Media: World Cup bosses kick out homeless

Charities have condemned plans to hide thousands of South African beggars, tramps and street children while the World Cup is on.

Source: Metro.co.uk

About 300 have already been moved from Cape Town, where England face Algeria on June 18.

They have been taken to nearby Blikkiesdorp camp on Cape Flats, where 1,450 families are packed into an area designed for 450 people.

Preparation for World Cup disenfranchises South Africa’s poor

South African informal traders, such as this fruit seller in Johannesburg, are facing eviction in the lead up to the World Cup. (Photo credit: Creative Commons)

By Allyn Gaestel – Media Global

3 March 2010 [MediaGlobal]: South Africa is eagerly preparing to host the World Cup in June 2010, but the government’s preparatory development projects are negatively impacting the country’s poorest citizens.

Letter from Mfusi Zonke on retrenched security guards in Cape Town

Revolutionaries do not retrench…

As the unemployed to be, we would like to thank the premier and her cohorts for refusing us to work in our country. We thank her for refusing us to be responsible fathers and mothers, who are dignified because they put bread on the table in their families. We thank her for ripping us off the dignity of becoming parents to our respective families. We thank Helen Zille and her crew to deprive us the right to feed, educate and support our families. All what we are saying is simple: we refuse to be hooligans in the streets of Cape Town. This emanated from the fact that if government debars us from working, she is adding criminals to the society and we regard her as enemy to us.

Cape town Freedom Song

By Luke Zandstra (12 Years old)
Mowbray Cape Town

—

I was walking down the road,

When I saw a big  truck’

It was tearing down the houses and covering me with muck

I turned around a corner and saw them cutting down the trees

And then I saw some animals whose eyes were full of tears

—

Chorus

They are tearing down the houses and cutting down the trees

Please look around I’m begging on my knees

—

Cape town was our city but it is no more

The wealthy ones have taken it and are sending out the poor

So give us back our city and the dignity of all

—

Chorus

They are tearing down the houses and cutting down the trees

Please look around I’m begging on my knees

—

Cape town should be all of ours

And greed should be seized

Please look around I’m begging on my knee

Newfields Village children at risk after housing company leaves area strewn with hazardous rubble

Press Alert

Wednesday August 13th 2008 at 3:30pm

HANOVER PARK – The Newfields Village community is angry that their children have been placed at risk by the Cape Town Community Housing Company (CTCHC).

The CTCHC is currently working in the area, having been forced to spend millions of rands on repairing all the faults it created by using substandard material to build the houses of Newfields Village some years ago.

However, the CTCHC is not removing the rubble after they finish working. Window frames and broken glass is strewn all over the community and this is extremely hazardous.

When the Anti-Eviction Campaign (AEC) asked CTCHC Project Manager Mdumiso Jikela to remove the rubble in a meeting this morning, he said that if children cut their feet open, it is not his problem.

“The CTCHC is again taking us, the community, as scrap” said the AEC’s Gary Hartzenberg.

The community is also at risk from the cheap window latches that the CTCHC is installing.

The latches are made of plastic, not metal and in three houses, thieves have already broken in simply by breaking off the latches.

The CTCHC has not learnt its lesson – it used substandard material to build houses for the poor and was then forced, after a long struggle by the community, to repair all the houses. But now it is doing the same thing all over again.

The AEC demands proper window frames and latches in all the houses.

For more information contact Gary Hartzenberg on 072 3925859

Hundreds take to city streets against attacks

Note: for an explanation of the link between the eviction issues of South Africa’s poor and the evictions of our African brothers and sisters from their communities, please see this press statement.

Other news articles on the march:

1. Refugee march turns tense
2. Tensions rising in S. Africa’s immigrant camps
3. SA and foreign nationals march against xenophobia
4. Somali traders in S.Africa march against attacks
   

Candice Bailey – IOL

June 02 2008 at 03:46PM

Hundreds of immigrants and refugees marched through the city centre this morning en route to Parliament to condemn the recent xenophobic attacks and to ask government for urgent intervention.

AEC to march in support of refugees and to highlight the role of government in the attacks

Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign Press Alert

June 1, 2008

Cape Town – The Anti-Eviction Campaign will be attending the Anti-Afrophobia (anti-Xenophobia) march on parliament tomorrow to support fellow Africans in their struggle. The march will begin at Keizergracht Street by Cape Tech at 10am and will be led by a coalition of refugee and immigrant organisations.

The AEC will be highlighting the commonality between its members which have been evicted and/or threatened with evictions, and the plight of the thousands of refugees who have also been “evicted” by violence from their homes and communities.

In particular, the AEC would like to point out the following:

1. That the attacks did not arise out of nowhere. Instead, hatred of foreigners has been approved of and often encouraged by the South African government and in particular the police. Raids on immigrant communities have been commonplace and police have dealt with these vulnerable groups an inhumane manner – especially the many incidents of torture and deaths at the Lindela Detention Centre. These acts by government have fostered and legitimised anti-immigrant feeling across the country.
2. That the government’s abysmal response has done little to stop the violence and has infringed on the rights of undocumented Africans. In particular, the police have encouraged and even sometimes taken part in the looting. Moreover, the “temporary” refugee camps are in disgusting conditions which has earned sharp reprimands from both the refugees and the United Nations.
3. That the anger of the poor is substantial and legitimate. But rather than being directed at other helpless Africans, it should be directed at the perpetrators of their poverty – the oppressive government and the wealthy elite.
4. That the only long-term solution to afrophobia (xenophobia) and other forms of violence is to end the oppression of all poor people living in South Africa. If the poor had houses, if the poor had jobs, if the poor had decent health-care, reasonably priced food staples, and meaningful redistribution of land, they would not be blaming and fighting their neighbors for the little scraps they do have. It has been well documented that most of the actual violence in Cape Town had very little to do with hatred for foreign Africans and everything to do with it being an excuse to snatch a bag of mealies. When people are hungry, they’ll do almost anything to feed their family.

And so, we invite everyone to come join in on tomorrow’s march to parliament. We, as the poor of South Africa, will march along with thousands of Somalians, Nigerians, and Zimbabweans because we believe that the perpetrators of Afrophobia are the same people who are evicting us from our houses.

For comment, please call Mncedisi at 078-580-8646 and Gary at 072-392-5859

Click here for COHRE’s scathing critique of the South African government’s role in the recent attacks

No home sweet home for Soetwater Somalis

by Kate Stegeman

Business Day – 29/5/2008

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DISPLACED Somalis have been at the forefront of the mounting tension, political mudslinging and sour relations dogging the Soetwater disaster management area in Cape Town.

Now there are calls to close down the camps.

Afrophobia spreads

Violence Spreads to Settlements in Durban & Cape Town

In Durban people have been chased out of their homes in Chatsworth and Cato Manor. There have been no incidents in any Abahlali settlements and the movement is working 24 hours a day across the City to oppose this. In Cape Town, there have been reports of incidents in Site C (Khayelitsha), Woodstock, Gugulethu, Dunoon (Milnerton). Click here to read about for the causes of these events. For news articles, see below:

Press Alert: Pavement Dwellers to tackle Mayor Zille

Delft-Symphony Anti-Eviction Campaign Press Statement

May 12, 2008

Tomorrow (the 13th of May, 2008), all 300 families of the Delft-Symphony Anti-Eviction Campaign will be going tomorrow to the Cape Town Civic Centre. The pavement dwellers will be coming to Town with the purpose of personally delivering handwritten letters indicating our wishes to Mayor Helen Zille.

We are upset because our opinions and needs are being ignored by the city. The letters will, amongst other things, demand a change in the way the city treats its poor. We demand to be treated as citizens of this country and to be respected as equal human beings by city officials.

We invite the press to join us at the Civic Centre tomorrow morning to find out the details of our grievances and support us in holding the city accountable to the South African Constitution.

For comment, please call Auntie Jane at 078-403-1302 and Jerome at 083-541-6622.