*Attack on Abahlali by the City continues*
The armed forces working for the eThekweni Municipality continue to relate
to impoverished black people in the city like an army of occupation,
especially when poor people are organised outside of the ruling party.
Today at 11 am the notoriously violent Anti-Land Invasion Unit demolished
Mr Ndumiso Mnguni’s house in our Foreman Road branch. This was a brazenly
illegal and criminal act.
When Mr. Mnguni went into the house to remove his possessions he was
attacked and shot at by the Anti-Land Invasion Unit security. As we release
this statement Mr Mnguni is in theatre in a critical condition. The doctors
are trying to remove the bullet in his stomach. We are praying that the
mighty God saves his life.
The very surprising part is that the only house that was demolished in
Foreman Road is that of Mr. Mnguni which is in the middle of the settlement.
It’s almost a year since two weeks old baby Jayden Khoza from Foreman Road
was killed after he inhaled a teargas when police attacked the community.
Recently our comrades in the Good Hope settlement in Germiston, in Gauteng,
were also subject to a police attack in which teargas was recklessly thrown
into a community resulting in a baby having serious breathing difficulties.
Our lives count for nothing to this government.
We continue to be oppressed and violently attacked when we stand up for our
lives and dignity. The police, and the security that work with the
Anti-Land Invasions Unit continue to tell brazen lies about their violence
against us. A young man is fighting for his life in hospital as a result of
the everyday violence of a government that has no regard for the poor. We,
the poor, continue to die at the hands of a government that calls itself
democratic. They speak of the expropriation of land without compensation
yet they shoot and kill poor people with impunity when we occupy land and
insist on our human dignity. How hypocritical of the ANC!
We are praying for Mr Mnguni. We are with his family at this time. No
matter how many times we have lost comrades in our movement we can never
get used to it. A life is important no matter how poor that person is.
Every human life must count as a life.
We are about to hold an open assembly in the community to take a collective
decision on the way forward.
