Photoreport: Delft evictions

24th December 2007
5pm

In a major victory for about 1000 backyard dwellers and the homeless residents of Delft, the Cape High Court granted an interim order at 5pm today (21/12/2007) interdicting anyone from evicting or threatening to evict those residents who occupied the newly built houses in Delft last week.

The ruling temporarily suspends the eviction order of 30th October 2006 that the police, for the past week, have been using to threaten, intimidate and evict the residents.

The residents will appear in court again on the 3rd of January 2008 to hear the judge’s final ruling.

The state, including Lindiwe Sisulu, Minister of Housing (who yesterday instructed the police to “clear out” the residents); Thubelisha Homes; and any associated company or individual are now totally forbidden from threatening or trying to evict the residents.

In addition, the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign is delighted that the same judge denied Thubelisha Homes application for a new eviction order.

Although this is a short term victory, it is a very positive ruling in the sense that:

1. It clearly prevents the DA and ANC from choosing to act unlawfully by simply unleashing huge amounts of police and private security on poor and vulnerable communities to evict them, whereas they know very well that they are supposed to seek a High Court eviction order.

2. It shows that organised communities are clearly against the ludicrous ANC/DA forced removal plan (which goes by the name of N2 Gateway project) and that they are not going to stop resisting it, and hence the ANC/DA must shelve this plan and consult with communities towards a real solution that provides houses for all (and not some cosmetic solution that sees a couple of expensive showhouses built along the highway while everyone else gets dumped in the sand in the back of Delft, out of sight).

3. It shows that communities are not going to be deterred from using the High Court by the high cost of overpriced advocates - in this case four anti-eviction campaign working class activists worked through the nights for the whole weekend collecting over 800 affidavits to bring an interim interdict against the state, and presenting the case to the Judge.

The police may now face a damages claim since they were informed by the Anti-Eviction Campaign this afternoon that they must hold off on evicting people, since the matter was being heard in the High Court. The police, however, refused and in fact broke the law by breaking into the houses and removing peoples’ furniture, which was damaged.

For comment please call Ashraf Cassiem, Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign paralegal on 076 1861408 or Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign activists Mzonke Poni on 073 2562036 or Mncedisi Twala on 078 5808646 or Pamela Beukes on 079 3709614