Police Suppress LPM Youth March, But Our Frustrations Grow Stronger

Press Release by the Landless People’s Movement

On the 26th March, the day before we, the LPM youth, were to have our march to demand that our councilor step down, the JMPD prohibited us.  The reasons the police gave for this were that we are violent and unruly and that they “know” us.  They referred to a march organised by the Gauteng LPM that happened in 2002 when we refused to leave Mbaziama Shilowa’s office.  This march, we explained, was not organised by the youth.   Regardless, they said they didn’t have the time and manpower to plan a safe and peaceful march and that if we carried out the march, they would be “hard” on us.  We took this to mean that they would arrest us over the weekend and also brutalise us by beating us and shooting us with rubber bullets.  The government will not meet with us, and now we believe they are even working with the police to suppress our right to express ourselves openly by marching.  There is a real problem in our democracy when the government and the police have time to suppress and brutalise us, but not to help us publicly express the demands that we feel will improve our futures.

The above picture shows the LPM youth in Protea South preparing for the march the day before they were told it was prohibited.

Media: Purgatory for the poor

NIREN TOLSI | DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA – Mar 31 2009 06:00

Source: Mail & Guardian

‘The other day, my [nine-year-old] daughter and her friend were coming back from school through the bushes and a man tried to rape them,’ says Neftal Ntuli (40)

“Luckily a car was going past and the driver brought them home. In broad daylight! It’s not safe there.”

Ntuli, his wife and three children form part of the first batch of families relocated by the eThekwini municipality from their informal shack settlement near Umlazi’s King Goodwill Zwelithini Stadium to a transit camp in peri-urban T-section.

Youth in Protea South to March without JMPD Permission

Friday 27 March 2009

Press release on behalf of Protea South Landless People’s Movement

Demand that Councilor Step Down!

• On 18 March youth organisers from the Protea South Landless People’s Movement (LPM) submitted written notification of their intent to march – to the Metro Centre to deliver a memorandum demanding that the local councilor step down –  to the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department (JMPD).
• On 26 March they were notified by JMPD that permission was not granted for them to march as their notification was allegedly only received that day, and that LPM Protea South marches are allegedly too violent.
• Youth in Protea South feel that they cannot wait any longer to express their greivances, and have resolved to march to Metro Centre without official permission.
• They are currently gathering at Peace-Makers Grounds, Protea South, from where they will proceed – at 10h00 today, Friday 27 March – to Metro Centre to deliver their memorandum.
• All media are requested to come to witness and cover their march, and to discourage the police from resorting to excessive use of force and unwarranted repression of their constitutional right to freedom of expression and protest.

For more information contact:

Bongani, the LPM Youth Coordinator in Protea South, at: 071 043 2221

German Documentary featuring the AEC: ‘When the mountain meets its shadow’

When the Mountain meets its Shadow.pdf

AbM-WC: Diarrhea kills increasing number of under 5’s

Brenda Nkuna

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Source: West Cape News

The number of children under five dying of or being admitted to Western Cape hospitals for diarrhea increased for the last period in which figures are available, says the Western Cape Health Department.

Diarrhea claimed the lives of 149 children under five years old over the 2007/2008 period. This was out of 7,790 admissions to hospitals, said provincial health spokesperson Faiza Steyn.

Landless People’s Movement (LPM) Sees Through Local Government Divide and Rule Strategy

LPM PRESS STATEMENT

4 MARCH 2009

The councillor in Protea South, an informal settlement in Soweto, has repeatedly stated that she is accountable to the ANC government and not to the community of Protea South. This has undermined the ability of the community to work closely with our councillor to meet our basic demands. It should be made clear that, whenever the community has a mass meeting, it is under the banner of the LPM who represents the majority of the people in Protea South. The community of Protea South has been living there for 20 years with no changes in living conditions.

The previous 2 councillors, who were elected to represent the people of Protea South in the new democratic South Africa, delivered nothing. Now that the current local councillor has also failed to bring any development whatsoever in the past 4 years, the LPM is demanding that the councillor step down and be replaced by a community representative that accounts to the people of Protea South instead of any political party.

Court settles sisters’ dispute with mall developers

March 16, 2009 Edition 1

Karen Breytenbach

Source: Cape Times

THE Western Cape High Court has settled a long-running dispute between the developers of a shopping mall in Gugulethu and a small business that was evicted from the former Eyona Mall to make way for the new R300 million development.

In South Africa: No Money, No Justice

Woodstock Anti-Eviction Campaign Press Release

Wednesday 24th of March, 2009

In South Africa, if you are poor your right to justice through the legal system is often denied. If you don’t have money for lawyers its hard to get justice. Therefore, the law is for the rich because they have ample money to buy ‘justice’. Landlords who have money can afford to try and evict people continuously by accessing the courts and paying the best lawyers to throw people out of their houses. In South Africa, communities don’t have money to continuously go to court to fight for, what should be, their basic rights. In the legal system, you are discriminated against if you are poor.

Take the example of Gympie Street. The landlord has taken the residents of Gympie Street to court over and over in order to evict them. This seems to be a strategy to drain the community of resources, so that in the end they won’t have any money to pay for lawyers and gain access to the courts and resist anymore. Indeed, the people of Gympie Street have already spent more than R 45 000 on legal costs. This is outrageous considering that the people of Gympie Street are already poor. The legal costs of Gympie Street also show no sign of slowing. The landlord has now taken two houses in the Street to court again. Each household now has to come up with R 8 000 each for legal costs in order to defend their right to decent housing. This is going to be very difficult considering these households are impoverished. Obviously, targeting these two households alone is a tactic by the landlord to divide the community and place the financial burden of the legal costs onto these two families. No doubt the landlord plans to use this tactic to pick each household off one by one. In the end, the landlord wants every household to be drained of the little resources that they have, so he can kick them out of their houses.

The case of the two households has been set for the 7th of April. We call on all social movements, trade unions and NGOs etc. to come to the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court on the day in solidarity with Gympie Street.

For more information or if you wish to provide any kind of assistance contact:

Willy Heyn (Woodstock Anti-Eviction Campaign) 073 144 3619

Media: Clarity sought on R20bn tourist project

24 March 2009, 06:42

Source: Daily News

Ruwaad Holdings, the financier of a R20-billion tourist development at Macambini on the North Coast, is concerned that general agreement for the project has not been signed even though a memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed last year with the KwaZulu-Natal government will expire within weeks.

Ruwaad on Monday met an ANC task team led by Cyril Xaba, a member of the provincial legislature, to steer the AmaZulu World project forward amid concerns that commencement had been delayed.

Media: Thousands evicted from church land in Angola

MICHELLE FAUL | LUANDA, ANGOLA – Mar 24 2009 08:07

Source: Mail & Guardian

Even as Pope Benedict XVI said on Monday his heart cannot be at peace while people are homeless, critics used his Africa pilgrimage to highlight the plight of thousands violently evicted from land owned by the Catholic church.

Amnesty International appealed to Benedict during his visit to the Southern Africa country to press its government for full compensation for the families who have been forced from church land since 2004.