December 08, 2010 Edition 2
JASON WARNER and |NATASHA PRINCE Staff Reporters – Cape Argus
HUNDREDS of Khayelitsha residents have been left homeless after a fire ripped through the township, destroying nearly 100 shacks over the course of several hours.
Despite widespread damage, no injuries or deaths were reported.
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Friday, 16 July 2010
Serving our Life Sentence in the Shacks
People all over South Africa have been asking the leaders of Abahlali baseMjondolo as to why the government continues to ignore the demands of the shack dwellers. They have been asking why after all the marches, statements, reports and meetings the Kennedy Road settlement continues to get burnt down through the endless shack fires. They have been referring in particular to the recent Kennedy Road shack fire on Sunday, 4 July 2010 that took four lives, leaving more than three thousand people displaced and homeless.
Without much more words to explain this continuous tragedy we have replied that in fact the shack dwellers of South Africa are serving a life sentence. Everybody knows that we are the people who do not count in this society. But the truth that must be faced up to is that we have been sentenced to permanent exclusion from this society.
To: The Mayor – Dan Plato
From: Blikkiesdorp Anti- Eviction Campaign (Western Cape)
Subject: Installation of Electricity
It has become common knowledge that the government and politicians ignore the poor. Members of the Blikkiesdorp community have been trying to set up a meeting with Mayor Dan Plato for several weeks now regarding the installation of electricity in the area. Read the rest of this entry »
October 16, 2009 Edition 1 – Cape Times
ANEL LEWIS and MARY-ANNE GONTSANA
WITH hopes of finding an alternative to Blikkiesdorp dashed, members of the Symphony Way Anti-Eviction Campaign will today meet with the City of Cape Town about the terms of the relocation of people living illegally on the pavement in Delft.
But the community has indicated that a relocation as soon as Monday will not be possible until several conditions are in place. Read the rest of this entry »
Note: Solidarity with residents of Site C, Khayelitsha who, when first attacked by oppression and then by the police, defend themselves with burning tires and stones.
April 29 2009 at 12:29PM
By Nomangesi Mbiza and Natasha Prince
Source: IOL
Lansdowne Road in Khayelitsha was turned into a war zone for the second consecutive night as residents vented their fury over service delivery problems, forcing police to close the road in the face of stonings and burning of tyres and rubbish.
The protesting residents in Site C charged that they had seen no change in the area in 15 years, with conditions now deteriorating further.
“We have no toilets, no water and no electricity, and we are being forced to connect electricity illegally,” said resident Justice Tshaka. Read the rest of this entry »
Cape Town – The scene at Joe Slovo informal settlement was one of devastation on Monday after the south-easter turned a small fire there into a raging inferno that razed 400 shacks and left about 1 600 people homeless.
The fire started at about 2.00am on the corner of the N2 and Vanguard Drive. Read the rest of this entry »
Thursday, 19 February 2009
Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Release
Yesterday at around 10am ten cars of Sydenham SAPS and Securicor Security Guards came with their guns to the Arnett Drive settlement to disconnect electricity from 200 households. The private police came into Gertrude Cele’s house and said “Can you please turn on your radio.” She turned it on. Then, they said “The electricity is working so now we are arresting you”. She said “You can’t arrest me because I am just a visitor here, and I don’t know anything.” They said, “We found you in this house, so we are going to arrest you.” This is how the police and private security make it a criminal offence to be a poor person in South Africa.
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This article is published in the current issue of Left Turn magazine in the United States of America.
By Toussaint Losier
Amabhulu anyama
Asenzeli iworry
[The black capitalists]
[Are making us worry]
– Chorus of a contemporary protest song, sung in Xhosa
In the predawn hours of Saturday, September 13th, 2008, a devastating fire tore through the thousands of wood and zinc shacks that make up the Foreman Road informal settlement in Durban. Sparked by an unattended candle, the fire spread quickly and raged for hours.
With only one water tap serving nearly 8,000 tightly packed residents, there was little people could do but warn their neighbors and move to safety to watch their houses burn. It would take several hours to put out the fire. Among the smoldering debris, residents would later find the body of Thembelani Khweshube, 30, who had been asleep when his shack caught fire.
“I wish that somebody could save us from this misery,” lamented Funeka Nokhayingana to a local reporter from the Durban Mercury amidst the charred zinc and the damp ash. “I have lost everything in the fire – my identity document, my children’s birth certificates, uniforms and school books. It hurts me to raise my children in such conditions, but I don’t have a choice because I have nowhere else to go.” Read the rest of this entry »
Tuesday, 02 December 2008
On Tuesday last week (25/11) Thokozani Mkhotli, from the Arnett Drive settlement in Reservoir Hills, was shot by a Securicor Guard with live ammunition. The bullet entered his left buttock and emerged lower down in the front of his left thigh. The trajectory of the bullet shows clearly that he was shot from behind and from above. Thokozani is 33. He is from Bizana and works as a builder’s labourer fixing ceilings.
Securicor Guards usually come to the settlements with the Municipality when they come to disconnect us from electricity. Read the rest of this entry »
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