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DURBAN: Lusaka shack dwellers freed after 3 days in jail
by anna
Monday, Nov. 14, 2005 at 4:25 AM
19 comrades freed from prison, but with their shacks destroyed and banned from returning to their land, they had nowhere to go...
photos: http://southafrica.indymedia.org/news/2005/11/9133.php
(Photos show the community after their shacks had been destroyed, having moved to the land outside their councillor's office and having erected temporary shelters).
Charges of trespassing against 19 members of the Lusaka informal settlement in Durban were withdrawn in the magistrates court an hour ago.
The comrades were arrested on Friday and spent three days and nights in prison.
The latest disaster to befall the community took place on Sunday 6th November when the ANC municipality destroyed their shacks. They then moved to the lawns in front of their Councillor Bachus's office where they erected the temporary shelters seen in the photos, having nowhere else to go.
Bachus then had them all arrested on Friday 11 November.
It emerged in court this morning that Bachus's lease for the office had expired last October. The owner of the property told the prosecutor that he was shocked that 19 community members, seven of whom were pensioners, had been jailed for their protest and withdrew the charges.
The comrades lost most of their belongings in their 2 successive evictions. Today, several comrades were seen with their remaining goods tied in large bundles on their backs.
After the judge dismissed the case, the comrades had no idea what to do. They have been banned from returning to their land and the land outside the councillor's former office. They asked the prosecutor "where shall we go?" Nobody had an answer for them. So they slowly began making their way to the Kennedy Road community hall, where it seems they will unite with this community under the banner of the Abahlali Base Jondolo movement.
It is hoped that they will arrive there safely as the nearby Foreman Road area came under siege today from police who shot people with rubber bullets, stun grenades and suffocation gas. At least one person was reported to be hit in the head with a rubber bullet. Activists from outside along with community members were trapped inside the area with police cordoning everything off.
southafrica.indymedia.org/news/2005/11/9133.php
a small victory
by richard
Monday, Nov. 14, 2005 at 1:18 PM
the lusaka residents, illegally made homeless by the eThekwini municipality, are now being accommodated in the hall at the kennedy road settlement.
richard
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