Sanral U-turn as Lwandle rebuilds shacks
LINDILE Fetumane is confused. Last week, his shack in Lwandle township outside Cape Town was demolished. This week, officials are bickering over how best to put it together again.
A week ago, Fetumane was a land invader dodging insults and police rubber bullets. This week, people could not stop apologising and promising him somewhere to stay.
He is one of hundreds of homeless people living in a community hall close to where they were evicted from a government road reserve last week.
The residents were moved after a court interdict was obtained by the South African National Roads Agency in February preventing new people occupying agency land.
“It is not good here,” said Fetumane of his temporary accommodation. “Here all of us have flu.”
The Lwandle evictions provoked widespread outrage partly because they took place shortly before a big winter storm. It also pitted the ANC against the DA, with both determined to prove their propoor credentials.
After several days of political mud-slinging, the City of Cape Town and the Department of Human Settlements agreed to a plan on Thursday. A joint statement said the 850 people evicted from Sanral land would be allowed to move back until alternative accommodation had been arranged.
The plan followed a meeting between Human Settlements Minister Lindiwe Sisulu, Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille and several city planning officials.
Sisulu insisted that the city accommodate the group on alternative land, but city officials said there was none. An at-
This shows everybody is equal before the law
tempt to move the group to a Sanral property in nearby Blackheath was opposed by local residents.
That property also had no residential zoning.
“The only land that could work for a temporary solution was the land they had been evicted from,” said Sisulu’s spokesman, Ndivhuwo Mabaya.
Community leaders claim that the decision represents an important victory in the battle for human rights because the homeless are being treated with dignity, rather than as a social problem to be cleared away.
“This is very good news — it is a victory,” said Andile Lili of the Ses’Khona People’s Rights Movement. “This shows in practice that everybody is equal before the law.”
Siyabulela Mamkeli, the City of Cape Town’s mayoral committee member for human settlements, said all affected residents would be accommodated in a nearby housing development scheduled for completion in November next year. This would not affect other registered applications on the housing waiting list, he said.
However, some commentators warned that the move could encourage other landless groups to stage land invasions to jump to the top of the housing list. Others queried whether this would be possible, because the housing lists were in a shambles.
A community activist claimed the public outcry over the incident at least showed that South Africa still had a human rights culture.
“This is the only country in the world where you can be evicted off land that you have occupied illegally and then when you are allowed back you say: ‘I have been wronged,’ ” said Mabaya.