http://www.themercury.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=4532321

Opinion
Human rights are just words to poor people

July 30, 2008 Edition 1

Imraan Buccus

The new South Africa was founded on a commitment to human rights.

Neither of the contesting nationalisms of the National Party and the African National Congress had built their politics around human rights before 1994, but a human rights centred deal was one that everyone could live with.

In a human rights culture and in a human rights legal system everyone matters. Children, prisoners, foreigners, the poor, sex workers - everyone.

More people in more tents...more state xenophobia...

http://www.themercury.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=4474205

Church hands refugees over to city authorities

June 26, 2008 Edition 1

Colleen Dardagan

A GROUP of refugees who fled their homes after the xenophobic violence in Durban were offloaded at the city hall yesterday by representatives of a church group who say they no longer have the resources or capacity to care for them.

The municipality and provincial government have both washed their hands of responsibility.

"We had no other option," said Dean Meistre, senior pastor of the Glenwood Community Church in Bulwer Road.

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=139&art_id=vn20080505054317360C671374

Provinces to follow KZN's pioneering example

May 05 2008 at 08:09AM

By Wendy Jasson da Costa

All provinces in the country are to formulate legislation equivalent to that of the KwaZulu-Natal Slums Act, prompting threats of widespread civil unrest from community organisations in the Western Cape and Gauteng.

The announcement by housing MEC Mike Mabuyakhulu comes even though KZN's "pioneering" legislation is the subject of a court challenge by shack dwellers under the umbrella of the Abahlali baseMjondolo movement which wants the legislation scrapped.

http://www.themercury.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=4065373

Eradication of slums could hurt poor

October 05, 2007 Edition 1

Greg Ardé

KwaZulu-Natal's Slums Act, which proposes to eradicate shack settlements by 2014, could remove the only opportunity poor people have of gaining a foothold in the property market, an influential think tank heard in Durban yesterday.

The UK government-funded study into the market in informal settlements in three cities in South Africa was conducted by Urban LandMark, whose team was in Durban yesterday to release the findings of its research.

It studied property transactions in Durban, Cape Town and Johannesburg, looking at sales in informal settlements, tribal land, shacks and Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) low-cost housing projects. It found that a shack sold for between R50 and R500, and it took up to 69 days and an additional R1 351 in transport and associated costs to secure.

http://www.themercury.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=3896579

June 22, 2007 Edition 1

Sibusiso Mboto

A KwaZulu-Natal group representing informal settlements has accused the provincial government of neglecting the needs of its constituents after the passing into law of the Elimination and Prevention of the Re-emergence of Slums Act yesterday.

Local Government MEC Mike Mabuyakhulu said in Pietermaritzburg that the Act was not aimed at "the inhumane eviction" of people from where they lived, but was a revolutionary and long-term solution to the challenge of slums.

"(The Act) does not contain any provisions for the eviction of persons from land or buildings. Instead, it provides that any eviction must be carried out in accordance with the applicable provisions of the constitution and any other national legislation protecting the housing or occupation rights of people," he said.

http://www.themercury.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=3935962

The shack dwellers' movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo, plans to influence the finer points of the recently passed KwaZulu-Natal Elimination and Prevention of the Re-emergence of Slums Act, which has not been signed into law by Premier S'bu Ndebele.

The organisation, which has been at loggerheads over housing with the eThekwini Municipality in the past, has expressed its intention to exploit the period until the Bill is signed and to challenge an Act which they feel would discri-minate against shack dwellers.

While the group had expressed reservations about the entire legislation, indications were that only minor adjustments could now be made.

http://www.themercury.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=3927354

WHILE shack dwellers in Durban's Kennedy Road say they know little about 2010, they do believe the new Bill for the elimination of slums is a move by the government to clear them out ahead of the football showpiece.

"The soccer World Cup is a threat to our communities, in a sense, because it is putting pressure on the city to get rid of shacks.

"They think we are stupid and don't know what they are up to," said S'bu Zikode, President of the Durban-based Abahlali baseMjondolo (shack dwellers' movement), who has compared the new Elimination and Prevention of the Re-emergence of Slums Act to Robert Mugabe's operation Murambatsvia in Zimbabwe.