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.

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 with AbM: ANC Intimidates Witness X, More Intimidation and More Killing in Kennedy Road

23 December 2010
Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Statement

The attack on Abahlali baseMjondolo in the Kennedy Road settlement in September last year was followed by serious intimidation against the movement in the settlement. People were forced to denounce the movement, any support for the movement put people at serious risk and organising in the settlement had to go underground. Homes continued to be destroyed until July this year and people had to be able to show ANC cards to access food vouchers for senior citizens and social relief as well as the building materials that, after the struggle of our movement, are now made available to people after shack fires. Building material was even given to ANC members whose shacks hadn’t burnt. Death threats were made against numerous people including AbM leaders not living in Kennedy Road. These death threats were often issued in public, such as at the court appearances for the Kennedy 12 (who were at first the Kennedy 13).

AbM: The Third Force is Gathering its Strength

Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Statement
3 March 2010

The goal that our attackers wanted to achieve when they ambushed us on the night of 26 September 2009 has not been achieved. A surprise attack was launched against our movement, the spontaneous resistance to the attack was broken by the police, our office was destroyed, hundreds of our members and supporters were chased from Kennedy Road, thirteen of our comrades were jailed and illegally detained and we have been banned from openly organising in the settlement where our movement was founded. But our movement was never just in Kennedy Road. Before the attack there were fifteen settlements affiliated to our movement in Durban and more than 50 branches across Durban, Pinetown, Tongaat, Howick, Pietermaritzburg and Cape Town. The goal of the attack was to destroy our movement to punish us for our victory against the Slums Act, to deny us the victory that we had won to have the Kennedy Road settlement upgraded where it is and to neutralise us before 2010. But our movement still exists. In fact it continues to grow. Since the attack we have launched four new branches and we will launch another four new branches soon.

In Kennedy Road there is no political freedom now.

KRDC: Kennedy Road after the Attack on AbM

19 January 2010
Statement for the Kennedy Road Development Committee (K.R.D.C)

After the 26th September 2009 attack on Abahlali baseMjondolo in Kennedy Road by the shebeen owners and the ANC the life of the people has changed into misery. Everything is out of their control and some people are even abandoning the area due to a high level of crime activities making it unsafe. These activities are being started in the shebeens which are operating right through the night again.

Amnesty International statement on AbM attacks

South Africa: Failure to conduct impartial investigation into Kennedy Road violence is leading to further human rights abuses

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

PUBLIC DOCUMENT AI Index: AFR 53/011/2009

16 December 2009 – Download: HTML and PDF

Amnesty International deplores the continuing failure of the South African authorities to investigate impartially and fully human rights abuses which occurred during and after armed violence at the Kennedy Road Informal Settlement (Kennedy Road) in Durban last September. This despite repeated calls since October for an independent and impartial commission of inquiry into the surrounding circumstances and extent of the violence and its aftermath.

Experiences of Abahlali baseMjondolo and the Kennedy Road Settlement, Durban, South Africa

for Development Planning Unit of University College London by Malavika Vartak

Click here to read an annotated version of this report in word.

Introduction

South Africa’s apartheid past has had a deep and enduring impact on housing, more so in the case of poorer communities. Colonial and later the apartheid era laws including the infamous Group Areas Act of 1950 ensured that housing was strictly along racial lines and attempted to confine communities to race-based zones. Segregation laws and policies thus led to large-scale evictions in the urban areas pushing black African communities to poorly serviced townships on the peripheries of cities.

Still No Bail for the Kennedy Road 13 as the Attack on our Movement Continues

Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Statement
28 October 2009

The Kennedy Road 13 returned to the Durban Magistrate’s Court on Monday 26 October to hear the verdict on their application for bail. The Kennedy 13 were not given bail and remain in Westville Prison. The magistrate will take a final decision on their application for bail on Monday next week.

Party Politics Vs Living Politics in Kennedy Road

by S’bu Zikode

University of KwaZulu-Natal Forum Lecture

Thursday 22 October 2009

The Kennedy Road settlement, like all other Abahlali baseMjondolo settlements, has been embarking on a living politic.

This politic is a living politic because it talks about the realities of our democracy – a democracy that serves the interests of a minority while the majority our people continue to live and to die in inhuman conditions.

Intimidation and repression continues in Durban

Tuesday 20 October 2009 – AbM Press Release

This addendum to yesterday’s press release was received late last night via cellphone text message from Reverend Mavuso Mbhekeseni. Please contact the Reverend for further details on the threats to the clergy, the chairperson of the AbM Women’s League and others, at the court yesterday.

The ANC mob was swearing at us in court saying that we are corrupt church leaders who support criminals. They threatened to catch us and kill us in the city. They said that they would describe us to all their people by the clothes we were wearing. They also threatened the chairperson of the AbM women’s league although she was not present at the court. They threatened her by name, shouted and swore at her name, and said that she is a “a thief who wears pants bought with the money from Kennedy Road people.” The ANC mob was armed with sticks and other sharp objects. They were highly intimidating and it was clear that their threats were serious – they meant what they were saying.
– Reverend Mavuso Mbhekeseni: 072 279 2634

We also need to note that some of the ANC mob threatened AbM people with knobkerries, that they also claimed to have bush knives in the bus and threatened to kill people leaving the court and that threatening sexual gestures were made against elderly AbM women. One of the mob also openly said that their plan, when they attacked the AbM Youth Camp at Kennedy Road, had been to kill S’bu Zikode.