Eviction+story+splashed+in+Sindy

//SA's 'Zimbabwe' evictions slated//
=Apartheid-era laws used to clean up Joburg ahead of 2010 Soccer World Cup=


 * By Caroline Hooper-Box and Sapa-AFP**

Evictions in Johannesburg have sparked protests from civil rights groups, who accuse South Africa of copying Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's controversial urban clearance programme, in which hundreds of thousands of homes have been demolished by government officials.

Johannesburg is accused of relying on apartheid-era laws to evict people to make room for inner-city regeneration plans ahead of the 2010 Soccer World Cup. According to the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE), a Geneva-based human-rights organisation, efforts to transform Johannesburg into a world-class city are causing human-rights violations and will result in more than 25 000 poor people being forcibly evicted from their homes.

The local government-ordered evictions in Johannesburg are aimed at clearing an estimated 235 "bad" buildings viewed as hotbeds of degeneration and crime. According to the Johannesburg Inner City Regeneration Strategy, eliminating such socio-economic sinkholes will increase property values, raise private-sector investment and help to transform Johannesburg into a world-class African city.

But according to Jean du Plessis, COHRE's Global Forced Evictions Programme co-ordinator, "since 2001 the city of Johannesburg has been carrying out supposedly urgent 'health and safety' evictions from so-called 'bad buildings' using the National Building Regulations and Building Standards Act - which was passed under apartheid - to secure eviction orders."

Du Plessis said the city's policy of "bad building" clearances was "arbitrary, inhumane and in violation of international human-rights law and South Africa's constitution."

Meanwhile, the Wits Law Clinic has brought a High Court case on behalf of tenants from six buildings facing eviction. The law clinic will argue that the eviction process used by the Johannesburg City Council is unconstitutional.

More than 700 people occupying a 16-storey building in Bree Street were forced onto the street on July 14, an act condemned by human-rights activists as "barbaric". Designed as office space, the building had been illegally converted to residential accommodation.

Roopa Singh, the municipal spokesperson, said the tenants were moved for their own safety. The building's sewerage infrastructure had collapsed, leaked water was knee-high in some parts and raw sewage flowed out onto the street. It was also infested with rats.

"The conditions inside that building are the same as most other buildings in the inner city that have been illegally occupied," Singh said.

Besides the "hijacking" of buildings by illegal occupiers, illegal evictions by property owners are adding fuel to the fire. This week in Doornfontein, near the Johannesburg city centre, riots broke out and police were forced to fire rubber bullets after residents had been forced out of their homes by a private security force, who threw their belongings into the street.

The Doornfontein properties are in the Ellis Park area, which is being upgraded for Johannesburg's 2010 World Cup matches.

The Doornfontein evictions, organised by property owners, were found to be illegal by Danie Burger, the Johannesburg East sheriff.

In terms of the Inner City Regeneration Strategy, buildings that are dangerous, structurally unsafe or where living conditions constitute a safety hazard are identified either for an upgrade or demolition, and notice is then given to the occupants about a court order to evict.

Du Plessis said the programme victimised people at the bottom of the pile. "Although some of the buildings in question are indeed unhealthy and may serve as bases for criminals, our research shows that the majority of those who live in such buildings are ordinary poor people trying to earn a living on the streets of Johannesburg."

Jody Kollapen, the Human Rights Commission head, said the eviction issue "raises a difficult conundrum. On the one hand there is the state's duty to protect and promote human rights - do you simply allow people to stay under conditions that are dangerous to their health, the community and children?

"What should happen if a fire broke out in one of these buildings and children died? Indeed there would be a case to sue the state under these circumstances."

If the state provided alternative accommodation for people who were evicted after illegally occupying inner city buildings, "what message does it send to people who have waited a long time for housing?"

However, Kollapen said, "there must be questions raised about the methods used in these evictions... It is a difficult issue, but there are still humane parameters in which it must happen."


 * From: http://www.sundayindependent.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=2733639**