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.

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.

Landless People’s Movement (LPM) to have Liberation March on 16 June 2009 to Commemorate 1976 Soweto Uprisings

The LPM is organising a march from Maurice Issacs High School to the Hector Peterson Museum in Soweto on the 16^th June 2009 to repoliticise the meaning of the 1976 Soweto Uprisings. This march is a response to the ANC’s hijacking of the 16^th June as they have turned it into a bourgeois event. We as the LPM believe we should not celebrate this day, as our government does, but commemorate it by reflecting on the struggle for the liberation of the youth that is still being fought for by poor communities 15 years into our so-called democracy.. We would like to invite all the civic organisations and social movements, regardless of their political affiliation, to be part of this march.

We are asking comrades to attend our meeting on the 18^th of May 2009 at the Jubilee offices on the 4^th floor of the Vogus House, 123 Pritchard Street (cnr. Mooi), Johannesburg. We request that all organisations email or phone us by the 14^th May to confirm their attendance at our meeting. Please bring ideas and an open mind and also forward this message to others who may be interested so that we can make this march have a strong impact. Because we continue to be denied our most basic human rights, we refuse to let our government forget that our struggle for liberation is not over.

Our parents will also be doing a night vigil on the 15^th June in the hope that the march on the 16^th will help set us on the path towards a renewed liberation for the youth in South Africa.

For more information contact:

Bongani Xezwi – youth Coordinator LPM Protea South Branch – 071 043 2221

Maureen Msisi – LPM Gauteng Chairperson – 082 337 4514

Or by email: bongani.xezwi@gmail.com

Four Day Rolling Picket by the LPM at the Johannesburg High Court

Press Statement from the Protea South Branch of the Landless People’s Movement

Sunday, 12 April 2009

As the Protea South branch of the Landless People’s Movement we have been resisting forced removal totransit camps and to the human dumping ground of Doornkop, demanding basic services and organising a bottom up democratic poor people’s politics against top down oppression by councillors and the police that beat people on their orders.

The middle class residents, in their privatised bond houses, want to deny us the right to live here in Protea South. The councillor is, as they always are, on the side of the middle class. The councillor, together with the police, wants to deny us the right to organise here. Our marches have been banned and we have been assaulted. It has become clear that democracy will not be given to us by politicians and the police – democracy is something that we will have to build in our struggle against the politicians and the police.

Youth in Protea South to March without JMPD Permission

Friday 27 March 2009

Press release on behalf of Protea South Landless People’s Movement

Demand that Councilor Step Down!

• On 18 March youth organisers from the Protea South Landless People’s Movement (LPM) submitted written notification of their intent to march – to the Metro Centre to deliver a memorandum demanding that the local councilor step down –  to the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department (JMPD).
• On 26 March they were notified by JMPD that permission was not granted for them to march as their notification was allegedly only received that day, and that LPM Protea South marches are allegedly too violent.
• Youth in Protea South feel that they cannot wait any longer to express their greivances, and have resolved to march to Metro Centre without official permission.
• They are currently gathering at Peace-Makers Grounds, Protea South, from where they will proceed – at 10h00 today, Friday 27 March – to Metro Centre to deliver their memorandum.
• All media are requested to come to witness and cover their march, and to discourage the police from resorting to excessive use of force and unwarranted repression of their constitutional right to freedom of expression and protest.

For more information contact:

Bongani, the LPM Youth Coordinator in Protea South, at: 071 043 2221

Landless People’s Movement (LPM) Sees Through Local Government Divide and Rule Strategy

LPM PRESS STATEMENT

4 MARCH 2009

The councillor in Protea South, an informal settlement in Soweto, has repeatedly stated that she is accountable to the ANC government and not to the community of Protea South. This has undermined the ability of the community to work closely with our councillor to meet our basic demands. It should be made clear that, whenever the community has a mass meeting, it is under the banner of the LPM who represents the majority of the people in Protea South. The community of Protea South has been living there for 20 years with no changes in living conditions.

The previous 2 councillors, who were elected to represent the people of Protea South in the new democratic South Africa, delivered nothing. Now that the current local councillor has also failed to bring any development whatsoever in the past 4 years, the LPM is demanding that the councillor step down and be replaced by a community representative that accounts to the people of Protea South instead of any political party.

Youth in Protea South Demand that Councillor Step Down

Landless Peoples Movement Press Release

The Landless People’s Movement (LPM) in Protea South is thankful for all the support that organisations and individuals have provided over the past week especially as we seek to revive the LPM across Gauteng and hopefully reunite it with the landless people in South Africa and around the world.  Your solidarity has given us strength and encouragement and we are as determined as ever to push forward the struggle of the poor in our battle against injustice.  No amount of threats by the government, the police or by individuals will stop us from fighting for our rights.

Currently, the youth in Protea South are organising a march on the 27th March to force our local councilor to step down.  Our councillor must be held accountable to the poor people in Protea South, not to those in power.  The pamphlet for the march is attached.  All are welcome, especially the press and anyone interested in our struggle, as we hope to publicise our demands.  As the LPM is currently in the process of reviving itself, it lacks the resources it needs to sustain its activities, particularly sound (loud hailers), transport, and material for banners (please contact the persons below if you can assist in any way).

We are confident that justice will be served:
“We Shall Overcome”

For more information contact:

Bongani, the Youth Coordinator in Protea South, at: 071 043 2221

Maureen at:  082 337 4514
or, Luke at: 079 144 4323

Solidarity: Leader of Landless People’s Movement (LPM) Fears for her Life and Children

12 March 2009

Maureen Mnisi, with comrades Kajola, Lekhtho & Maas – in Maureen’s home in the Protea South settlement, November 2008
Leader of Landless People’s Movement (LPM) Fears for her Life and Children: Calls for Solidarity and Advice from all Comrades

As a single mother of five and a prominent activist who has come under threat by the police, government and now even the middle-class in her own community, Maureen Msisi asks for solidarity and advice to give her more courage to push forward the struggle of the poor.  This is not the first time that Maureen’s life and family has been in danger because of her campaigns for the interests of poor people.  In 1995, Maureen formed the branch of the ANC in Protea South hoping it would bring about a change that would better our lives. But members of the local civic at the time felt that she was challenging their power and they responded violently by attacking her.  She was shot in the back and stabbed 3 times with a machete, breaking her leg and scarring her neck and hand.  Almost 15 years into our new democracy, she continues struggling for the same changes in the lives of her people in Protea South, but now under the banner of the LPM.  Today, she fears that if she continues on with the struggle, her life and her children’s futures will be in danger.

8 Landless People’s Movement Comrades Under Arrest in Johannesburg

Landless People’s Movement Press Release

Monday 2 March, 2009

On Sunday morning, Maureen Mnisi and others from Landless People’s Movement (LPM) gave a petition from the Protea South community to their ward councillor, regarding various issues on which the voters would like to have a report-back. While the community members were signing the attendance register at the community hall, Maureen returned to her home. After 1pm, the councillor phoned her, claiming that the community was busy burning down the transit camp. Maureen went straight there. When she arrived, there were lots of police at the transit camp (nothing was burning), and people from the community were gathered on the other side of the road. Maureen asked people to go home. As she and others walked back, a hippo car started to shoot rubber bullets. Before she could reach her home, the police stopped their car and said they wanted to speak to her at the police station. She said she had nothing to tell them, as she was not involved in any dispute. They simply said she’s arrested and took her and others to the police station.

The arrested people are Maureen Mnisi, Maas van Wyk, Ivy Senona, Elsie Mkhuma, Shiella Mosenodi, Gasa Radebe, Micheal Dlamini, Chester Maluleke. The charge, as always, is public violence. They are still in custody. They have not yet appeared in court.

In South Africa the police always arrest movement activists on this charge – mostly after they have just been attacked and beaten by the police. Hundreds of our comrades have been arrested on this charge over the years but we don’t know of a single case were a person who has been arrested on a public violence charge has been brought to trial. They just use this charge as an excuse to arrest us, sometimes to assault and torture us while we are kept in their stations, to make us waste all the movements’ money on bail, to then keep delaying the case all the time forcing us to pay lawyers and to miss work and come to court until the judges throw the cases out because the police bring no evidence to court.

Elections are always a dangerous time for poor people’s movements in South Africa. Our marches are banned, we are beaten, arrested, sometimes tortured and sometimes even murdered.

Anti-Eviction Campaign Activists have already been beaten and arrested for taking a ‘No land! No House! No Vote! position for the coming election.  (See: http://www.abahlali.org/node/4780)

LPM activists were tortured during the 2004 national government elections when the took a ‘No Land! No Vote’ position.  (See the Amnesty International 2005 report on South Africa at http://www.amnestyusa.org/annualreport.php?id=ar&yr=2005&c=ZAF)

Abahlali baseMjondolo activists had their marches banned and were beaten and arrested inthe 2006 local government elections for taking a ‘No Land! No House! No Vote! position.
(See http://www.abahlali.org/mode/820)

In the same local government elections some people in E-Section, Umlazi, decided to run an independent candidate. Three people were murdered. (See http://www.abahlali.org/node/89)

The newspapers and the NGOs usually say that we must celebrated our ‘peaceful’ and ‘free and fair’ elections. They might have been peaceful and free and fair for them. If we refuse to vote or try to vote for an independent candidate we face assault, arrest and sometimes even torture and murder at the hands of the police. There is no democracy for the poor in this country.

LPM activist Thomas Maemganyi escaped arrest and can be contacted on: 072 613 2738