Problems and challenges facing the new LPM Protea South structure

Press Statement: Landless People’s Movement – Protea South, November 2011
Land now! Organise and Unite! Background

The Landless People’s Movement (LPM) Charter of Demands was adopted by more than 3000 landless delegates from communities across South Africa, and their landless allies from around the world, at the Landless People’s Assembly held in Durban on 30th August 2001 at the United Nations World Conference Against Racism (WCAR). Further amendments were made following the meetings of Landless Rural Women in Kimberley in October 2001.

The LPM was introduced into Protea South by Maureen Mnisi in 2002. That same year Mnisi was elected Gauteng Provincial Chairperson, and chairperson of the Protea South branch of the LPM. Between 2002 and 2011 no further elections were
held to democratically determine the LPM leadership, and Mnisi held that position for almost ten years.

The murder of Andries Tatane

The murder of Andries Tatane is part of an epidemic of police violence and murder against community activists supported by the South African government.

Media: Shack dwellers’ phones could be cut by Rica

Cellphone giants need clients in rural areas to register before June deadline

Clive Rubin – TheNewAge

BY THE end of June, several million cellphone subscribers could be disconnected. That is the cutoff date by when cellphone companies will have to forfeit existing contract and pre-paid customers who are unable to provide both valid identity documents and proof of residence.

Solidarity: Standing with the Poor People’s Alliance at the 2010 US Social Forum

As the World Cup began in South Africa in June 2010, the social movements of the Poor People’s Alliance continue to face off against the governing elite’s escalation of harassment, repression, and displacement.  At the same time, activists gathered at the second United States Social Forum — to bring together U.S.-based movements fighting poverty, racism and oppression, within the States as well as globally.  Some of the poor people’s organizations that gathered in the embattled and resilient, majority-Black city of Detroit for the USSF had met with members of Abahlali baseMjondolo and the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign who visited the U.S. in 2009, finding common cause and inspiration in their creative struggles and visions for a better world.

On June 25 in Detroit, members of the Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign, Coalition of Immokalee Workers, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Picture the Homeless, Poverty Initiative, and other movement activists at the USSF gathered to play football — as a solidarity message to our allies in South Africa and their Poor People’s World Cup games happening at the same time.

We are with you!   Aluta continua!   Amandla Ngwethu!

For past examples of New York City-based solidarity statements and actions, see here and here.

Solidarity: LPM in Joburg continues to face repression

The Landless People’s Movement in Johannesburg continues to face repression. A number of its leaders are now in hiding. Police attack in eTwatwa, Ekurhuleni; one person is dead and another seriously injured.

Saturday, 29 May 2010
Landless People’s Movement Press Statement

On Sunday 23 May residents of the bond houses in Protea South, Soweto, attacked the Landless People’s Movement (LPM) in the shacks in Protea South. They went around disconnecting us from electricity and beating those who had been connected to electricity. They tried to burn down Maureen Mnisi’s shack and two people were shot. One died on the scene.

Media: Brazil’s World Cup Development Debacle

Written by Michael Fox  – Upsidedownworld.org
Thursday, 14 January 2010 12:30

The 2010 World Cup will kick off in South Africa this June, but Maureen Msisi, of the Landless People’s Movement wants to know “who this development [is] really going to benefit? Not … the people that most need it,” she says. Activists across the Atlantic in Brazil are saying the same thing, throwing into question a development model that has accompanied massive international events such as the World Cup and the Olympics for nearly two decades.

LPM: Celebrating Our Court Victory – Reflecting on our Struggle

Landless People’s Movement (LPM)

All are welcome to join us this Sunday 15 November at 10am in Soweto, Protea South, Peace Makers Ground. We will be celebrating and reflecting on the meaning of our court victory.

Background: In 2004 we, the LPM, began a relentless battle to defend ourselves from evictions in Protea South, an informal settlement in Soweto. We organised several marches and pickets over the past several years, and we submitted memorandums to the Premier and MEC of Housing but these officials refused to address our demands. We were ignored by our local council and, in some instances, the police resorted to repressive tactics, and even torture, to undermine our struggle.

In 2008, we embarked on a legal route to assist in our struggle. On the 4th August 2009, we finally won a victory as the Johannesburg High Court stipulated that the government will not move us out of our land in Protea South against our will. We were promised water, VIP toilets, and street lights, and electricity in our shacks. This victory gives us faith that if we push forward, we will prevail. We cannot be pushed around by a local government that we view as being bribed through their salaries, merely to implement decisions made at another level. The councilor feels it has more power to do anything that they want, but we prevailed in the end.

On the one hand, our court victory testifies to our capacity to resist the imposition of the top-down development plans of the government. On the other, we have not been released from the fundamental oppressive systems of power. Indeed, we continue to be brutalised and discriminated against by the police. The willing-buyer willing-seller approach to land distribution by definition marginalises poor people and this approach has not been overturned in favour of a socialist approach that enables all people to access and make use of the land. Our victory must therefore also be used as a platform to reflect on our past struggles and the strategies we employ to improve our lives and the lives of all poor people across South Africa.

For more information or to provide solidarity or support, please contact:

Maureen, LPM Chairperson 082 337 4514
Or Maas, LPM Secretary 079 267 3203

Landless People’s Movement Wins a Major Court Victory: Mnisi v City of Johannesburg

Press Statement

Landless People’s Movement, Protea South

Friday, 07 August 2009

Winning Our Land Back – the Landless People’s Movement Wins a Major Court Victory

On Tuesday 4th August the South Gauteng High Court handed down a major victory for the Landless People’s Movement in Protea South, Johannesburg.

We have struggled long and hard in Protea South. Over the years our marches have been banned and we have been arrested, beaten, shot at with rubber bullets, threatened and tortured.

The judgment is a victory against forced removal. We have long been resisting plans to dump us in Dornkop which is far away from Protea South which is where we live and near to where we work and school. The City of Johannesburg have been insisting that we must accept forced removal to a human dumping ground whether we like it or not. They said that the land in Protea South is for the people that have money. Wozani security was a threat to us when the councillor called meetings to try and impose the relocation on the people. The judgment forces the City of Johannesburg to upgrade our settlement where we are living or to provide land and housing to us very near to where we are living. It bans the City of Johannesburg from evicting us until the next court date.

Our Struggle for Liberation remains…

Poor Peoples’ Alliance to Re-enact June 1976 Soweto Uprising March

The Poor Peoples’ Alliance (PPA), made up of radical community-based organisations across South Africa, is to march from Morris Isaacs High School to the Hector Pieterson Memorial in Soweto on the 16th June 2009 to re-enact the 1976 march.

Media: Eleven held over building shacks

2009/05/18

Source: Dispatch

ELEVEN people were arrested for trespassing when they tried to build shacks on municipal land in Motherwell, Johannesburg.

Police said the five woman and six men were building “illegal houses” on Saturday afternoon when they are arrested. They were currently in police cells.

Landless People’s Movement national organiser Mangaliso Kubheka said incidents like these showed “people are still landless after the new dispensation. They would not go and occupy municipal land if they had land”. — Sapa