Marlboro Evictions
Friday 14 September 2007
The community of Marlboro in Alexandra (Johannesburg) took to the streets on Saturday 21st April in protest over illegal evictions and poor service delivery. This is after more than 50 residents of Number 9 - one of the disused warehouses/factories in which community members have been living for years - were evicted on the previous Tuesday (17th April) after the private owner of the warehouse obtained a court order. The evicted families are presently ‘staying’ in the offices of the Marlboro Crisis Committee, as no government official or politician has even bothered to come to try and assist or even listen to their problems.
This eviction was however, illegal, and thus the court order invalid. The Marlboro community were granted a High Court interdict all the way back in 2005, preventing any evictions in Marlboro until such time as the government built long-awaited houses or alternatively, provided residents with alternative accommodation in the general vicinity/area. If this had been carried out, then the private owners of the disused warehouses/factories would have been able to resume ‘ownership’.
Not surprisingly though, since the High Court order in 2005, the government has not built any houses for the community and has done nothing to find alternative accommodation. Meanwhile, the private owners of the warehouses/factories have become impatient with what they consider to be the ‘illegal squatting’ of residents and thus are now acting on their own. However - and despite the false claim in the media that some of the residents were paying rent to the owners and at a certain point the owners stopped collecting rent - the community of Marlboro are, in fact, legal occupiers who have always been willing to pay rent but who are treated by government and the private owners with disdain and contempt and portrayed as ‘illegal squatters’ and ‘hooligans’.
In light of this situation, the Marlboro community has been mobilised to defend their homes against any further evictions. Residents have found out that there are three (3) more pending court orders for evictions during the month of April. If it was not before, it has now become crystal clear to the residents that their entire community is under threat - thus the need for pro-active mobilisation to fight the evictions both physically and politically, with a united community. The Marlboro community has lost all hope in the ANC politicians and government housing officials who have done nothing for them in the past two years but who always come to ‘talk & listen’ to the community whenever elections are around the corner.
Nonetheless, and in the spirit of continuing to try and open a serious dialogue with government, an elected committee of Marlboro residents met earlier today with regional housing officials, as well as officials from the Alexandra Renewal Project in Wynberg (next to Marlboro). In this meeting, it was made clear to the Marlboro representatives that government still has no plan to effectively deal with their plight. The officials simply recited the same mantra that has been coming from government for the last several years - namely, the problems around the ‘housing backlog’ and the lack of available land in and around Alexandra to accommodate them. They indicated that the only thing “that can be done” is for land to be identified so that the City of Johannesburg can then build houses for the Marlboro community - but as in the past, failed to provide any specifics on how far this process, if at all, has practically proceeded.
In such a context, and with more illegal evictions by private owners pending, the Marlboro community has no alternative but to mobilize and defend themselves in the only ‘space’ left to them - on the streets. As leaders of the Marlboro community have publicly stated, any ensuing conflict will be the direct result, once again, of the repeated failure of government to listen to the poor and marginalized - the very people whom it claims to represent and champion - and to prioritize housing and basic service delivery for those most in need. When national and provincial government and the City of Johannesburg can find the ‘political will’, along with billions of Rands, to ‘deliver’ an elitist high-speed rail project (Gautrain) and fund infrastructural projects for the 2010 Soccer World Cup, but can only offer feeble excuses (over the better part of a decade) when it comes to the plight of the poorest of the poor, then we should all know that something is very rotten in our society. A LUTA CONTINUA!
The residents will be meeting on Sunday 29th April @ Marlboro Sports Ground @ 10h00 (2nd & 3rd Avenue) to chart a way forward for their struggles.
For further information please contact: Silumko on 072 173-7268/ 011 339-4121 or Charles on 078 514-4053
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