[Reader-list] Solidarity with Abahlali base Mjondolo and the Kennedy Road settlement under attack

[Pavilion]

Dear all

Apologies for the mass mail but as sometime hosts and publishers of  
writing by members of the South African shack dwellers' movement,  
Abahlali base Mjondolo, PAVILION - journal for politics and culture -  
toghether with MUTE magazine would like to publicly express its  
solidarity with the group and residents of Durban's Kennedy Road shack  
settlement as they undergo violent state-backed attacks and mass  
displacement.

Abahlali have been an inspiration to workers and (other) activists far  
beyond their local and national borders and we urge our readers to  
spread the word about recent events in Kennedy Road. Please do what  
you can to help, whether by donations, protests, signing the petition  
(link below) or whatever else you think may be effective in raising  
awareness about and opposition to the situation.

For more information visit the Abahlali website [http:// 
www.abahlali.org]

*Here is a brief report based on an email from a member of Abahlali:*

On Saturday 26 September, Abahlali baseMjondolo, the shack dwellers  
movement, was attacked in the Kennedy Road settlement, Durban, by an  
armed mob chanting ethnic slogans and backed, fully, by the ANC.

Kennedy Road, as Mute readers may know, is one of the poorest shack  
settlements in Durban. Local police appear to be entirely complicit in  
these attacks, as do local members of the African National Congress.

Many residents of the settlement were beaten and two were killed. As  
the community defended itself spontaneously two of the attackers were  
also killed - with their own weapons. The police refused to intervene  
and then arrested eight of the local Abahlali leaders in the  
settlement on murder charges. Most of those who were arrested were in  
fact away from Kennedy Road at a dance performance in another part of  
the city at the time. The others, including S'bu Zikode, one of the  
shack dwellers movement’s elected leaders, had their homes destroyed  
and had to flee the settlement. ANC politicians and the police were  
present while the houses were destroyed.

The settlement is now controlled by an armed pro-ANC group who have  
the full backing of the police and the party. Abahlali are banned from  
the settlement, which they were elected to lead, on the pain of death.  
At least a thousand people have fled and many are sleeping rough.

This will all be terribly familiar to those who know something about  
the struggles of popular movements in places like Brazil, Mexico or  
Nigeria. For South Africans this is very familiar from the 1980s when  
the apartheid state employed these tactics. But no one expected to see  
this in South Africa after apartheid. It came out of the blue.

Kennedy Road’s residents and their supporters are shocked and don't  
have the resources to deal with the situation – they are struggling  
with basic things like accommodation and food for the displaced. They  
are also struggling with the organised propaganda from the state. The  
media has been told that the settlement has been 'liberated from  
criminals'. The ANC are openly celebrating the 'liberation' of Kennedy  
Road and are threatening to arrest S'bu Zikode too. They are calling  
the movement 'criminals' and, at the same time, saying that the human  
rights entrenched in the post-apartheid order are giving criminals a  
free ride and that police need to be given permission to shoot to  
kill. The ANC’s ‘criminals’ are your ‘terrorists’ - people who are  
defined as being outside of the protection given to those that count.

*Please have a look at the Abahlali website – http://www.abahlali.org  
– and share the information there widely.*

There is a particularly strong statement from Bishop Phillip - who  
struggled with Steven Biko and who has, in the face of this attack,  
decided to cross the river into open opposition to the state once more.

*You can sign up to a petition addressed to President Joseph Zuma  
reminding him and those involved in the violence that the world is  
watching, here:*

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/9/an-open-letter-to-jacob-zuma

*Info on Abahlali on the Mute website:*

Richard Pithouse of Abahlali’s 2006 article ‘Thinking Resistance in  
the Shanty Town':  http://www.metamute.org/en/Thinking-Resistance-in-the-Shanty-Town

An archive and short history of Abahlali is hosted in Mute's Public  
Library: http://www.metamute.org/en/A-Short-History-of-Abahlali-baseMjondolo

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