In a move reminiscent of the apartheid era, residents of Alexandra township were this week subjected to forced removals. Report by Thuli Nhlapo. Photographs by Nadine Hutton
This week more than 20 unemployed young boys and men were picked up on the streets of Wadeville in Benoni after being told that they would make extra cash by “removing some furniture and loading it on to trucks”. They were told they would not earn a lot of money, but to them it sounded like an “easy way” to earn some desperately needed cash. They were given red overalls, which later earned them a nickname: “Rooigevaar [Red danger]”. They became identified with the more than 300 employees of Wozani Security, armed with shields and crowbars. The company’s CEO is Johan Bosch, who was paid a sum of money which both parties are unwilling to disclose by the Gauteng government.
The company was entrusted with forcefully relocating residents living along the Jukskei river in Alexandra township and demolishing their shacks.
The removals happened three days after Nelson Mandela celebrated his 11th anniversary as a free man and almost six years after the first democratic elections.
Alexandra residents say they are victims of the same style of forced removals that was practised by the apartheid government. While the Rooigevaar were standing at the top of London Road in Alexandra, angry residents were shouting at the top of their voices, chanting, “Are you listening, what you are doing is shit,” referring to their councillor, the African National Congress’s Peter Makgoba, who was nowhere to be found.
Their placards swung on the wind, saying: “We are not going anywhere. We want houses.” Stinking water ran down to the river while a rat, as big as a cat, had breakfast on the dirt piled hill-high in the river. “We are not refusing to move. What we are asking is that the government must address our concerns. We have schoolgoing children and we do not know what is going to happen to them when we move. And worse, why must we move from a temporary place to another temporary one?” a concerned residents’ committee member asked. Residents said they have been on the waiting list for housing since 1996. They vowed not to move without an address from a government official because the “government treats us like animals simply because we are poor”. The chanting that started at dawn intensified as more residents joined in before they were disturbed by the tear gas that came from one of the police Casspirs as it drove down London Road.
The incident angered residents even more. They built barricades on the road. At the top of London Road, the Rooigevaar were bracing for a fight.
Phil Ziqubu, an Alexandra councillor in ward 107, wanted to drive past the barricade when he was approached by committee members who wanted to know where Makgoba was and what had happened at a meeting the day before with Gauteng MEC for Housing Paul Mashatile. Even though Ziqubu managed to call “Comrade Paul” on his cellphone, the bad news was written on his face. “What Com Paul says is that they will have a meeting at noon today [Tuesday]. But that meeting will not discuss this issue because the decision has been taken and the people are going to be moved today. Com Paul will issue orders to the security guards,” said Ziqubu, before disappearing into his Toyota Camry. A few minutes after Ziqubu left, the Rooigevaar approached residents who were waiting for them with stones, bricks, pangas, golf clubs, pipes anything that could cause pain.
It started raining stones on the security guards near the Jukskei river bridge. Wozani senior officials wearing white shirts and black pants shouted only three words: “Kom en skiet [Come and shoot].” Then rubber bullets and buckshot sent residents running for dear life with security guards following those who were hiding inside their shacks. Some residents continued to throw stones from their hiding places while one shot at the guards. “Where is my child? Did they kill her? Did you see my baby boy?” a woman, piggy-backing a baby she said was sick, asked after the mini-war ended and eight people were injured.
On the other side a woman was wailing because the Rooigevaar blocked the road and refused to let her pass. Both her daughters were on the other side of the street. “This woman needs a crowbar. She has been moving up and down. The first time she forced her way with a schoolgirl and now this,” said a security guard to a journalist, who took the crying woman by the hand and walked her to safety. After residents were defeated, crowbars used earlier to hit them were used to break down their shacks and some of their furniture. Trucks were loaded with furniture from different households and owners’ pleas to do the packing themselves were ignored. “Where are you going? Do you have my keys with you?” was a question asked by a resident who was at work but heard on the radio that there was trouble in Alexandra. Even though her neighbour was on a truck, she did not know where she was going. It took a split second for her to realise that she would not need the keys she left under the mat for the guards to open her door. Her shack had been destroyed. The fighting, demolishing and loading on to trucks proved to be hard work for the casual employees picked up on the street. They were also hungry because they had been on duty since 3am. About 20 of them threaten to down tools after realising they nearly lost their lives. Those who were not demolishers were keeping guard in case “residents infected with cholera decide to start trouble”. “This thing of being told by some Afrikaner and some Boesman when to pee is not right. We must tell them they must not say “kom [come]” to us. We are not dogs,” said a dreadlocked man in red overalls. The hunger made the Wozani employees more talkative. They disclosed they were paid R60 a day. At least 26 of them were on their first assignment. When trucks with some of the residents on board left for a place none of them knew, some of the Rooigevaar complained as much as the residents because they were getting wet in the rain with the people they were fighting earlier, while their bosses sat inside. After a long drive and many stops at the wrong places, the trucks finally arrived in Diepsloot.
Then it was Diepsloot residents’ turn to suffer. Before the trucks were unloaded, their shacks had to be demolished to make space for the arriving Alexandra residents.
Dumisani Zulu, a representative of the Gauteng Department of Housing, said those shacks belonged to “invaders”. “No one is going to sleep in my place. Where must I go? And how am I going to build another shack because they have destroyed my things?” a fuming Diepsloot shack dweller asked. “Paul Mashatile is a liar. He came to address a meeting here, but forgot to mention that he was going to destroy our shacks. He said he was moving Jukskei residents across the road and was going to fence the place but now the opposite is happening,” an old Diepsloot man with grey hair said, shaking his head because he had no place to sleep for the night.
Zulu said the only people moved to Diepsloot were those who did not qualify for a government subsidy. He said most of them were young couples, while the ones dumped on an open space in Extension 7 in Alexandra, were waiting to occupy their houses in Braamfischerville soon.
It was because of “administrative issues” that the government had to move them from one temporary place to another because the government wanted “to make sure nobody cheats the system”.