Media: South African wine industry rooted in human misery, says report

David Smith in Johannesburg
The Guardian, Tuesday 23 August 2011

Unsuitable housing, pesticide dangers and barriers to union membership catalogued by Human Rights Watch monitors

Just 3% of workers in the Western Cape agricultural sector have union representation. Photograph: Gianluigi Guercia/AFP/Getty Images

There is no question of its flair for producing a world-class chenin blanc, cabernet sauvignon or pinotage at an affordable price. But the provenance of South Africa‘s wines is altogether less savoury, an investigation by human rights monitors has revealed.

Workers on the country’s wine and fruit farms lead “dismal, dangerous lives,” according to Human Rights Watch (HRW), which found on-site housing unfit for habitation, exposure to pesticides without proper safety equipment, lack of access to toilets or drinking water while working and barriers to union representation.

Farm workers contribute millions to South Africa‘s economy, with products that are sold in Tesco and other British supermarkets, yet they are among the lowest wage earners in the country, the group’s report says.

Solidarity: Activists Arrested Trying To Stop Eviction Of Addison Family

Note: The Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign stands in solidarity with our sisters and brothers in Chicago

July 29, 2011 1:57 PM – CBS Local Chicago

ADDISON, Ill. (CBS) — An Addison mother and three sons are being evicted from their home, and some activists are trying to prevent it.

In so doing, five of those activists found themselves in the back of a police car.

As WBBM Newsradio 780’s Mary Frances Bragiel reports, DuPage County sheriff’s police arrested five members of the Anti-Eviction Campaign, including the spokeswoman, Holly Trig, who is six months pregnant.

The homeowner, Luz Smedbron, and her children had agreed to leave the home at 200 N. Maple St., which was lost to foreclosure and later sold at an auction.

From Shooting to Brutally Beating by the Farmers

15 July 2011
Rural Network Press Statement

On 05 March 2011, Mr. Nayetsheni Lymon Ndlozi was brutally beaten by the farm owner of Vaalbarn Farm in Utrecht. At the time of the attack Mr Ndlozi was going to fetch his cows that had been impounded by the farmer Mr Johan Landman and his son. Mr Ndlozi a 62 year – old man is a farm labour tenant who claimed Uitkom farm and was vindicated by the Newcastle Court. The farm used to belong to Mr Landman’s father and he was very much angry about the judgment. He was trying to use the attack on the Ndlozi family as a way of constructive eviction.

Municipal Security and Shack Dwellers Clash in the Kennedy Road Settlement this Morning Attempt at Armed De-electrification Successfully Resisted

Sunday 3 July 2011
Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Statement

This morning Municipal Security Guards arrived at the Kennedy Road shack settlement and began disconnecting people from electricity. The community had previously negotiated an understanding with the Municipality that they would not send their security guards into the settlement to disconnect. However this morning this agreement was violated and the people resisted the disconnections. There was a confrontation,rubber bullets were fired and stones were thrown. A young man was shot in the chin with a rubber bullet at close range. A road blockade was then organised following which both the SAPS and the Metro Police arrived on the scene. But the attempt to disconnect people from electricity was successfully resisted.

Diary of Alfred Moyo from the Deposed Makause Development Forum

Abahlali baseMjondolo Statement

The Makause Informal Settlement Forum in Primrose, Ekurhuleni was overthrown today by the local ANC with the support of the SAPS. The Makause Forum is an independent structure that had been democratically elected to represent the community. Some individual members of the committee have links to the ISN but the committee as a whole remains independent. The overthrow of another community structure by an ANC mob, backed with police support, brings back painful memories for Abahlali baseMjondolo and we are in full solidarity with the Makause Forum. We call on comrades in Johannesburg to show active support to the comrades in Makause and for everyone in this country who calls themselves a democrat to insist that the poor have the full right to organise themselves autonomously from the ANC if that is their wish. This insistence remains useless for as long as it remains abstract and something spoken about in conferences. Solidarity must be concrete, a living force on the ground.

Text Message Diary of Alfred Moyo, one of the community leaders of Makause Informal Settlement Development Forum, Primrose, Ekurhuleni

– Course of events leading to the local ANC ousting the active community leadership, with the help of the police

30 May 2011 (evening) – I’m still well and alive. Thanks for the drafted message on AbM website, I had an early voice recorded interview with the AbM member and received a call from Kate (Tissington, SERI) after seeing it on AMB web. Thanks very much for the solidarity, support, assistance and any great efforts to aid is highly appreciated. ‘More Fire’ – Aluta Continua.

11 June 2011 (afternoon) – The struggle contin

Anti-Eviction communities join the Mitchell’s Plain Backyarders at the High Court

1 June 2011

Anti-Eviction communities who are facing eviction and whose homes have been flooded by the recent rains (more on this soon), are joining backyarders from Tafelsig who are at the Cape High Court today.

Hundreds of backyarders who have set up a new settlement in an open field in Tafelsig which they have aptly called New Horizons will be at the High Court today. They will be defending themselves against eviction by the City of Cape Town which has decided that the poor shall have no right to security of tenure in the entire Metropole – even though there is plenty of unused and misused land all over the City.

Solidarity Screening -17 Apri1 2011- Cape Town

In commemoration of the Eldorado dos Carajás massacre and struggling farmers worldwide.

This coming Sunday, the 17th of April, from 12 pm- 3pm we will be holding a short film screening as part of the International Day of Farmers remembering the massacre of landless peasants at Eldorado dos Carajás and the worldwide struggle of farm-workers.

To recognise and respect their struggle, the event will serve as not only a film screening but a spring board for further action and discussion.

Protest Day 1: A call for Madikizela, MEC for Human Settlement to resign

PROTEST DAY ONE

Last week Abahlali baseMjondolo Western Cape made a call to MEC for human settlement M.R Bonginkosi Madikizela to sign an undertaking that he will never, ever again within the Western Cape Province demolish or evict people without any order from the court.

This follows number of illegal activities and intimidation carried by his office lead by him. ABM WC gave him seven working days to respond, and as an organization we were only expecting him to sign an undertaking that says he will not demolish people’s structures without following legal rout and a failure to sign such undertaking it simply shows that he is arrogant and thinks that he is above the law.

Solidarity: AbM march on the uGu District Mayor

Abahlali baseMjondolo Movement S.A
Press Statement Saturday, 26 March 2011

March on the uGu District Mayor to Demand that Nomusa Dube Extend Her
Investigation into Corruption to the Vulamehlo Municipality

Abahlali baseMjondolo Movement S.A is a social movement that fights to protect
and promote the interests of the poor in S.A. While our movement works hard to
build and to sustain democratic structures in our communities, to organise our
own community controlled projects and to secure land and housing in our cities
we also work hard to partner with all government departments and development
agencies that are willing to help to better the lives of our communities and to
get rid of corruption wherever necessary.

Invitation to All Those Seeking Political Office to Come Down to the People

Website: khayelitshastruggles.com or http://www.abahlali.org
Email: abmwesterncape@abahlali.org office admin: 073 2562 036/ 083 446 5081

On the 21 March 2011 Abahlali baseMjondolo Western Cape will have a mass rally at the VE shack settlement in Khayelitsha from 10:00 till 13:00. Representatives of 15 communities will attend this rally. The aim of the rally is to launch our campaign for the 2011 local government elections, which is: No Land! No House! No Water! No Electricity! No Jobs! No Freedom! No Vote!

As a movement we see no point in voting for political parties which are just competing for the right to oppress the poor. We do not see any political party taking the side of the poor. No political party stands with us when we are fighting shack fires, running crèches, occupying land or resisting evictions. Therefore we refuse to vote and instead focus on building our own power in our own communities so that the people can discipline who ever tries to use them as ladders to climb into office.

The ANC and the DA repress popular protest. The ANC can not escape the truth of Kennedy Road or eTwatwa. The DA can not escape the truth of Hangberg or Macassar Village. The ANC and the DA are not just anti-poor. They are both also anti any autonomous politics of the poor. Due to their history of repression neither the ANC nor the DA can be said to be democratic organisations.

Some civil society formations are playing the same game as the political parties and trying to divide the poor by criminalising popular organisations that organise independently of the ANC. Here in Cape Town TAC and their subsidiary organisations, which are aligned to the ANC, have even tried to blame the actions of the ANC Youth League on our movement! This allows them to let the ANC off the hook for the thuggish actions of its youth league while making us look like bad. Although we acknowledge the important work that these organisations have done in winning treatment for people living with HIV, supporting migrants after the xenophobic attacks in 2008, raising the issue of unequal education and so on we have to acknowledge the reality that many civil society organisations remain an extension of the ANC. With the exception of the South African Municipal Workers’ union, which has decided that it cannot in good conscience ask its members to vote for the ANC once again, COSATU is, while clearly the only progressive formation in the tripartite alliance, also an extension of the ANC.

The real opposition to the ANC and the DA is not COSATU or those civil society formations which criticise the ANC on some important points but still expect the poor to vote for their oppressors. The real opposition to the ANC is in the rebellion of the poor and the organisations and movements that have emerged from that rebellion.

We are clear that the ANC and the DA are our oppressors and that COSATU and some civil society formations are failing to take this reality seriously. However we are democrats. We always allow the parties to campaign freely in our areas. We are therefore extending an invitation to all those people who have ambitions to be elected by the votes of the poor to attend our rally on Human Rights Day. We are inviting Patricia de Lille, Tony Ehenrich, the ANC Youth League members that engaged in thuggery in TR section and that now want us to elect their leader as a councillor, the civil society organisations that continue to support the ANC and all other individuals and groups that want our vote to attend our meeting.

They will all be given a platform and the right to speak freely. They will be listened to respectfully. However they will all be asked the following ten questions:

1. Will they actively oppose all water and electricity disconnections?

2. Will they actively oppose all evictions?

3. Will they actively support the occupation of unused land to house the poor?

4. Will they actively support the right of all people to organise freely, including outside of and against political parties?

5. Will they actively provide non-party political support to community initiatives like crèches, food gardens and so on?

6. Will they actively support the demand for fair and effective policing to ensure the safety of everyone in poor communities?

7. Will they actively support the right of all communities to plan their own future by democratising development via mechanisms like participatory budgeting and popular urban planning?

8. Will they only take a basic living wage for themselves and put the rest of their politician’s salaries into community controlled projects in poor communities?

9. Will they take instruction from above, by party bosses, or from below, from their electorates?

10. Will they give the people that elected them the right to recall them if they do not allow the people to lead them from below?

For comment contact: Mzonke Poni ABM WC chairperson @ 073 2562 036

Direction to VE informal settlement: Take the Mew Way turn off to Khayelitsha from N2, on stop sign you turn right over the bridge (only if you are coming from Cape Town Direction, and you will turn left if you are coming from Somerset West direction) and go through the traffic light (Mew Way road) and over the bridge there is 4 way stop and you turn left. VE informal settlement is allocated along the road on your right hand side, is about 1 kilometer away from the 4 way stop.