Government blames syndicate for illegal Gauteng evictions

Squatter camp evictions during the Covid-19 lockdown period have left scores of Gauteng residents destitute, despite the lockdown regulations putting a moratorium on evictions.

Residents of a four-month-old settlement called Duduza in Thembisa have been living in fear of surprise evictions since the first raid in March this year. Over last weekend, another violent encounter with the Ekurhuleni Metro Police Department (EMPD) left dozens of families without clothes, food or a place to stay.

“My brother was trying to take a video and they just kicked him and beat him until he was bleeding from his head. He has four stitches now after he was taken to hospital,” says Betty Dhlamini, a 25-year-old mother in the small community.

The lockdown has been tough on these people, many of whom lost income because of it. Instead of trying to make things better, says Dhlamini, government has made their lives unbearable with routine evictions carried out often with no suggestion or even proof that a court order was obtained.

“In March when they first came to evict us, they came to our house when my mother was still naked and taking a bath. They dragged her out of the house like that,” she recalls. “Then they saw my baby who was 1 year 11 months and kicked him. Later when I tried to feed him, he was vomiting blood and I had to take him to the doctor.”

While the violent evictions of mostly poor people in Gauteng have been widely documented, provincial government spokesperson Castro Ngobese says a sinister ploy belies the mushrooming of new squatter camps, reiterating a longstanding view of government on why squatter camp evictions are justified. From their point of view, a syndicate operating countrywide is using the issue of millions of landless South Africans to play with the emotions of media audiences for political gain.

“We are calling on members of the public to report such criminal syndicates who are doing that,” says Ngobese. “Government will stay committed to the ideological promises of the ruling party to deal with land backlog because you know that Gauteng has a backlog of 1,2 million houses and we are committed to making sure that for those who are deserving we will give them houses.”

But, according to Timothy Fish Hodgson, Legal Adviser at the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), the general practice of evicting residents from informal settlements has largely been illegal, even before the lockdown.

“There is not so much difference in the way that local government has dealt with evictions during and before Covid-19. So many of their evictions that are illegal under Covid-19 would be illegal under any circumstances. The actual point here is an eviction without a court order has always been unlawful in terms of South African law.”

The emerging argument over who is and isn’t a land invader is a red herring, Hodgson argues. It is not what the law considers to be relevant. Given that most South Africans don’t own the land that they live on, the law compels government to weigh this against the merits of an eviction.

“Urbanisation happens all around the world in all cities and…is not an excuse for not following the law. Government has to plan for the housing needs of everyone and it should consider the needs of everyone as a result of urbanisation and it must comply with the law when it comes to not evicting people from their homes, whatever the reason people are on the land,” he concludes.

The Socio-economic Right Institute (SERI) recently published a fact sheet in response to growing concerns over the evictions of alleged land invaders.

“The Constitution, consistent with international human rights law, entrenches a right to adequate housing,” the group points out. It says Section 26 of the Constitution protects the right of access to adequate housing and provides that no one may be evicted from their home without a court order made after considering “all the relevant circumstances”.

A nine week moratorium on evictions was placed in the beginning of the lockdown and currently, eviction orders may be granted but not carried out until the country moves to a lower alert level and only through a court order.

Simnikiweh@citizen.co.za

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