"I can't look after them while they are busy making children," developer Ricky Govender says of the South African squatters who are desperately trying to find a solution that will not render them homeless after decades of living on a ragged scrap of land called Motala Heights in Pinetown, just outside Durban.
"Ever since we became more aware of our rights and started fighting for them we have been living with this sense of threat from the landlord," responds resident Shamita Naidoo, who lives on a property adjacent to Govender. "He has sent me a letter saying I am prohibited from entering his land -- where my mother lives, in the house my parents built and where I was born. I will be arrested otherwise."
The city is cooperating with Govender and is attempting to force the squatters off their land with a vague promise of a new home 15 kilometers out of town.
The Mail & Guardian has the awful details.
The squatters have scheduled a march for civil & housing rights for Friday, 28 September 2007. "We are treated as if we do not belong in this country," the squatter organizing group Abahlali baseMjondolo said in press release. "We are treated as if the law is not for us, as if the land is not for us, as if the city is not for us, as if the electricity is not for us, as if the schools are not for us. This is not democracy. This is not justice. The City gives us no choice but to march."
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What happened with for the people. I know ricky Govender, he might not have his hand directely into things that happen. Most defintely
he can be considered a murderer, asonist and a violent bullyand ganster. The city council, So you so comfortable in your warm homes, that we forget homeless and desolute. Come on , open your damn eyes, you might be getting paid quietly now, but wait till you mysteriously die or commit suicide for no reason.God never forgets.
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