Unrelenting in Face of Harassment, Shack-Dwellers Movement Wins in Court

Resisting eviction in the face of threats from ANC leaders and violence by Security Management Unit, the residents of a transit camp in the town of Lamontville in South Africa, organized by Abahlali baseMjondolo (Shack-dwellers movement), won a victory against the eThekwini Municipality after Durham court ordered it on June 14 to reinstate the 40 families that were illegally evicted over the past few days. The court has also ordered the municipality to stop further evictions.

It was almost a decade ago, in 2010, when South Africa hosted the FIFA world cup, that the Municipality built this transit camp called ‘Barcelona 2’. Many poor people were evicted from the surrounding areas and forced to move into this camp in order to render them invisible for the tourists and delegates attending the world cup, the Shack-dwellers movement said in a press release.

While those evicted were initially told that they will not be required to stay there for any longer than three to six months, it has now been 7 years since the residents have been living in the cramped shacks, walled and roofed with tin sheets. Having endured these living conditions for years, the residents have, since last week, been resisting attempts by eThekwini Municipality to evict them from the precocious makeshift arrangement of 5 sheets of metal they called home – a resistance that culminated in a favourable court ruling.

It was last Friday, at around 10am on June 15, that the Security Management Unit arrived at the transit camp without a court order, and axed down the doors, “stacking mattresses, furniture, appliances, toys and clothes outside shacks,” New Frame reported. The eviction went on till past midnight, in the course of which over 40 families lost their dwellings and many people were injured, according to the Shack-dwellers movement.          

Pitching the poor against each other

The eviction, now ruled illegal by the court, was reportedly being carried out to accommodate those who were evicted from their informal settlement in a nearby area. One of the residents in the Ekuthuleni informal settlement – who had received a notice on June 14 informing her that she will be moved from the settlement to the transit camp in Lamontville while the government builds on that land a new housing facility for the poor – told reporters from New Frame that she was not aware that there were people already living in the transit camp.

Those evicted from the transit camp in Lamontville to make space for the evictees from Ekuthuleni “were told straight on their faces that they are amaMpondo and that they should return to the Eastern Cape. This is not the first time that people from the Eastern Cape have been openly discriminated against by high ranking politicians and officials in Durban,” the movement complained.

Warning that “ANC is creating a very dangerous situation in which impoverished people are forced to fight amongst one another”, the organization said, “When Xhosa speaking people are removed from the tins at gunpoint, and Zulu speaking people are then brought into the tins, there is a very high risk of serious conflict.”

“Our position as Abahlali”, the movement clarified, “is that we are all amaMpondo and we are all amaZulu. A neighbour is a neighbour and a comrade is a comrade. We will continue to build unity in the neighbourhoods, and in struggle, and we will continue to oppose the politicians that are trying to divide impoverished people.”

The police action came after ‘threats’ from Municipal leaders

The attack on the transit camp came three days after the Mayor and the Chief Whip made “threatening statements” against the movement at the Executive Committee meeting of the municipality. Accusing the movement’s founder S’bu Zikode of being “hellbent on making the city ungovernable”, the Chief Whip issued a statement saying, “We will deal with them”.

Calling this statement “authoritarian and threatening”, the Shack Dwellers movement movement – which has been subjected to physical attacks in the past after senior ANC leaders issued such threats and one of whose leaders was recently assassinated – expressed concern.

“In light of our past experiences, and the current climate of intimidation and violence in KwaZulu-Natal, which includes the ongoing murder of our leaders, we take these threats very seriously. We are sending out an urgent call for solidarity, and for urgent action to be taken against the senior leaders in eThekwini ANC who are a serious threat to democracy, and our safety,” the organization said in a statement.

Alleging that there is a ‘third force’ operating behind the movement, the Mayor reportedly announced in the municipality meeting that the city will not be working with this movement, and will instead engage with a South African branch of an international NGO, called “the South African Shack Dwellers’ International Alliance”.

Shack-dwellers movement responded by saying, “Since our movement was formed in 2005, without a cent of donor funding or any NGO involvement, the ANC in Durban, and sometimes elsewhere too, including the Province, have claimed that we are a front for the ‘Third Force’. Our movement has always been a democratic project with elected leaders subject to the right to recall. We hold open public assemblies and regular elections and make most important decisions on the basis of consensus achieved after numerous meetings.” Their statement further called upon on the international NGO to condemn this attack on the camp,

Pointing out that occupation of land to house the poor is not an attempt to disrupt the city’s governance, the movement reminded the ruling ANC that when the party was “first unbanned in 1990, it had a poster saying ‘Occupy the Cities!’”