Cape Town AntiWar Coalition and Anti-Eviction Campaign condemn City Council mercenary eviction squads

The Anti-Eviction campaign strongly condemns the call for tenders by the City Council for contracts to demolish informal settlements. Apparently successful contractors have to be available 24 hours 7 days a week to perform evictions and demolitions of informal settlements. Evictions, in the middle of the night, any day of the week, potentially even on Christmas day and other holidays, are set to become the norm. This is worse than the apartheid state. According to the tender meeting held today (24 Oct 2007), squads must be a minimum size of 10 and contractors were warned not to 'under-tender' - in other words the City Council is set to spend millions on demolishing informal settlments instead of using these funds to build houses for the people.