Some South African squatters now face being penalized for refusing to "cooperate with government" if they protest their impending eviction, Martin Legassick writes in this article from The Cape Argus that has been posted to the Abahlali baseMjondolo website.
The squatters blocked the N2 freeway to protest the fact that they were being evicted to make way for N2 Gateway, a pet project of SA Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu. They also offered their own plan that would provide new housing without any forced evictions.
"Sisulu does not like the term 'forced removal,'" Legassick writes. "But what substantive difference is there in her present search for means of 'compulsion', from the apartheid government of the 1970s wanting to forcibly evict Crossroads residents out of Cape Town altogether?"
Good question.
Seems to me it's Sisulu and the government that is failing to cooperate with the squatters.
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2 comments:
Hello Robert, I am a moroccan girl who lives in Spain. I'm doing a study of squatters in New York. I want to know where can I find information about this,thank you and good luck!
sara:
I'm in China now and it's hard to get around the Great Firewall. I can read my blog but sometimes not respond to it.
Are you interested in modern-day squatters in New York or squatters in history?
For contemporary squatters, there have been a bunch of articles about the now-legalized squatters in the East Village. Here's my article that broke the story of the squatters' legalization:
http://www.citylimits.org/content/articles/viewarticle.cfm?article_id=2799
You can find others in The New York Times and other local papers.
Also, there have been squatters in the Bronx and there are a few little-known squatters in other places in Manhattan. I don't have any info on these with me in China.
But perhaps, once I'm back in New York, I can give you further assistance.
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