Mitchell’s Plain traders say they are desperately unhappy about a revamp of the Town Centre.
In 2008, the City of Cape Town announced plans for a makeover, including the redesign of traders’ bays and to ensure compliance with municipal by-laws. Read the rest of this entry »
The Church supported Abahlali baseMjondolo lawyer rushed to Macassar Village to explain to the police that:
1. Any demolition of a shack without an order of the court is a criminal offence that carries a penalty of a fine or two years in jail.
2. Any demolition of a shack in the Macassar Village Ocupation is in violation of the court interdict obtained yesterday and is therefore in contempt of court.
However despite being shown the interedict and, again, having it and the law explained to them the police said that they don’t take instructions from lawyers and that they only take instructions from their superiors. They went ahead and demolished all the structures, including two that were fully rebuilt. This was, once again, a blatantly criminal action on the part of the police.
The police are being quite open about the fact that they will follow the orders of their political masters and not the law or the courts. The Cape Town City Council appears to remain determined to continue to ignore the rule of law when the law offers some protection to the poor. It seems that they are determined to continue to, instead, implement the arbitrary and violent rule of the rich through the barrel of the guns wielded by the police and the Anti-Land Invasions Unit.
In 2006 the Tshwane Municipality demolished shacks in Moreleta Park in Pretoria in violation of a court interdict preventing any demolition with out an order of the court. The court responded by ordering (1) the arrest of the Minister of Safety and Security and (2) that the police must themselves rebuild the shacks that they had demolished. For more information on this case look at chapter two of the 2008 Centre on Housing Rights & Evictions report on housing rights in Durban: Business As Usual?: Housing Rights and ‘Slum Eradication’ in Durban, South Africa.
We will see what Monday brings. In the meantime the Macassar Village Occupation continues without shelter out in the cold and in the rain.
For more information please contact Mzonke Poni at 073 256 62036
Last night an urgent interdict was secured in the Cape High Court preventing the City of Cape Town from demolishing shacks at the Macassar Village Land Occupation without an order of the Court.
Minutes ago the City arrived with considerable armed force and they are currently demolishing shacks in blatant contempt of the court order. They were shown the interdict and yet they are carrying on regardless.
Dan Plato and his administration can not, this time, claim to be unaware that they are engaging in criminal behaviour. There can now be no doubt that Dan Plato heads a wilfully and deliberately criminal organisation – the City of Cape Town.
For up to the minute updates from Macassar Village contact Mzonke Poni at 073 256 2036.
This evening, Gympie Street residents filed an urgent application at the Cape High Court.
The case was brought before Judge Maqubela in Court #7 and has now been postponed until Thursday 4th of June at 15h30.
As we have said before, the entire operation was done illegally and without consideration of the PIE Act. This is criminal.
Judge Maqubela proclaimed that he wants to be fair in this trail and was concerned about the lack of official papers authorising the sheriff of the court to enact the eviction.
On behalf of the residents, advocate Omar requested to know on what legal basis does the registrar of the court have the authority to evict people from their houses.
For more information, please contact Willy at 073 144 3619, Margarete at 072 642 7386, and Mr Omar (lawyer) at 082 492 5207
Also see our archive of information on Gympie Street
Gugulethu Anti-Eviction Campaign Press Release
When: Sunday 31 May at 16h30
Venue: Qababazi Church in Gugulethu (behind Social Services)The Anti-Eviction Campaign will host a public meeting to deal with the frightening second wave of xenophobic pogroms that is beginning to surface Cape Town.
The meeting is to be held at Qababazi Church in Gugulethu this coming Sunday at 16h30.
All concerned and/or angry organisations and residents are invited to attend. The meeting is being called by the AEC in order to help local businesses vent their frustration, unhappiness and anger.
Currently, closed-door meetings are being held by various business groups in Gugulethu. They claim that their businesses are collapsing because “white people and moslem people are using poor Africans [foreign nationals] to run them out of business”.
What happened last year was painful for the large majority of poor South Africans who were not supportive of the pogroms. This is why we, as a community, feel that it is important to discuss these issues, air out grievances, and acknowledge the root causes of xenophobia.
The huge levels of unemployment in our townships are not caused by foreigners by this government’s ant-poor economic policies.
The destruction of local businesses is not caused by foreigner’s spaza shops but by big corporations such as Shoprite and their friends in government who subsidise huge malls like Guguletu Square.
As Abahlali baseMjondolo Says: An action can be illegal. A person cannot be illegal. A person is a person where ever they may find themselves.
We call on everyone in Gugulethu not to direct their anger at other poor humans.
We struggle and are poor, not because of our poor African brothers. We struggle and are poor because we are oppressed by the rich and their government.
We will release a follow-up statement after Sunday about what we have learned from speaking to one another as brothers and sisters.
For more information, contact Mncedisi at 078 580 8646
A GROUP of 450 traders is threatening to take the City of Cape Town to court after a fall-out with officials over the re-allocation of trading bays that are being renovated.
The Concerned Hawkers and Traders Association (Chata) of Mitchells Plain claims members have been marginalised, manipulated and ignored by the city in the re-allocation of trading bays at the Mitchells Plain town centre. Read the rest of this entry »
| 29 May 2009 Anna Majavu majavua@sowetan.co.za |
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FEARS of repeats of last year’s xenophobic attacks are rising among foreign nationals in the Western Cape. This started after Gugulethu traders allegedly held a series of secret meetings discussing how to remove foreign traders from the area.
A Gugulethu businessman said yesterday that local business people have held several meetings over the past three weeks, planning “what to do against foreigners”. The next meeting will take place on Sunday.
“They are complaining that their business is declining and they are furious. They are talking about foreign businesses being the major problem,” the source said.
The story was confirmed by another independent source in the community.
Now foreign nationals fear a repeat of the xenophobic violence that swept the country last May, leaving more than 150000 displaced, and hundreds more raped or murdered.
Last Sunday in Samora Machel near Nyanga, a group of 25 men identifying themselves as local business people instructed Somali shopkeepers to close shop by today. Read the rest of this entry » |
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Primera parte de un crimen atroz (1st chapter of another atrocity case)
Otra vez Siyanda, Uyishayile
May 27, 2009 Read the rest of this entry »
Yesterday Mr. Bonginkosi Hlengwe, an official in the eThekwini Municipal Housing Department, went to the home of Mpume Nompumelelo in Siyanda Section B, Durban with Municipal Workers and the police. The municipal workers demolished her toilet. Today they returned and demolished her home. So far only one shack has been destroyed but they may destory more soon. Read the rest of this entry »
Landless People’s Movement Press Statement
27 May 2009
The Landless People’s Movement in Gauteng will march from the Maurice Issacs High School to the Hector Peterson Museum in Soweto on the 16th June 2009 to repoliticise the meaning of the 1976 Soweto Uprisings.
We, as the Landless People’s Movement, met with different social movements in Gauteng on 18 May 2009. Decisions were taken that the march should be done as a coalition, under the banner of the Poor People’s Alliance. We took this decision as we are trying not to own this march as the LPM. We are trying to revive the history of 1976. As part of this we will be holding workshops with the youth communities in Soweto.
For more information contact:
Bongani Xezwi – youth Coordinator LPM Protea South Branch – 071 043 2221
Maureen Msisi – LPM Gauteng Chairperson – 082 337 4514
Or by email: bongani.xezwi@gmail.com
For more information on this march, see our previous press release (below):
http://abahlali.org/node/5135
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Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign 
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