Marikana: "They destroyed homes, not structures"

Marikana, South Africa: “They destroyed homes, not structures”

We, as the residents of Marikana, will picket outside Parliament today to show the government that the shacks they destroyed were not unfinished or empty structures, they were our homes that we lived in, that we ate in, that we slept in.

We come as abahlali, as residents of Marikana, and as shack dwellers who are are being oppressed by government. We do not come as supporters of any political party.

We come to demand full restitution for all the material, furniture, documents and clothes which were destroyed or stolen by the Anti Land Invasion Unit and Law Enforcement during the previous two weeks.

We also demand land where we can live and provide for our families. We have never seen a court order giving the City of Cape Town permission to evict us from the empty land we call Marikana. We know that the government is lying when they claim that the evictions were legal. These were our homes and the City had no right to destroy them.

We think that maybe the City did this because they have such little respect for the poor. To them, lived in shacks are not 'real homes' and therefore no 'real homes' were demolished. We as the poor don't count in this City which only caters to the rich.

Finally, we demand safety. The police must protect us, not attack us. But, like so many other communities throughout South Africa and like the Marikana miners themselves, we are victims of police brutality and their hatred of the poor.

ENDS

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