The shack dwellers of Unit F in Thokoza received no notification to vacate the land and were unprepared when the demolishers arrived
Thuli Nhlapo
The screaming started at 5am when men in red overalls invaded the tiny informal settlement. “It was still dark and I was on my way to the toilet when they approached my shack,” said an unemployed woman with five children from Unit F in Thokoza, east of Johannesburg.
“Before I could say or ask anything they just began to destroy my house with the steel things they carried. I tried to put some of my furniture aside but soon stopped when they threatened to shoot me.”
This woman’s plight was shared across Unit F as Wozani Security, dubbed the “Rooigevaar”, stormed the settlement last Friday. More than 500 shacks were bulldozed and the residents’ furniture, clothing, money and building materials were loaded on to four large white trucks.
“I tried to plead with them not to take my wallet, but they pointed a firearm at me and two of those boys pushed me so hard I nearly fell down,” said a man, shaking with anger.
The shack dwellers received no warning to vacate the land, nor were they told that the Rooigevaar were likely to pay them a visit in the pre-dawn darkness.
Over the weekend residents who managed to scrounge up some building materials rebuilt their shacks. Schoolchildren dusted off school books thrown in the mud by the Rooigevaar.
Then, at 6am on Monday, Wozani Security returned and made sure that nothing was left behind. Residents claim they tried to ask security guards why their shacks were being destroyed, but were referred to their councillor. Until today they have no idea where Wozani Security took their possessions.
“Four weeks ago I saw a few shacks in the area and reported the matter to the relevant officials. I did not consult with anyone because there were no people living there,” says the African National Congress councillor in ward 27, Ken Moitse.
“I saw only shacks so I could not speak with empty shacks.”
Moitse says he was not officially informed about the evictions and the matter has not yet been discussed at council meetings. He said he “was not aware that there have been evictions” in his ward.
Mahlomola Mabote, an ANC councillor on the border between wards 21 and 27, says he addressed a meeting in his ward two weeks before where his constituents complained about “these people who used their toilets and water without their permission and the crime rate that has gone up”.
“There was a debate about whether these people should be given proper sanitation or be relocated,” said Mabote.
Mabote told the meeting that the piece of land “these people” were occupying was earmarked for development and that “development was supposed to start now”.
He says he consulted Moitse about the concerns raised in the meeting and Moitse promised to investigate the matter.
The Rooigevaar’s victims insist Mabote was on the scene when their homes were razed to the ground, instructing the guards not to leave a thing behind.
Mabote dismisses this as “nonsense”.
At a meeting held at Isimunye Primary School in Thokoza this week, the Kathorus Concerned Residents Committee members pledged their support to their “brothers who were treated in such an inhuman manner”.
“The government cannot evict us from our four and five rooms and relocate us just next door to two-bedroomed houses. They have to come out in the open about the issue of housing,” said a committee member.
Committee members and representatives of the squatter settlement met MEC for Housing Paul Mashatile last November to try to resolve housing issues in Kathorus.
They claim Mashatile promised that evictions in Thokoza would stop. Mashatile was going to report back to them, but didn’t put in another appearance.
“As blacks we are stupid. There is no need to discriminate against one another. That our brothers and sisters live in shacks does not make us better than them, because that is where we all started. It is a pity that the councillor’s job has changed from that of helping people to destroying them,” said an old man, who said he was hurt by the removals.
It remains unclear who gave the Rooigevaar a mandate to evict Unit F’s shack dwellers. All messages left for Wozani Security directors were not returned. At the company’s headquarters in Eikenhof a receptionist denied that it was their premises, despite saying “Wozani Security, good morning” every time she answered the telephone.
A man who passed through the offices said: “Why would the Mail & Guardian expect Wozani to talk to them after last week’s nasty article?”
At Wozani Security’s offices in Marlboro, new recruits who have their own firearms were signing a “Job Seekers” book. A man, who would only identify himself as Kobus, said the only person who handled the media was Johan Bosch. He promised to give him a message to contact the M&G, but Bosch had not done so by the time of going to press.
“If the government has discovered gold in Unit F, let them move people somewhere else. Their harsh treatment was uncalled for simply because these people never refused to move,” said an outraged committee member.
While committee members negotiate with churches to donate tents and food, Mbedzi Nyawasedza, a pupil at Mtingati Primary School, does his grade seven homework in the open. His mother clutches a form that was signed by housing secretary Siphiwe Mvelase in 1997. That is her proof that she is on the government’s waiting list for housing.