From Daily Maverick:
Marikana on Edge: Occupiers ready to defend in housing showdown
A showdown looms in Marikana as government today might begin evicting those who have occupied new houses on land donated by Lonmin. Occupiers insist they have a right to the housing, while government wants them to respect a recent court decision finding they don’t have a right to these houses.
By GREG NICOLSON.
The North West Department of Local
Government and Human Settlements is still considering whether to evict
those who have occupied about 290 new houses in Marikana’s Extension 2
after a High Court order said the community must vacate the properties
by Monday.
On Sunday, department spokesman Ben Bole said the
government had not made a decision on whether it would evict the
occupiers and was considering the implications of an appeal lodged in
the Mafikeng High Court. Bole called on residents to move out
immediately, regardless of their appeal.
The North West government has insisted those who occupied
properties in the housing development have done so illegally and a court
order against the occupants agreed. Rallying behind their right to
stay, community members have lodged an appeal and say they’re ready to
fight any attempts to evict them. Housing is in short supply in Marikana
and since the 2012 Marikana massacre tensions between the community,
mineworkers, government, Lonmin and police have remained on high alert.
.
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Activist and community organiser Napoleon Webster on
Sunday was meeting with occupiers of the housing units. They have lodged
a court appeal, he said, to be heard on 21 October, which should halt
any attempt to evict residents this week. “But you know these people.
These people are thugs,” said Webster. “We’re physically, emotionally
and spiritually ready to fight.”
Many of those who have occupied the homes work at Lonmin,
where the memory of the Marikana massacre is prevalent, and in part the
battle over housing appears to reflect the ongoing struggle for
mineworkers to access decent housing.
As an Amnesty International report on Lonmin workers’
access to housing explained, the government’s Breaking New Ground
housing development, built on 50ha of land donated by the company, is
aimed at people below a certain income threshold, so Lonmin employees do
not qualify.
Webster, however, said the issue was not about whether
mineworkers or other community residents qualified for the housing, but
who was on the list of beneficiaries set to get houses.
“Of course, they were ANC people,” he said.
The ANC government in Rustenburg had rewarded its members,
some not even from the community, and wanted to give them houses, he
alleged. Allowing occupiers to stay could lead to a pilot project across
the country combating systems of ANC patronage, he continued.
The Economic Freedom Fighters Limpopo Chairwoman Betty
Diale agreed. She said government did not follow the right procedures in
putting its list of beneficiaries together and wants to evict occupiers
despite their right to housing. The party has offered support for the
occupiers in their court attempts to live in the houses. Diale said she
hopes the state will come to its senses and “not evict people like
they’re not South Africans”.
Bole, from the province’s Department of Local Government
and Human Settlements, said the process of allotting residents to houses
was above board. “We don’t just build houses and go and look for
beneficiaries,” he said, claiming beneficiaries came from a list
prepared by the Rustenburg municipality, which was checked by the
provincial government. Bole said there was extensive community
engagement on who would benefit from the development and they proceeded
after holding public meetings where the names of beneficiaries were read
out and approved.
The department is still deliberating on whether it can
evict the occupiers and North West Premier Supra Mahumapelo has in the
past been adamant that approved beneficiaries must be allowed to occupy
the houses.
“It cannot be correct that we allow lawlessness,” said Bole on Sunday.
One of the challenges appears to be the division between
Marikana’s migrant mineworker community and long-term residents. Given
the intense distrust of police, government and the ANC, any attempt to
evict mineworkers or those from their community, especially if they
believe legal processes have not been followed, risks leading to
violence.
Webster maintained that occupiers cannot be evicted until
their appeal is heard, but, suggesting the government and ANC is capable
of anything, he remarked that President Jacob Zuma, despite his
scandals, and Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, despite his links to the
Marikana massacre, keep their positions. He said those occupying the
houses had all recently contributed R400 to pay for legal fees.
In their past court papers, occupiers said there was not
an extensive engagement process on the state’s attempt to evict them,
but the court said they were quiet on the government’s listed attempts
at engagement.
Considering Lonmin’s past failures to meet housing
obligations for workers, one of the key issues in this case is the
impression created, or at least perceived from the side of mineworkers,
that the 50ha donated to government would be used to improve issues for
workers. Some of the workers who were injured or are related to the
killed workers in the 2012 Massacre are reported to be occupying the new
houses.
The issue of housing is critical both to the broader
community and Lonmin workers. The report of the Marikana Commission of
Inquiry found Lonmin and government’s failure to address workers’
housing issues “created an environment conducive to the creation of
tension and labour unrest”. The recent Amnesty International report on
mineworkers’ accommodation at Lonmin, looking at how and why the company
fell far short of its Mining Charter obligations, said workers’ living
conditions were mostly defined by the squalid informal settlements.
Amnesty wrote:
“The housing at Nkaneng, built
from tin sheets and scrap materials, abysmally falls short of even the
most basic requirements for adequacy of housing. Although Lonmin knows
this, it has failed to take any meaningful action to address the
situation. Its litany of excuses expose a company that has little
genuine interest in tackling a major problem confronting its workforce, a
problem that is inextricably linked to the way Lonmin, and South
Africa’s mining industry in general, operates.
“The serious failures
documented in this report could not happen if the government of South
Africa enforced the legal provisions it has put in place to address
historical discrimination and disadvantage in the mining industry.
However, the government has allowed Lonmin to flout the law, seemingly
without consequence.”
Bole on Sunday said the government understands the demand for housing in general and in the area.
“We understand fully that the need is very high,” he said.
He claimed government was doing the best it could with the resources available. DM
Photo: A cross stands on the 'koppie' or hill at where
34 miners where shot by South African Police Forces on 16 August 2012,
during a protracted wage negotiation strike in the platinum mining area,
near Rustenburg, South Africa, 16 August 2015. EPA/SHIRAAZ MOHAMED
- Greg Nicolson
- South Africa
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