AVCC Alexandra Vekunezele Crisis Comitee

Monday 15 November 2004 by Vicky

AVCC is a community organisation that was formed in February 1999 in response to problems our community was facing. We are fighting against poor living conditions, evictions and electricity cut-offs amongst other things. Our central struggle has been the fight for ownership of an area of abandoned flats that were first occupied in March 1999.

The flats had been vandalised and were missing windows but we tried to fix them by ourselves. We had troubles from the start from a company called Wozani Security (the ’red ants’); the security company tried to kick us out but we put up a fight.

In 2001 we joined the Anti-Privatisation Form (APF) and together we continued to fight against Wozani security over the right to occupy the flats. During this time we found out that Wozani security was not part of the government but actually a private company. We then claimed the flats as ours and kicked Wozani security out.

After this, a group called Segmag approached us and ordered us to vacate the flats. We decided to go to the Housing Department to find out who Sagmag is. We were told that it is also a private company.

Since we had no legal claim to the building we were not able to have access to electricity. When we tried to reconnect the electricity by ourselves, City Power had it cut off and ten people from our community were arrested.

Our community members have been since released. But the struggle continues.

Victoria Bambiso
30-