Behind the Hout Bay violence in Cape Town

Anti-eviction forces, accompanied by the City of Cape Town metro police and South African Police Service (SAPS) members invaded the community of Hangberg in Hout Bay on Tuesday, 21 September 2010 to demolish poor people’s homes. The community held a post-mortem meeting on Thursday, 23 September 2010 to discuss what had taken place.

Different organisation, political parties, trade union members, religious groups and various associations came to bandage the wounds of this society. They all expressed dismay at the brutality shown by police, which was reminiscent of the apartheid era. Many people shared their painful stories that day, and vowed to recover the dignity the City of Cape Town had robbed them of - and to take the future of their own lives in their hands.

An Anglican priest in the community narrated how at some stage (during the events of 21 September) they had demanded access to a police Nyala (an armour-plated vehicle used for riot control) and had been refused on the basis that the hydraulics were not working properly. The priest had information that the police had a 14-year-old girl inside the vehicle, which was categorically denied by the officers in the vehicle. Eventually the vehicle was opened, and true as the rising sun, there was the girl scared as a trapped bird.

There were other testimonies of the police abusing the elderly in their homes and taking them to jail on pretentious charges of public violence. People vowed not to allow the government officials to divide them but pledged to stand together as a community united.

The Congress of the People (COPE) have advised the community to launch a complaint with the South African Human Rights Commission about what happened, and hope that this time, if the independent body chooses to find against the Democratic Alliance-led municipality it will not be subjected to another attack on its credibility and independence, but rather that the municipality will heed its criticism and abide by its rule. We will also recommend that the shameful waste of municipal public expenditure on metro police manpower, with seemingly one priority in mind - to protect a luxury development in the area known as Panorama - be subjected to scrutiny, preferably by the public protector. The three-building complex had a veritable army of metro police and armoured vehicles around it the whole of the next day.

What the well-planned and coordinated incident of Tuesday has managed to do was to first divide the community of Hout Bay, and then initiate a muted race war. For instance, when the violence subsided Hangberg community residents saw white ‘valley’ folks bring tea, coffee and pastries for the police whilst they sat in their vehicles. This disgusted the brutalised community, who felt invaded and humiliated by the police.

Secondly, the invasion stripped the community of Hangberg of their right to shelter, threatened their health and further interrupted their right to schooling. These rights are all guaranteed in our Constitution, yet were freely violated by the city officials. Hence, the community are now calling for the national minister of cooperative governance and traditional affairs, Sicelo Shiceka, to institute a judicial inquiry and subpoena whoever was involved in planning, coordinating and executing the invasion to the Hangberg on Tuesday. It was obvious that this was a meticulously planned operation and nothing happened by chance that day. The South African people deserve to know the true motivates of that invasion and not be fobbed off by the false excuses of the Western Cape Premier Helen Zille regarding firebreaks and alleged interference with mountain rainwater run-off.

As I read the media reports on what happened in Hangberg I was surprised at how none of the real incidences that happened that day were reported. It is not that the journalists were not there. I know they were, and some were even brave enough to stand on the side of the community that was being fired at by the police. But very few to none of these incidences came out from the media reports. Why not? What was the editing policy of the newspapers that covered the story?

It is well known in Cape Town that the DA and the newspapers enjoy an extremely unobjective, mutually beneficial relationship. If this ‘friendship’ lies at the heart of the unquestioned statements of the premier, that the Hangberg is a community held to ransom by a few drug-pushing ‘rastas’, who are now extending their kingdoms to the 70 odd shacks under attack, then those media outlets must seriously question their morality and how damaged their psyche towards the marginalised actually is. I don’t care to politicise this issue, but am trying to question the professionalism of the media, who like to pass themselves off as protectors of freedom and the Constitution. What happened that day? Perhaps it is time the media take a hard look at itself too and the method of their operations. Perhaps it should instigate its own inquiry into the reporting of that incident.

In any event, the premier’s claims and name calling in relation to the homeless members of the Hangberg community were exposed by the decision of the community to stand united to protect and demand their constitutional rights. This is hardly the reaction of a community freed from the tyranny of the drug lords. Obviously the premier is actively embarking on divide and rule apartheid tactics. Sadly, the media does not appear to be as sophisticated as the community in breaking down this propaganda.

How easy the premier forgets: only a few decades ago we marched with her to KTC (an informal settlement) to stop police demolishing informal houses; now she is the one treating people like dirt.

On Tuesday Hangberg looked like a warzone: bricks, rocks and bullet casings littered the roads and smouldering tyres and branches blocked the roads. Has the premier forgotten that treating poor people like this is a crime against humanity? How paradoxical that she of all people is at forefront of delegitimising the realisation of the constitutional rights of the poor when she is always talking about protecting the Constitution.

The premier says she is justified in halting the upgrading of the area and provision of housing to the people of Hangberg as they did not keep their promise of not growing their footprint towards the Sentinel mountain (situated behind the Hangberg area). But this argument is conceptually fallacious. How can you justify withholding the provision of housing because the homeless have been forced to fend for themselves? Where and when has any housing development been done in the area? The last, if I remember well, was in 1992. What upgrades have been done here in the last few years? Only those undertaken by the residents themselves, who have placed wendy houses in all the available spots amongst the existing development, which has led to the use of the mountainside in the last year or so. What infrastructural developments have been ploughed into the area? Even the schools are falling apart, never mind the unmaintained council housing stock.

On the other hand it has been alleged that the football field, the only one in the area, that the children make full use of, has recently been sold to a private developer. Can the premier or mayor of Cape Town confirm or deny this?

There is more municipal land ready for development and for building decent houses for people in Hout Bay. Why has it not been utilised? Or perhaps I forget, most of it was sold to rich private developers and the trend continues, but there is none to build houses and schools for the poor. Also what of the unused factory land at the entrance to the harbour area? Why is this being sold to private developers and not the municipality?

The municipality has in the past three years or so been looking for land to build a second high school for the swollen population of Hout Bay. Despite objections from the community, the DA led government want to site this school within the black area known as Imizamo Yethu. The people of Imizamo Yethu have strenuously attempted to prevent that, asking that the school be sited in the main Hout Bay area so that it will be accessed by all the children in the area (knowing from the experience of the high school in the harbour area that is under-maintained and marginalised). Imagine the shock the community felt when they heard that the municipality leases the perfect spot for a high school in a central location to a privately run Christian school.

It is okay for rich mansions to climb any mountain they wish in the City of Cape Town, but once poor people dare to do the same they are labelled ‘criminals’ and ‘drug lords’ and accused of holding law-abiding community members to ransom.

Hout Bay is the perfect area to be an excellent pilot project for the integration of classes. Everyone knows that the most successful communities are those where people co-exist. The city could easily build apartment complexes in the area that would also accommodate low-income families. This model has been highly successful in other countries like the Republic of Ireland. The tendency of pushing poor people around all the time and loading them out to peripheral and impoverished areas where mechanisms to uplift them are unavailable is unfair. Everyone has the right to be positioned where they want, especially if it is closer to their livelihoods, like the fishermen at Hout Bay.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

For a selection of news stories on events in Hout Bay, visit the following links:
- Police battle shack dwellers
http://bit.ly/houtbay
- Three people lose eyes
http://bit.ly/houtbay2
- Eviction order threats follow Hout Bay clashes
http://bit.ly/houtbay3
- Clashes could have been avoided, says SAHRC
http://bit.ly/houtbay4
- Cosatu plans anti-Zille protest
http://bit.ly/houtbay5

*Mphuthumi Ntabeni is a COPE researcher and writes here in his personal capacity as a resident of Hout Bay.
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at Pambazuka News.