Many believe the Glebelands violence is driven by corruption, particularly involving construction tenders and unit allocation. The vast majority of residents killed were targeted because they opposed the ward councilor’s alleged corruption and nepotism.
Pensioners in Port Elizabeth have threatened to boycott the 2019 elections unless the government pay them reparations for working as public servants under exploitative Apartheid and Bantustan regimes.
Late last year, seven of Glebelands most notorious ‘hitmen’ – including the hostel’s rogue cop – were arrested and charged with 19 counts of murder, attempted murder, racketeering, extortion and possession of a prohibited firearm and ammunition. Elitsha has been tracking the ‘Glebelands 7’ progress through the criminal justice system. This is Part 2.
A protest march to Parliament has called for the immediate expulsion of the Israeli Ambassador from South Africa.
Backyarders in Vrygrond near Muizenberg have vowed to continue building shacks on a piece of land that they have occupied because they cannot “afford to pay rent” anymore.
In 2011, the informal settlement of Bhungeni in Butterworth in the Eastern Cape was demolished to make way for a shopping mall and the residents were relocated to a transit camp erected by the Department of Human Settlements. They remain to this day in this camp they called Eugene and no shopping mall has been built on the land they vacated.
Tshepo Hlambelo, a former Glebelands resident who claimed he was tortured by POP Unit members of the SAPS in 2014 after he was violently evicted from his hostel room by thugs and hitmen, eventually fled to his home in the rural areas near Bizana after he continued receiving death threats. He went missing on 14 Dec 2017.
Trade unions in the bus industry are consulting with their members on a new wage offer from the employers.
The City of Cape Town and the Western Cape provincial government has stated that it will not buy land from Ross Demolition to build houses for Siqalo residents as the land is “not fit for human habitation”.
The conflict between the Siqalo and Mitchell’s Plain communities flared up late on Thursday, despite the suspension by Siqalo of their protest action. Police fired on a gathering of Mitchell’s Plain residents, killing one and wounding two.
The situation was calm at Siqalo informal settlement on Thursday morning following a protest for land, housing and provision of better services by the City of Cape Town. The protest, which saw the barricading of Jakes Gerwel Drive with burning tyres and communal waste containers, resulted in a counter-protest from residents of Colorado Park. The protest has been suspended following a meeting between community groups in Mitchell’s Plain.
In what was a show of force to the rival federation SAFTU and to opposition parties ahead of the 2019 general elections, COSATU and tripartite alliance leaders used the platform of Workers’ Day to defend the proposed labour law amendments and national minimum wage.
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