http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=15&art_id=vn20080921085429202C416922

Slums built on the ashes of apartheid

September 21 2008 at 01:42PM

By Imraan Buccus

Last Saturday almost the entire Foreman Road shack settlement in Clare Estate, Durban, burnt down, leaving thousands destitute.

The next morning residents found a body in the ashes

There was a devastating fire in the same settlement in 2007.

The photographs from the morning after are apocalyptic. The nearby Kennedy Road settlement has had seven major fires in 2008.

Update: Please note that after vigorous protest at the arrival of bulldozers on the site of the fire without consultation the City agreed to allow Foreman Road residents to decide whether they wanted to rebuild themselves or stay in an on site transit camp.

http://antieviction.org.za/2008/09/21/western-cape-aec-in-durban-for-shack-fire-summit-alliance-meeting-and-to-support-comrades-at-foreman-rd-who-are-being-subject-to-illegal-demolitions/

Statement in solidarity after the Foreman Road fire

Power to the Poor

Even if our whole settlement burns down, the reality is the land on which our community lives will remain our home. A fire, like the devastating one yesterday at Foreman Rd, will not change the way we view our homes. No matter how disadvantaged our communities are, we will not allow individuals who are on power to label our homes as slums because once we allow that they'll will want to eliminate our homes and throw us in unsuitable asbestos filled temporary relocation areas.

These unnecessary fires can be prevented if our government was caring and democratic. But this government is only democratic and caring about issues that matter to their pocket book. Whatever we, as shack-dwellers, say to them does not matter. Only our votes matter so that they can attain more power and enrich themselves further.

Foreman Road Abahlali baseMjondolo Branch
Press Statement, 10:00 a.m., 13 September 2008

Massive Fire Devastates the Foreman Road Settlement

morning sun. man. smoke. ruins.

A fire started at the bottom of the Foreman Road settlement at around 3: 00 a.m. this morning. There is only one tap in the settlement and it was impossible to fight the fire. Most of the settlement, at least a thousand shacks, burnt very quickly. Our neighbours called the fire brigade and they came and put the fire out. In 2004 the Municipality said that they would install fire hydrants. They started the work but never finished it. We have been left to burn.

Update: A summary of the report has now been published at Pambazuka and it has been discussed in an article in the Sunday Tribune

Monday 8 September 2008
Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Release

A Big Devil in the Jondolos
Abahlali baseMjondolo Launches a Report on Shack Fires in Advance of the City Wide Shack Fire Summit on 22 September 2008

This picture, by the M&G, is from another fire in Kennedy Road earlier in the year.

Well more than a hundred shacks burnt down in the Kennedy Road settlement this morning. This is the 7th fire in the settlement this year.

Abahlali baseMjondolo condemns the eThekwini Municipality's inhuman 2001 decision to stop electrifying shacks on the grounds that it is too expensive. There is a direct link between this decision and the fires as the fires are caused by candles and paraffin stoves.

Update: 20 August 16:46 Word has just been received that another home, this one occupied by 3 families, is burning in Motala Heights....

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.

(Click here to read this statement in Italiano.)

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

Obed Mlaba's house is symbolically burnt on 28 November 2007 in protest at the plague of fires.

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.