Landmark ruling for squatters
City ordered to negotiate to buy land occupied by residents of Marikana
WITH no running water at home, residents of Marikana informal settlement trudge to public taps with buckets and make the dash to portable toilets set up on the informal settlement’s edge, near the airport.
Children play on narrow, litter-strewn dirt paths that separate densely-packed corrugated-iron shacks, while crude electrical cables dangle precariously overhead.
Earlier this month, a woman was electrocuted by an illegal cable, said community leader, Thembani Landu, during a recent visit to the community.
At sunset, he said, the 60 000 residents ensure they are safely inside their barbed-wired-protected shacks, because with no streetlights, the settlement plunges into darkness – and danger.
During one particularly brutal weekend last month, 11 people were killed in an outbreak of the sort of gang violence that routinely plagues Marikana.
Even the settlement’s name runs with blood: it honours the 34 people who died when police opened fire at striking miners in Marikana, North West, in August 2012.
The residents badly need a break. Now they finally dare to hope their living conditions may improve thanks to a landmark ruling over who owns the land they occupy.
A judge has ordered the city to negotiate to buy the privately-owned land the Marikana settlement residents have occupied.
The site is comprised of three parcels: two owned by separate commercial development groups and a small plot owned by an elderly woman
With the city as landlord, residents hope to gain basic municipal services such as legal electrical connections, access to water, refuse removal, police patrols and street lighting.
“It would be a big victory for us,” said Landu, who was among the original squatters who began occupying the formerly empty land in the Philippi community in 2012. “It would mean electricity and sanitation services for us.”
The ruling, which the city and landowners are appealing, goes to the heart of a vexing land problem for post-apartheid South Africa.
Advocates and lawyers involved in the case say the August 30 ruling is unique, because it for the first time sets a framework to resolve ownership disputes over occupied land by having a municipality deal directly with the property’s owners.
Lawyers on both sides said the ruling was a watershed that could set a precedent for the millions stuck in informal settlements. – Reuters