The Congress of South African Trade Unions has thrown its weight behind the campaign by affiliates and regional structures of the United Democratic Front to tackle the problem of the homeless. The union body is to organise for people without anywhere to live to move into vacant property. The action by Cosatu comes as the UDF national executive is considering how to respond to an invitation by Minister of Planning and Provincial Affairs Hernus Kriel to meet and discuss the issue.
“We support this programme of defiance since it seems to be the only way to provide government to face up to some realities,” said a statement released by Cosatu yesterday. “At the same time the responsibility remains squarely with the government to provide land, basic facilities and services to allow the people to build the housing which they are entitled to as citizen of this country.”
UDF national secretary Popo Molefe confirmed yesterday that his organisation had received an invitation from Kriel. He added that the NEC would have to decide how to respond to it. Molefe added that the front had strong views on black South Africans being denied land, although the campaigns to occupy vacant property had not been formally adopted as a policy of the UDF on a national level.
The UDF demanded an immediate halt to evictions and that the acquisition of land and provision of services for the homeless be addressed more speedily, Molefe said. “One cannot justify the demolishing of shacks – which leads to women and just because being homeless in winter – just because those shacks are in an inconvenient location,” said Molefe. For as long as there was a shortage of land it was entirely understandable that people “ at a local and regional level would, through anger, have begun to occupy land that is vacant”. The UDF was fundamentally opposed to the 1913 and 1936 Land Acts, said Molefe, and demanded their abolition
Cosatu strongly condemned the ”hysterical reaction” in many quarters to the notion of orchestrated land occupation. This demonstrated ”a complete insensitivity to the plight of people who are homeless,” said Cosatu. ”It is depressing that there hasn’t been a similar outcry at the brutal evictions of people in the middle of winter. The impression has been created that there is far greater concern for property in this country than for people,” Cosatu said. – Jo-Anne Collinge
This article originally appeared in the Weekly Mail.
