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Economic Freedom Fighters Gauteng provincial chairperson Mandisa Mashego has detailed her harrowing encounter with South African Police Services (SAPS) officials during the Alexandra demolitions last Friday.
She also recounted a resident’s story of how her home was destroyed.
“I will kill you if you move one step closer,” Mashego described one member of the SAPS as having said to her as she was being assisted by another officer to locate the most senior official on the scene.
“I wanted the commanding officer to show me the court order that they had served on these residents before demolishing their homes. It soon became clear that there was no court order and the officers were already aggressive. After making these threats, residents who were with me became emotional in my defence.”
She added that officers shot rubber bullets at random on the now protesting homeless individuals whose homes had been destroyed.
Mashego said she had been made aware of the demolitions by a resident whose property also fell victim to the Red Ants.
The Red Ants demolished more than 80 illegal structures last Friday, leaving hundreds of people displaced.
The demolition was apparently as a result of illegal occupants building structures too close to the Jukskei River, an area prone to flooding.
“The resident called me and sounded frantic,” Mashego said. “She informed me that the Red Ants were demolishing their properties. ‘Babies are crying, some children can’t go to school because their homes are being destroyed and our personal belongings are being damaged’, she said,” Mashego recounted the phone call she got from the resident.
RT @PalesaDlamini_0: Mashego went on to pose her own question to the panel member who had suggested that the party's approach to land occupation was aggressive. #AlexandraInquiry pic.twitter.com/RUPcvWyUip
— City Press (@City_Press) June 6, 2019
The resident said it was a nightmare unfolding before her eyes.
A visibly irate Mashego said “the Red Ants have never demolished structures belonging to either people of Indian descent or white people the same way they go about demolishing black people’s homes”.
She said because of the manner in which the company always treats black people the party had challenged municipalities to stop using them for evictions.
Mashego said subsequent to most evictions carried out by the Red Ants, reports always emerged of theft and rape levelled against members of the organisation.
The passionate Mashego pleaded with the commission that residents forced to occupy such areas were not doing so only because they had no other alternatives.
“Such illegal occupations are necessitated by black people finding themselves in situations where they are forced by circumstances to find shelter outside the usual government initiatives.”
The commission yesterday heard from Johannesburg city manager Ndivhoniswani Lukhwareni who took responsibility for the demolition of the more than 80 houses in Alexandra.
He claimed to have been wrongfully informed that no one lived in the structures.
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