Media: Sexwale comment blasted

A housing-rights organisation has asked Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale to withdraw comments about the possibility of a “cut-off date” for free housing.

ANNA MAJAVU | 03 October, 2011 01:16 – Times Live

The Abahlali baseMjondolo (Those Who Live in Shacks) organisation, which fights for the rights of shack dwellers, said Sexwale’s statement last week was a recipe for “uncontrolled protests”.

Sexwale told an international conference in Cape Town that the government was discussing an end to free housing.

“There has got to be a cut-off date. We are discussing that. You can’t cut off the poor right now, particularly in the current national economic environment. But we can’t sustain what we are doing for a long time,” Sexwale said.

Abahlali baseMjondolo’s Western Cape chairman, Mzonke Poni, who yesterday completed a three-day fast in protest against South Africa’s housing shortage, said the government should have held public hearings before discussing an end to free housing.

“If they open this for public comment the government will see it has no support at all,” said Poni.

Media – Sekwenele: It’s enough

By Timothy Gabb – Activate Online

Revolutions do not spring out of the blue.  Revolutions are organised through the united action of men and women, rural and urban, which spring from their needs.  Revolutions happen when ordinary men and women begin to discuss their own lives and their own futures and to take action to take control of their own lives. – Ayanda Kota, UPM

Media: Call on city to stop evictions

CAPE Town residents’ organisation Abahlali baseMjondolo has called on the City of Cape Town to put a moratorium on all evictions.

Sep 28, 2011 | Moses Mackay | Sowetan

This follows a violent clash between 2000 backyard dwellers and the police after they had occupied land owned by the city in Kraaifontein on Sunday.

Police repelled the bid and drove the homeless people off a piece of land along Old Paarl road, arresting eight people.

Police and members of the city’s anti-land invasion unit took down structures erected illegally on Saturday.

Two Worlds: A Documentary about South Africa’s Inequality

Change room families’ future still uncertain

Fadela Slamdien – Sep 15 2011 – The New Age

Six families living in decrepit change rooms at Athlone Stadium in Kewtown are still in the dark about whether the council has plans to relocate them.

The council issued eviction notices against the families, some of whom had lived in the change rooms for 10 years, as they wanted to demolish the buildings to extend the parking area as part of a R406m upgrade of Athlone Stadium for the soccer World Cup.

When the families ignored the notices, the city took the matter to court, claiming the premises were unfit for human habitation and alleging the occupants were involved in “illegal activities”, which they strenuously denied.

But magistrate Mas-Udah Pangarker refused to evict the families. Instead, she ordered the city to either provide the families with alternative accommodation in the surrounding area if it wanted to demolish the building, or allow the families to remain.

AbM: South Africa’s Great Change

S’bu Zikode’s talk at the 30th anniversary of the 1981 protests against the Springbok tour of New Zealand

I wish to thank Global Peace and Justice, in Auckland, for inviting me to New Zealand to speak on the progress of post-apartheid South Africa and the birth of Abahlali baseMjondolo Movement SA. I also wish to thank Abahlali baseMjondolo Movement SA, the movement that I am part of, for trusting me with the responsibility of representing it.

I also wish to extend our deepest gratitude to the anti-apartheid movement here in New Zealand who stood firm with the people of South Africa in the fight against apartheid. Many of our older comrades remember watching, on TV, the protests that you organised against the Springbok tour in 1981. There were thousands of you, many thousands of you. You were attacked by the police. Many of you were beaten and arrested. Your protests were a deep shock to the racists in South Africa. It made them realise that although Ronald Regan and Margaret Thatcher accepted their racism ordinary people in New Zealand did not. Your protests also gave courage to the people struggling against apartheid in South Africa. You were workers, priests, teachers, housewives and students. You were men and women. You were old and young. You were people in New Zealand who made people in South Africa know that they were not alone in this world. The comrades who were of that generation remember how your brave protests made their hearts sing with joy and hope back in 1981.

Heartbreak, eviction, broken promises

Melanie Gosling – September 7 2011 at 12:36pm – Cape Times

FOR around 50 years Ellen Leputing has been trying to secure a home in Cape Town, but has been evicted, burnt out, betrayed and beaten by the system. Her family are facing eviction again.

On the surface, it is a straightforward case of the authorities trying to remove people from a condemned building. On a deeper level, it lays bare the battle of the poor and the powerless to keep a roof over their heads, a battle which, for some families, carries on over decades and across generations.

Leputing, 62, is a state pensioner living in Sandile Park, Gugulethu. She used to live in the adjacent Masonwabe Park, two blocks of 40 flats in Gugulethu’s Dr Moerat Road. Two of her adult children and several grandchildren still live there, as do four of her sister’s children.

De Lille is arrogant, say backyarders

GROUPS representing backyard dwellers have lashed out at Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille, labelling her “arrogant and underestimating poor people”, after she allegedly changed the venue for a meeting at the eleventh hour.

Sep 8, 2011 | Unathi Obose | Sowetan

The meeting, scheduled for Khayelitsha’s OR Tambo Hall, was apparently moved to Cape Town’s Civic Centre.

“We feel the change of venue was an insult to us. People are desperate to talk to the mayor and explain their grievances,” said Abahlali BaseMjondolo’s Mzonke Poni.

“Last time we protested we barricaded roads and properties were damaged because the protest was hijacked by criminals. We want disadvantaged people to be the city’s equal and respected partners.”

Mitchell’s Plain Khoisan Customary Council member Colin Graham asked: “Why does De Lille only respect us only when it’s election time and completely ignores us after that?”

Pavement dwellers to present their book at two events / Only 17 hours left to bring our book tour to Europe and North America

To all supporters of the Symphony Way and Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign,

The Symphony Way Pavement Dwellers will be presenting their book at two events in Cape Town today and tomorrow:

• SA Cities Studies Conference – Along with other authors, we will be presenting our book, No Land! No House! No Vote! at 5pm tonight (7th Sep) at the Kimberley Hotel on Roeland Street in Central Cape Town. For more information, click here.
• Making a home in temporary spaces: film and photography by Sydelle Willow Smith – Symphony Way will be speaking and displaying their book at 6pm tomorrow (8th Sep) at Rococo on Buitenkant Streent in Central Cape Town. See facebook invite here.

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Last chance fundraising for Europe/North America book tour:

 

We only have 17 hours left to raise the money we need for a our book tour. If we get at least $4,000usd, then we’ll be able to bring 2 authors on tour.

Please contribute here now so that our voices can be heard outside South Africa.

Services plan for backyard dwellers

September 7 2011 at 12:59pm – BRONWYNNE JOOSTE and CLAYTON BARNES – Cape Argus

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THE CITY of Cape Town’s plan to provide basic services to backyard residents has been met with mixed reaction.

Mayor Patricia de Lille launched the Backyard Essential Services Improvement Programme yesterday.

The pilot stage will start in Factreton next month and entails installing toilets and running water in structures in backyards.

Electricity would also be provided, and backyard residents would get their own wheelie bins. Other areas in the pilot phase are Hanover Park and Langa.