death.

Last week there was a major conflagration in the Jadhu Place settlement. Before that it was Quarry Road and before that it was Lacey Road. The fires happen more or less every week. These fires are not acts of god. They are a direct consequence of the eThekwini Municipality’s infamous and unconstitutional 2001 decision to suspend the provision of electricity to shack settlement. The policy states that ‘In past (1990s) electrification was rolled out to all and sundry…electrification of the informal settlements has now been discontinued’.

Monday, 12 December 2005

Media Advisory: An Invitation to Meet the Third Force

Durban. The Abahlali baseMjondolo (Shackdwellers') movement, one of the most vibrant and important social movements in the new South Africa, has been repeatedly and unjustly accused of being masterminded by 'outside agitators'. This allegation has been repeatedly levelled by the Mayor of the eThekwini Municipality, Obed Mlaba.

The Mayor was recently asked to provide details about the Municipality’s proposed housing policy for its poorest residents, and to respond to a series of concerns raised by the Abahlali Base Mjondolo. A meeting was scheduled for Wednesday December 7th. On Tuesday 6th December, without reason or warning, the Mayor cancelled a meeting with the Abahlali Base Mjondolo, even after the movement had followed every instruction, and obeyed every protocol.

Monday, 21 August 2006
Press Release 4 from the Motala Heights Development Committee (affiliated to Abahlali baseMjondolo)

CORRUPTION AND ARMED INTIMIDATION AS MOTALA HEIGHTS EVICTIONS CRISIS DEEPENS

On Saturday 17 June 2006 Ward Councillor Derek Dimba arrived at the Motala Heights settlement in Pinetown with municipal officials and 5 car loads of municipal security guards to mark out shacks that would then be destroyed by the militarised police Land Invasions Unit. They had probably chosen the Youth Day weekend thinking that many people would be away at their rural homes. They were wrong. The community was able to mobilise quickly and see off this first threat.

Thursday, 31 August 2006 12:00
Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Release

Shack Dwellers to Demand Full Disclosure of the eThekwini Municipality’s Plans for Them from Sutcliffe

Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Conference, Kennedy Road Community Hall, Kennedy Road, Clare Estate, Durban, Monday 4 September, 9:00 a.m.

Abahlali baseMjondolo have completed a detailed application for information from Mike Sutcliffe in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act. We have excellent pro bono lawyers waiting to take Sutcliffe to court if he refuses to comply with our request for information. We are constantly told that the ‘slums will be cleared’ by 2010 yet in most settlements our people have absolutely no idea of what plans have been made for their future. In many instances we fear that the plan is to relocate us to apartheid style rural ghettoes far from work, schools, clinics, libraries, shops and so on. We also fear that many people who are not on ‘the list’ for housing face the (illegal) demolition of their homes without alternative housing being provided.

October 26, 2005

Memorial Service for Mhlengi Khumalo - Kennedy Road, 6:00 p.m. Friday 28 October 2005

Hamba Kahle Mhlengi Khumalo
Ugesi, umhlaba, nezindlu ngabe kuyiphephisile impilo yakhe.

Last Friday 16 shacks burnt down in the Kennedy Road informal settlement in Durban. A one year old boy, Mhlengi Khumalo, was very badly burnt and died in King Edward Hospital on Saturday night. This was the third fire this month. The fire started when a candle was knocked over. Until 2001 pre-paid electricity meters were being installed in shacks. To get electricity you needed to pay R350 and to be able to represent your case in a certain way. According to S'bu Zikode from the Kennedy Road Development Committee "It all depended on who applied. If you seemed ignorant because you can't speak English you were just told to wait outside." The eThekwini Metro has since informed Kennedy Road residents that there is a 'new policy not to install electricity in informal settlements'. Their electrification policy openly states the following:

Wednesday, November 22, 2006
MORE FAMILIES LEFT HOMELESS BY ETHEKWINI MUNICIPALITY

More than 35 families from the Juba Place settlement in Reservoir Hills are preparing to go to court after the eThekwini Municipality smashed up their homes, in the rain, over the weekend. Shack owners were coerced at short notice into accepting relocation to what people call ‘formal jondolos’ in Nazareth. These houses have no electricity and have toilets which don’t work. Most people did not want to be moved away from work and schools and feel unwelcome and nervous in Nazareth where local people had expected the houses. The Municipality moved people out of Juba Place at gun point and now has to protect them from local people in Nazareth at gun point. Meanwhile shack renters in Juba Place were simply left homeless. So much for the constitution….

PRESS RELEASE: THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 2005

IZINKULUNGWANE ZIZOBHIKISHA ZIPHIKISANA NOMPHATHI WESIGCAWU uYACOOB BAIG NGO MHLAKA 14 SEPTEMBER 2005

Giya! Giya!
Bathengisa Ngathi

NINI: Ngehora lesishayagalombili ekuseni, ngolwesithathu, zingu 14 September 2005.

KUPHI: Ukubhikisha kwabantu kuzosuka ehholo lomphakathi kuKennedy Road ose 286 Kennedy Road, nase Clare Estate. Ukubhikisha kuyophelela emahhovisini akhe umnumzane Baig elisekhoneni lika Randles no Spark’s Road eSydenham.

NGOBANI: Lezinkulungwane zifuna imihlaba, izindlu, izidingo zomphakathi ezibalulekile kanye nenhlonipho, baphinde bamnikeza amaviki amabili okushiya esikhundleni umnumzane Baig. (Ungafunda encwadini yezikhalazo engezansi ukubona izidingo zethu eziphelele).

12 September 2006 11:50 PM

DEMOCRACY IN TATTERS IN DURBAN
SYDENHAM POLICE LAUNCH SAVAGE ATTACK ON DEMOCRACY

On Monday 4 September the shack dwellers movement Abahlali baseMjondolo used the Promotion of Access to Information Act to demand that City Manager Sutcliffe tell them, in concrete detail, what the city’s plans are for them. The next day Mxolisi Nkosi, the HOD in the Dept of Housing, called Abahlali in to berate them and demand that they cease speaking to the media. Abahlali asserted their refusal to be silenced all over the media spectacular out arguing Departmental Spokesperson Lennox Mabaso in two major radio debates. The next day S’bu Zikode, president of Abahlali, got a visit from the NIA. Nonhlanhla Mzobe, a key Abahlali activist, found that her boss at Durban Solid Waste had received a letter from the local councillor, Yakoob Baig and the head of the BEC of the ANC, Nicodemus, demanding that Nonhlanhla be fired for supporting the ‘red shirts'. Yesterday Abahlali, together with community organisations from the Municipal flats in Wentworth and Chatsworth, protested outside the ICC wearing t-shirts demanding that the state “Talk to Us, Not For Us.” Again this put them all over the newspapers and radio.