The City of Cape Town has announced it intends to sell off 65 municipal properties prompting a backlash from the hosts of a recent symposium on the Urban Land Question.
Daneel Knoetze
News | 22 August 2014
There is a glimmer of hope for Andries Joostenberg and his family who, earlier this month, were evicted from the farm where they have lived for 50 years. As they near the prospect of becoming homeless again, a Stellenbosch attorney, Johan van der Merwe, has agreed to appeal the eviction order which put the family out on the street.
Daneel Knoetze
News | 21 August 2014
On Searle Street, six semi-detached Victorian cottages house a handful of families not forcibly removed from District 6 during apartheid. Now, as the cottages go on sale, the tenants face imminent eviction.
Daneel Knoetze
News | 20 August 2014
It’s an hour before snack time at the Sophumelela Day Care centre in Site C, Khayelitsha, and one of the toddlers has indicated to his teacher that he needs to use the toilet.
Barbara Maregele
News | 19 August 2014
When eight-year-old Jessica Jordaan returned home from De Villiers Primary yesterday afternoon, a pile of bricks lay in place of the house where she had lived all her life.
Daneel Knoetze
News | 19 August 2014
Nosiphiwo Lali built her shack in Rolihlahla Park in Philippi East three weeks ago. She is one of hundreds of people who have moved out of backyards into the Philippi area recently, in spite of the eviction of families in neighbouring Marikana settlement.
Johnnie Isaac
News | 18 August 2014
For two years Khayelitsha resident Nokwakha Eslina Kalpens has had to help her 11-year-old mentally disabled granddaughter find her way to toilets 50 metres from their home.
Barbara Maregele
News | 15 August 2014
When the Anti-Land Invasion Unity (ALIU) descended on 40-year-old Sophie Nqiba's shack they destroyed only half of it. Presumably, if the City of Cape Town's own criteria for the demolitions are used, it was the half which was “uncompleted” or “vacant”. For Nqiba, her partner and their five children it is a surreal and meaningless explanation.
Daneel Knoetze
Opinion | 15 August 2014
The City of Cape Town has invoked a series of court interdicts and orders to defend its role in the evictions of shackdwellers in Philippi East. The land occupation has grown since last week. City Law Enforcement resumed the demolition and removal of shacks on a plot off Symphony Way today, resulting in violent clashes.
Daneel Knoetze
News | 13 August 2014
The City of Cape Town's version of the evictions in Philippi East on 11 August has been contradicted by police and the SA Board of Sheriffs. The Board denies that any of its officials were involved in dozens of shack demolitions off Symphony Way in Philippi. The evictions were carried out by the City's Law Enforcement, police say.
Daneel Knoetze
News | 12 August 2014
Whether legal or illegal, evicting people from their makeshift homes is an ugly, violent and brutal business. GroundUp photographer and journalist, Masixole Feni and Daneel Knoetze, were at the Marikana settlement, Philippi East, Cape Town, on a calm morning on 11 August 2014, and then the eviction teams arrived. By midday there was chaos, stones were thrown and the police were firing back with rubber bullets.
Daneel Knoetze and Masixole Feni
News | 12 August 2014
Whether legal or illegal, evicting people from their makeshift homes is an ugly, violent and brutal business. GroundUp photographer and journalist, Masixole Feni and Daneel Knoetze, were at the Marikana settlement, Philippi East, Cape Town, on a calm morning on 11 August 2014, and then the eviction teams arrived. By midday there was chaos, stones were thrown and the police were firing back with rubber bullets.
Daneel Knoetze and Masixole Feni
News | 12 August 2014
In yet another crackdown on shackdwellers in Philippi East’s “Marikana” settlement, dozens of shacks were demolished by the City of Cape Town's Anti-Land Invasion Unit on 11 August. Police providing back-up and support, humiliated, assaulted and jeered at residents as they were evicted.
Daneel Knoetze
News | 11 August 2014
Lwandle inquiry chair Denzil Potgieter on 8 August slammed the police for withholding video footage and key documents relating to evictions at the informal settlement in June. He accused the police of giving the inquiry secretariat the “run around” during its numerous attempts to access the footage.
Daneel Knoetze
News | 8 August 2014
Tracts of private suburban land will have to be expropriated by the state at below market value if spatial apartheid in South African cities is to be reversed. The property clause in the Constitution can be interpreted in a revolutionary manner to allow for this. Expropriated land, subsidised by existing government property, should be used to provide housing for shackdwellers from the city fringe, so that informal settlements can be less dense and upgraded. These were the concluding opinions in a roundtable discussion on the Urban Land Question in the Cape Town CBD on 7 August.
Daneel Knoetze
News | 8 August 2014
The SA National Roads Agency, already under investigation after the brutal eviction of Lwandle residents from SANRAL land in June, is facing furious residents from six Eastern Cape villages who are adamant they were misled about the new Wild Coast toll road, writes Mzamo Dlamini.
Mzamo Dlamini
Analysis | 8 August 2014