Kennedy Road 12 taste freedom

NIREN TOLSI – Jul 29 2011 13:58 – Mail and Guardian

Outside the Durban magistrate’s court last week members of the “Kennedy Road 12” 12 members of Abahlali baseMjondolo, a shackdwellers movement based in Durban — stood blinking in the sunlight, almost un­able to believe their fate.

“I’m just too happy. I can’t believe I am outside again,” said 24-year-old Sibulelo Mambi, one of them.

An hour earlier, a nightmare that had begun almost two years ago for the 12 finally ended when magistrate Sharon Marks acquitted them of charges ranging from murder to public violence.

The Kennedy Road Development Committee, the Kennedy 12 and other Displacees Return to the Kennedy Road Settlement

Tuesday, 26 July 2011
Abahlali Press Statement

Our acquittal in court without freedom to return to resetting our feet in Kennedy Road would be pointless.

The ruins of Mondli Mbiko’s home in Kennedy Road

After two and half year the Kennedy Road Development Committee, members of the Kennedy 12 and their relatives, as well as some members of AbM, went to Kennedy Road on Sunday to check on their homes and sites that they were residing on when our movement was attacked. We were about a hundred people.

“Kennedy 12” Acquitted – Magistrate criticises “dishonest” and “unreliable” witnesses

Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa (SERI)
[Media Release, 18 July 2011]

Twelve members of Abahlali baseMjondolo – a shackdwellers movement based in Durban – brought to trial on spurious charges ranging from public violence to murder, were acquitted today in the Durban Regional Court.

The activists were prosecuted in the aftermath of the attacks on Abahlali’s members residing in the Kennedy Road Informal Settlement on 27 and 28 September 2009. Abahlali members were evicted from the settlement by an armed gang associated with the local branch of the African National Congress (ANC) while the police looked on.

Victory! AbM Press Conference, 11:00 a.m., 19 July 2011

18 July 2011
Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Statement
With Solidarity from the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign

The Victory in the Kennedy 12 Trial is a Victory for all the Poor in South Africa

The Kennedy 12 have been acquitted of all the charges bought against them after the attack on our movement in September 2009. It is a great day for the 12, their families, our movement and the struggle of the poor in South Africa.

We wish to begin by extending our deepest, heartfelt gratitude to all our comrades and our partners around the world who have supported the 12 and our movement since the attack. We must thank our Alliance partners, the Rural Network, LPM, and the AEC; our comrades in the UPM and the Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front; Bishop Rubin Philip of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, the Diakonia Council of churches, and all the other church leaders that stood with us; the German churches; the Church Land Programme; the Human Rights organization around the world, particularly Amnesty International, the Centre for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in New York; our comrades in the grassroots organisations in the US from Chicago to New York City and the Bay Area in California, our comrades in Moscow (Russia), Italy, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria and Belgium. We also want to thank all the academics and leading scholars who signed a powerful petition in our support and all those who academics who wrote articles in our defence while we and our supporters were under attack. Most importantly we want to thank our Legal Team from the Socio-Economic Rights Institute (SERI). There are so many of you, we cannot mention you all by name, but we thank you all. We are not alone in this struggle.

On the Aquittal of the “Kennedy 12″

STATEMENT BY BISHOP MICHAEL VORSTER
NATAL COASTAL DISTRICT – METHODIST CHURCH OF SOUTHERN AFRICA

In September 2009, a violent attack took place in the informal settlement known as Kennedy Road in Durban, wherein two people died. A group of young men from the shackdwellers’ movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo, were arrested, detained and eventually charged with several crimes, including murder. After many months and numerous delays two were released, leaving twelve who became known as the “Kennedy 12” and who were to face a long and protracted legal process which was fraught with suspicion and allegations of political interference.

Halala Abahlali baseMjondolo! A Victory for One is a Victory for All!

Monday, 18 July 2011

Press Statement by the Unemployed People’s Movement

In September 2009 Abahlali baseMjondolo was violently attacked by the local ANC in the Kennedy Road squatter camp in Durban. The attackers were armed and shouted ANC and ethnic slogans. To their eternal and permanent disgrace the provincial ANC heralded this attack as the ‘liberation’ of the area. For months after the attack the homes of Abahlali baseMjondolo leaders were openly and publicly destroyed with impunity by the local ANC.

The attackers have never been brought to book for the original attack or for the reign of terror that they instituted in the area after the attack. The police refused to investigate charges brought against the ANC members that openly destroyed more than forty homes of Abahlali baseMjondolo leaders in the months after the attack.

Victory for Abahlali baseMjondolo – Defeat of our detractors!

Note: The Anti-Eviction Campaign sends out the following statement in solidarity with Abahlali baseMjondolo

18 July 2011 – For urgent and immediate release
Press statement of Bishop Rubin Phillip on the acquittal of the ‘Kennedy 12’

Victory for Abahlali baseMjondolo – Defeat of our detractors!

We celebrate the victory that the shack-dwellers’ movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo, has won in court today where ALL of the ‘Kennedy 12’ have finally been acquitted of ALL charges against them.

For two years, since the violent attacks on Kennedy Road in 2009, we have stood side-by-side with the accused and with Abahlali while this politically-motivated and unjust process has dragged on. We are humbled by the perseverance of Abahlali, who have remained united, remained strong, and remained steadfast throughout. Theirs is the moral strength of those who know who they are, who know what they stand for, and who steadfastly know and speak the truth.

Solidarity: Urgent Call for Journalists to Rush to Kennedy Road as Tensions Rise Again

Update: 18:28 Officer Mqadi intimidated the (elected) KRDC and said that they are opposing the (unelected) ANC leadership in the settlement and that he will arrest them if the cleaning work is stopped pending a meeting with the Municipality. He made it quite clear that he is not neutral. He brought Zandile Mdletshe to address the mass meeting in the hall where she was vigorously opposed. At that meeting it was agreed that the KRDC would meet with the ANC and that both parties will report back to a mass meeting on Wednesday. Three state witnesses in the Kennedy 12 trial openly opposed the ANC leadership in today’s mass meeting in the hall. A number of state witnesses have already refused to testify against the accused and one has testified, as a court witness, that she was asked to give false evidence against the accused.

Abahlali baseMjondolo Emergency Press Statement
10 January 2011, 14:37

Urgent Call for Journalists to Rush to Kennedy Road as Tensions Rise Again

Solidarity: Kennedy 12 Trial: Five Nil to Abahlali baseMjondolo

Friday, 03 December 2010
Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Statement

Today the first five days of the trial of the Kennedy 12 came to an end. The trial will resume in May next year and then, if more time is needed, it will continue again in July.We wish to begin this statement by thanking all of those people and organisations that have stood by our movement in the difficult times that followed the attack and then this ongoing trial. Your solidarity is much appreciated. There is a saying that when days are dark friends are few. But in these dark times we still have many friends and the solidarity from all of you is deeply appreciated.

Frustrations over service delivery

By Lelethu Mquqo – Bush Radio
29 November 2010

A public protest action has been taking place since the early hours of this morning in Kosovo Main Street to Samora Machel to demand improved service delivery.

A crowd of residents from Ward 33 are protesting the City of Cape Town’s defaulting on cleaning solid waste from the area for three weeks now.

The residents of this area which is mostly dominated by informal settlements complain that the contractors appointed to clean up the rubbish from the area have been appointed on a nepotistic basis.