In 2009, the Anti-Land Invasion Unit was created by the City of Cape Town in an effort to stop people from illegally attempting to occupy land.[1] In 2011 the City stated that the unit demolished about 300 shacks each month.[2] The Anti-Land Invasions Unit is the biggest unit in the City's law enforcement operation.[3]
When the unit was founded its director, stated that:
Most importantly, the City will follow the letter of the law in obtaining interdicts and eviction orders. The law is very clear on this and we will continue to abide strictly to the Prevention of Illegal Evictions from and Unlawful Occupation of Land Act, as well as the provisions of the Constitution
—Hayward, Director of the Anti-Land Invasion Unit, [1]
However, according to Sheldon Magardie of Lawyers for Human Rights the unit "is acting unlawfully". According to Magardie:
The city is acting unlawfully, because if someone occupies property, whether it is (an) illegal (occupation), or not, one still has to get a court order or legal authority such as a by-law to do so. And if there is such a by-law which allows them to demolish property without notice or fair procedure, that by-law is unconstitutional.
In May 2013 an article in The Daily Maverick claimed that the unit had acting illegally by evicting people from the Marikana Land Occupation without a court order and that City officials were justifying this in terms of a non-exist law and by lying about shacks that the unit had demolished being unoccupied.[5] Constitutional law expert Pierre de Vos later wrote that these evictions were "Brutal, inhumane, and totally unlawful"[6]
Public criticism
Allegations of both violence and theft have been made against the unit by grassroots activists[7][8] and in the media.[9] It May 2013 it was reported that the unit demolished a pre-school in Langa under questionable circumstances.[10][11] The People's Assembly has called for the unit to be disbanded.[12]
The South African Police Service (SAPS) is the national police force of the Republic of South Africa. Its 1,154 police stations in South Africa are divided according to the provincial borders, and a Provincial Commissioner is appointed in each province. The nine Provincial Commissioners report directly to the National Commissioner. The head office is in the Wachthuis Building in Pretoria.
Langa is a township in Cape Town, South Africa. Its name in Xhosa means "sun". The township was initially built in phases before being formally opened in 1927. It was developed as a result of South Africa's 1923 Urban Areas Act, which was designed to force Africans to move from their homes into segregated locations. Similar to Nyanga, Langa is one of the many areas in South Africa that were designated for Black Africans before the apartheid era. It is the oldest of such suburbs in Cape Town and was the location of much resistance to apartheid.
Abahlali baseMjondolo is a shack dwellers' movement in South Africa which organised land occupations, builds collectives, and campaigns against evictions and xenophobia and for public housing. The movement grew out of a road blockade organised from the Kennedy Road shack settlement in the city of Durban. As of June 2021 it claims to have "more than 100 000 members in 86 branches across five provinces".
Law enforcement in South Africa is primarily the responsibility of the South African Police Service (SAPS), South Africa's national police force. SAPS is responsible for investigating crime and security throughout the country. The "national police force is crucial for the safety of South Africa's citizens" and was established in accordance with the provisions of Section 205 of the Constitution of South Africa.
The Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign was a non-racial popular movement made up of poor and oppressed communities in Cape Town, South Africa. It was formed in November 2000 with the aim of fighting evictions, water cut-offs and poor health services, obtaining free electricity, securing decent housing, and opposing police brutality.
UnFreedom Day is an unofficial annual event that is marked every year on or around 27 April. UnFreedom Day is planned to coincide with the official South African holiday called Freedom Day, an annual celebration of South Africa's first non-racial democratic elections of 1994.
The N2 Gateway Housing Pilot Project is a large housebuilding project under construction in Cape Town, South Africa. It has been labelled by the national government's former Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu as "the biggest housing project ever undertaken by any Government." Even though it is a joint endeavour by the National Department of Housing, the provincial government of the Western Cape and the City of Cape Town, a private company, Thubelisha, has been outsourced to find contractors, manage, and implement the entire project. Thubelisha estimates that some 25,000 units will be constructed, about 70% of which will be allocated to shack-dwellers, and 30% to backyard dwellers on the municipal housing waiting lists. Delft, 40 km outside of Cape Town, is the main site of the Project.
The squatter's movement Abahlali baseMjondolo occupied a piece of vacant state owned land in Macassar Village, near Somerset West outside of Cape Town on 18 May 2009. The occupation was later destroyed by the city's anti-land invasion unit.
Pierre Francois de Vos is a South African constitutional law scholar.
South Africa has been dubbed "the protest capital of the world", with one of the highest rates of public protests in the world.
The KwaZulu-Natal Elimination and Prevention of Re-emergence of Slums Act, 2007 was a provincial law dealing with land tenure and evictions in the province of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa.
QQ Section also known as Tambo Park, was founded in 1989 and is an Informal Settlement in the Site B sub-division of Khayelitsha in South Africa.
No Land! No House! No Vote! Voices from Symphony Way is an anthology published in 2011 of 45 factual tales written and edited by the Symphony Way Pavement Dwellers.
The Constitution of South Africa protects all basic political freedoms. However, there have been many incidents of political repression, dating back to at least 2002, as well as threats of future repression in violation of this constitution leading some analysts, civil society organisations and popular movements to conclude that there is a new climate of political repression or a decline in political tolerance.
Residents of Joe Slovo Community, Western Cape v Thubelisha Homes and Others is an important case in South African property law, heard by the Constitutional Court on August 21, 2008, with judgment handed down on June 10.
The Prevention of Illegal Eviction from and Unlawful Occupation of Land Act (PIE) is an act of the Parliament of South Africa which came into effect on 5 June, 1998, and which sets out to prevent arbitrary evictions.
In March 2013 around a thousand people occupied a piece of land in Cato Crest, Durban and named it Marikana after the Marikana miners' strike. Mayor James Nxumalo blamed the occupation on migrants from the Eastern Cape. He was strongly criticised for this by the shack dwellers' movement Abahlali baseMjondolo who said that "The City Hall is red with blood".
On 27 April 2013, the national public holiday of Freedom Day in South Africa which some grassroots social movements have termed UnFreedom Day, members of Abahlali baseMjondolo occupied a piece of land in Philippi, Cape Town. They named the occupation Marikana after the Marikana miners' strike. The occupation was repeatedly destroyed by the city's anti-land invasion unit. According to the Daily Maverick the occupiers were evicted on six separate occasions. Two months after the eviction 90 people were still sleeping on the site under a tent.
Bandile Mdlalose was the general secretary of the South African shackdwellers' movement Abahlali baseMjondolo. She is now the President of the Community Justice Movement which operates in some informal settlements of Gauteng and KwaZulu Natal.
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