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25 signatures reached
To: Minister of Human Settlements, Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform
Prioritize housing and land needs
This campaign has ended.
The government must speed up its plans for housing and land. We reject the excuse that there is a housing backlog, and call on the Minister Nkwinti to advance plans for the expropriation of land.
The ongoing evictions and removing of settlements by municipalities and other law enforcement agencies must cease immediately. The violence that accompanies these evictions and removals must also cease. It is natural to defend our dwellings when they are threatened, we are not violent.
The ongoing evictions and removing of settlements by municipalities and other law enforcement agencies must cease immediately. The violence that accompanies these evictions and removals must also cease. It is natural to defend our dwellings when they are threatened, we are not violent.
Why is this important?
As residents from Freedom Park, south of Johannesburg, we marched on 20 March 2017 to the ANC headquarters, in a bid to demand the rights to occupy vacant land on the outskirts of the area in which we live.
With the ANC set to hold a policy conference in June to discuss, among other issues, how to expropriate land for the benefit of communities as tabled in its Strategy and Tactics Discussion Document, we call on you to stand in solidarity with all landless people across South Africa by supporting this campaign.
“We have been living in Freedom Park as tenants for almost all our lives. None of us here owns any land. All we are asking for is for government to give us some piece of land, and we will build our own shacks.”
“We are members of the ANC, and we trust it to listen to our cries. All we want is land.”
We have adopted this Eleven Points Program for Freedom Park Backyard Dwellers to advance the fight for decent and habitable housing for all.
1. Occupy land and erect structures for as long as there is a backlog of decent Housing for all.
2. Resist evictions and fight not to be evicted or be moved to other places where we do not wish to live.
3. Fight for closing down of all municipal anti-land invasion units and all private eviction squads, such as the Red Ants, that municipalities outsource this function to.
4. The struggle of the Marikana occupiers in Philippi (Cape Town) is a victory for the landless people of Azania and it must be defended. The Marikana occupation and struggle in Philippi has resulted in a Constitutional Court decision that it is unlawful for anti-land 'invasion' units to knock down a structure or structures that have been built by occupiers as a home to live in, regardless of how long the structure has stood or whether there is furniture in it.
5. Occupations are a legitimate means for us to survive poverty and unemployment and speed up the process of land redistribution that the government promised but continues to fail to deliver.
6. We note that even under the so-called democratic dispensation the state continues to uphold the property rights of the rich, while the poor are expected to rot away under intolerable living conditions.
7. We reject the state's zero tolerance policy on occupations that is enforced by municipalities, the police and the courts. It is a contradiction to talk about “land reform” – as the government has again been doing recently – while at the same time denying people’s right to occupy land and punishing them if they do.
8. We note that over many decades of forced removals and pass laws the Black masses in occupied Azania, in defiance of apartheid, won the right to occupy land and build structures/shacks. This must be defended and extended in order to ensure adequate and just land redistribution for the landless Black masses dispossessed of their land through colonialism and apartheid.
9. Today, those who occupied land prior to 1994 are not threatened with eviction; while those who occupy today face the state’s harsh and repressive zero tolerance policy on occupations. We reiterate that it is a contradiction for the state to talk about land reform and yet deny people the right to occupy the land of their ancestors and birth.
10. This makes a mockery of the new democracy and effectively criminalizes our struggle for decent and habitable Housing.
11. By failing to address the housing crisis, by allowing the appalling conditions that people face daily and by failing to provide decent and habitable housing for all the state and it's functionaries are the real ‘criminals’. Those who occupy land and struggle to improve their living conditions are guilty of nothing other than pursuing the rights the Constitution and government have promised them.
With the ANC set to hold a policy conference in June to discuss, among other issues, how to expropriate land for the benefit of communities as tabled in its Strategy and Tactics Discussion Document, we call on you to stand in solidarity with all landless people across South Africa by supporting this campaign.
“We have been living in Freedom Park as tenants for almost all our lives. None of us here owns any land. All we are asking for is for government to give us some piece of land, and we will build our own shacks.”
“We are members of the ANC, and we trust it to listen to our cries. All we want is land.”
We have adopted this Eleven Points Program for Freedom Park Backyard Dwellers to advance the fight for decent and habitable housing for all.
1. Occupy land and erect structures for as long as there is a backlog of decent Housing for all.
2. Resist evictions and fight not to be evicted or be moved to other places where we do not wish to live.
3. Fight for closing down of all municipal anti-land invasion units and all private eviction squads, such as the Red Ants, that municipalities outsource this function to.
4. The struggle of the Marikana occupiers in Philippi (Cape Town) is a victory for the landless people of Azania and it must be defended. The Marikana occupation and struggle in Philippi has resulted in a Constitutional Court decision that it is unlawful for anti-land 'invasion' units to knock down a structure or structures that have been built by occupiers as a home to live in, regardless of how long the structure has stood or whether there is furniture in it.
5. Occupations are a legitimate means for us to survive poverty and unemployment and speed up the process of land redistribution that the government promised but continues to fail to deliver.
6. We note that even under the so-called democratic dispensation the state continues to uphold the property rights of the rich, while the poor are expected to rot away under intolerable living conditions.
7. We reject the state's zero tolerance policy on occupations that is enforced by municipalities, the police and the courts. It is a contradiction to talk about “land reform” – as the government has again been doing recently – while at the same time denying people’s right to occupy land and punishing them if they do.
8. We note that over many decades of forced removals and pass laws the Black masses in occupied Azania, in defiance of apartheid, won the right to occupy land and build structures/shacks. This must be defended and extended in order to ensure adequate and just land redistribution for the landless Black masses dispossessed of their land through colonialism and apartheid.
9. Today, those who occupied land prior to 1994 are not threatened with eviction; while those who occupy today face the state’s harsh and repressive zero tolerance policy on occupations. We reiterate that it is a contradiction for the state to talk about land reform and yet deny people the right to occupy the land of their ancestors and birth.
10. This makes a mockery of the new democracy and effectively criminalizes our struggle for decent and habitable Housing.
11. By failing to address the housing crisis, by allowing the appalling conditions that people face daily and by failing to provide decent and habitable housing for all the state and it's functionaries are the real ‘criminals’. Those who occupy land and struggle to improve their living conditions are guilty of nothing other than pursuing the rights the Constitution and government have promised them.