Eyewitness: Evicted and homeless

The shacks have been ruthlessly demolished

By Carolyn Dempster at Bredell squatter camp near Johannesburg

A cold winter mist swirled through the Bredell squatter settlement this morning, as thousands of homeless people faced eviction.

They prayed, they sang the national anthem "Nkosi Sikelele i Afrika", and they listened as political and community leaders advised them not to fight the eviction, not to confront the police and provoke violence.

I don't fight. I just want a place to stay

Squatter

An air of helpless resignation permeated the camp.

All the time a bevy of police dressed in riot gear or driving armoured vehicles patrolled the land where some 5,000 squatters had hastily erected wood, cardboard and corrugated iron shacks that they call home.

Red ants

It was early afternoon when the sheriff of the court, backed by about 100 "red ants", private security workers dressed in distinctive red overalls and blue construction helmets, moved in and started demolishing the flimsy dwellings with crowbars.

Many have been in their flimsy homes for months

They showed scant respect for personal belongings and ripped apart dwellings in the space of a few minutes, leaving the debris lying in piles on the bare ground.

This is the team from MacLegal, the private security firm the government employs to carry out evictions.

Albert Makghubiya (57) and his wife Adele had already piled their possessions into a small neat pile next to their shack.

A mirror balanced precariously on a small chest of drawers, a copy of the Lord's prayer carefully set to one side.

Tears

Adele shrugged and said nothing, tears coursing down her face as she watched the demolition squad move closer.

Waiting for the inevitable

Albert was more vocal in his condemnation. "I haven't got a place to stay. I haven't got a place to go. I shall sleep outside here, on the ground tonight."

He used to have a job as a cleaner with the nearby Kempton Park City Council, but he was retrenched without compensation.

He and his wife were evicted from the council houses and forced to find accommodation at short notice.

They have been living in the Bredell squatter camp now since April, and have no faith in the ability of the government or any political party to resolve their problems.

Says Albert: "I don't fight. I just want a place to stay. I don't want to talk about this government, I don't want to talk about politics. I've got faith in God. I believe in God. Even if I die, God will know what happened here".

Anger

Other members of the community were both angry and bitter. Albert Hamisi has been on the government housing waiting list for six years.

An uncertain future awaits

He has a job at a nearby chicken farm and says he is willing to pay for a house, and services.

"I voted for this government, the African National Congress. I was a supporter of the ANC. But I'll never vote for them again.

"You see it's about my children. I have a wife and four children and I'm trying to build a future for them. If I lose that chance now, then they'll have no future.

Politics

Many of the squatters have been living on this bleak tract of wasteland, criss-crossed by powerlines, for more than six months now.

They say they first paid a levy of R12 ($1.50) to the ANC, and then R25 to a community fund which was to be used to purchase a water pump and provide toilets. They have neither.

When the Pan Africanist Congress , a small opposition party with less than 1% support in the last election, took up the cause of the squatters last month, the issue became politicised.

The government hastily applied for the order to evict, fearing that the Bredell land invasion would be the start of mass illegal land occupations throughout the country.

Mlungisi Masukutu, aged 34, a former liberation fighter says he fought for freedom but both the ANC and the PAC misled him and hundreds of other homeless people.

"How could they (the PAC) provide us with land, knowing it was someone else's property" he said. He had nothing but contempt for the government: "What kind of leaders are they. I fought to get my land and freedom, and now I'm landless."

Bleak future

PAC leaders who visited the site pleaded with the squatters to remain peaceful. Dr Motsoko Pheko, deputy president of the party denied he was there for political reasons.

"Here we are not dealing with stones, we are dealing with human beings... children, old people, the disabled. This is a situation not of politics, not of legality, but of humanity."

While the "red ants" moved ruthlessly and methodically through the squatter settlement, church leaders from the South African Council of Churches struggled to find a temporary solution.

There is a proposal that the local metropolitan council should provide land and temporary accommodation for those squatters who have been on government housing lists for some years now, while the church will provide a haven for the destitute.

So far there is no plan of action, so hundreds of squatters face the prospect of spending a freezing winter night on the bare ground, or crowded into the shacks that still remain.