Yesterday our movement filed an application to prevent any further evictions in our eKhenana Land Occupation in Cato Crest. The court adjourned this matter indefinitely until further information from both parties is gathered.

The Municipality urged the court to give them time to formulate their supplementary affidavit. Even though the interdict was not granted, we consider the court’s response to be valuable because while the matter is in court the Municipality is not allowed to continue with the evictions and the community is not allowed to continue to build more structures.  

This means that if the Municipality continues with the evictions, we can file against them on an urgent basis. If they do try and continue with the evictions against the instructions of the court we’ll immediately return to the court to seek an urgent interdict against them.

We welcome the decision of the court and will continue to organise to build the power of the impoverished from below to struggle to realise our right to the cities, and to ensure that the land is shared among those who work it. With organisation and mobilisation at scale, and over time, we can work to ensure that grassroots urban planning, and direct action confront apartheid spatial planning and capitalist planning.

Land, wealth and power must be shared.

We are not afraid. We are prepared to die in defence of our human dignity,

Source: abahlali.org