"Five minutes to pray - and then leave".
This was the order of the station commander of Sydenham Police Station in Durban, Senior Superintendant Nayager, to the Diakonia Council of Churches last week, when it requested permission to visit 13 impoverished members of the shackdwellers' movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM), to pray with them.
The Diakonia Council accuses the Sydenham police of having stoof idly by when a xenophobic pogrom gang associated with local ANC political authorities in the Durban area attacked the AbM community at Kennedy Road on 26 and 27 September, killing four people, destroying houses, causing thousands to flee in terror, seizing property and setting themselves up as unelected dictator over the residents.
Police from Sydenham Police Station allowed the murderers to flee unscathed, and then arrested 13 of the residents who had been attacked.
In a subsequent statement, issued on Saturday 21 November, the Council acccused Sydenham police of having once again stood idly by last Friday when the same semi-fascistic gang - reminiscent of Hitler's Brownshirts - was permitted freely to attack and demolish houses of AbM residents at Kennedy Road all over again.
The Kennedy Road 13 have been refused bail at the Durban Magistrate's Court on six separate occasions, most recently on Wednesday 18th November, when more than 30 clergy, headed by Bishop Rubin Phillip, Anglican Bishop of Natal, held a prayer service outside the court to stand by the detainees. (See "Church and state collide at Kennedy Road", here).
Describing the incarceration of the 13 as amounting to "detention without trial", the trial itself as a "political trial" and the court a "kangaroo court", Bishop Phillip called for "people of conscience outside of the state" to join him and fellow clergy in setting up "an independent inquiry into the attack on Kennedy Road on 26 September; the subsequent demolition of the houses of Abahlali baseMjondolo members, the ongoing threats to Abahlali baseMjondolo members, [and] the role of the police, politicians and courts in this matter."
The Diakonia Council of Churches described Superintendant Nayager's attitude in limiting access to pray with the 13 in his police station to five minutes as "hard and callous", reflecting a "blatant disregard for human rights".
In its statement of 21 November, the Council said that despite many phone calls to the Sydenham Police Station to intervene, not one person had been arrested for last Friday's attacks.
The Diakonia Council of Churches states that it "condemns these ongoing attacks in the strongest possible terms. The Council furthermore condemns the inaction of the police, and the silence from our government on this issue."
The silence of the government of President Jacob Zuma on this basic issue of constitutional governance suggests at least toleration of these criminal attacks on what ANC political structures in KwaZulu-Natal clearly view as an intolerable affront: the successful mobilisation of the poor by what they view as a rival source of authority.
With justice, the Council believes that what is at stake is "the preservation of our democracy".
The Council began in the 1970s when the late Archbishop Denis Hurley sought an ecumenical organisation to work for justice in the Greater Durban Area. He was motivated by awareness that the church should have been doing much more about apartheid: but how could churches which were themselves divided have any impact on the problem, unless they first overcame some of their own barriers? Archbishop Hurley looked to Durban to take the lead in setting up an inter-church structure that would concentrate on the sufferings of ordinary people: "Working together to alleviate suffering and to humanise society is perhaps the most promising and exciting opportunity for ecumenism", he said.
Archbishop Hurley started discussions with the other church leaders in Durban, looked for the right person to head up this work, and founded Diakonia - using a Greek word which means serving the people. This was in March 1976 and the person was Paddy Kearney, who continued to serve Diakonia until 2004.
Since the first democratic elections in 1994, the work of the Council has increasingly focused on poverty.
Membership of the Diakonia Council includes:
* Anglican Church of Southern Africa (ACSA)
* Dutch Reformed Church (DRC)
* Ethiopian Episcopal Church
* Evangelical Lutheran Church in Southern Africa (ELCSA)
* Evangelical Lutheran Church in Southern Africa (Natal-Transvaal)
* Orthodox Church
* Methodist Church of Southern Africa (MCSA)
* Reformed Church in Africa (Observer Status)
* Religious Society of Friends
* Roman Catholic Church
* Salvation Army
* United Apostolic Church (UAC)
* United Congregational Church of Southern Africa (UCCSA)
* United Methodist Church
* Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa
* Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa
All political parties, civic organisations, law associations and academic institutions should take up this issue, following the lead set by the Diakonia Council.
Citing a "severe threat to the credibility of South African democracy", a seminar was held at the premises of the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) in Johannesburg on 4 November, under the heading: 'Democracy under threat? What attacks on grasssroots activists mean for our politics". Organised by the Centre for the Study of Democracy, based at Rhodes University and the University of Johannesburg, the seminar was addressed by Steven Friedman (CSD), Pregs Govender (SAHRC) and Andile Mngxitama (Foundation for Human Rights), as well as by representatives of AbM including its chairman, S'bu Zikode, who had to go into hiding after his house was wrecked and looted in the attacks on 26/27 September.
The silence of most of the mainstream press is, however, a scandal.
The two statements of the Diakonia Council appear below.
Diakonia Council of Churches voices strongest disappointment at restricted access to Kennedy 13.
Diakonia Council of Churches Press Statement
Diakonia Council of Churches wishes to express its deepest dismay at the decision by the Sydenham Police Station Commissioner Nayager to restrict pastoral access to the Kennedy Road 13.
Immediately after the sixth postponement of the bail application of the Kennedy Road 13, on Wednesday 18 November, and upon hearing they were to be removed from Westville Prison and further incarcerated at Sydenham Police Station, a group consisting of clergy, representatives of Diakonia Council of Churches, and Abahlali baseMjondolo, visited the police station and met with the Station Commissioner, Senior Superintendent Nayager. The purpose of the visit was to plead with the Station Commissioner for adequate visitation times for clergy, friends and family to visit the Kennedy Road 13.
Nayager responded by granting no more than 5 minutes per day for pastoral visits with the Kennedy Road 13, which could only be availed of between 12pm and 1pm or 5pm and 6pm. "When pastors come and pray with my policemen, they are done and gone in two minutes. How much longer does one need to pray?" he responded.
When asked whether he considered the needs of free police officers to be different to those of the Kennedy Road 13 who have been detained without trial for two months, and who have been subjected to extreme violence and stress, he refused to be drawn into further debate.
The Kennedy Road 13 have made it clear that they refuse to eat food served to them at this station, and when asked whether they would be allowed food from friends and family, Station Commissioner Nayager responded that all food would be examined and searched for drugs and weapons.
In response to Nayager's statements, S'bu Zikode, Chairperson of Abahlali baseMjondolo noted that "I am not surprised by the response from Nayager. He has never viewed us as human beings and continues to be satisfied in ensuring that we live in sub-human conditions. Like others he is happy for us to remain in squalor and filth and be satisfied with the least possible."
Diakonia Council of Churches expresses its deepest concern for the spiritual and mental welfare of the Kennedy Road 13, and is deeply saddened by the hard and callous attitude of the South African Police Services, as displayed by the Station Commissioner of Sydenham Police Station.
Bishop Barry Wood, the Chairperson of Diakonia Council of Churches, said, "We believe that our request was made in good faith and we remain disappointed and disturbed by this response. We call on all people of faith to pray and protest against this blatant disregard for human rights - our need for prayer and communion with our Higher Power and one another, are at the core of our common humanity."
Diakonia Council of Churches
19 November 2009
...
Diakonia Council of Churches condemns the ongoing attacks and targeting of homes, property and lives of members of Abahlali baseMjondolo
Last night, the homes of members of Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM), two of the original Kennedy Six, were attacked and demolished by the same mob of people who continuously and repeatedly perpetrate these deeds on known members of the organisation.
Despite many phone calls to the Sydenham Police Station to intervene, not one person has been arrested for the attacks.
Diakonia Council of Churches condemns these ongoing attacks in the strongest possible terms. The Council furthermore condemns the inaction of the police, and the silence from our government on this issue.
The Council, along with numerous church leaders, activists, academics, other faith groups and partner organisations, and sympathetic voices around the world, have repeatedly called for an independent judicial inquiry to be established into the events around 26 September when members of AbM were attacked and thousands displaced. This call has, to date, not been heeded by government.
The Council now calls upon our elected leaders to immediately intervene and to halt all further targeting of AbM; to immediately establish a judicial inquiry comprising independent voices, including representatives of the faith community and other civil organisations; and to immediately commence with investigations and the prosecutions of those who continue to harass, attack and threaten the lives and property of members of AbM.
The Council notes with deepest dismay the silence and inaction of government, of our city officials and of the local ANC leadership, and remain unconvinced that the same are not complicit in the orchestration and execution of the ongoing terrorisation, eviction and destruction which is being perpetrated in our informal settlements, including Kennedy Road, Motala Heights, Amaoti and Pemary Ridge, where AbM have established themselves democratically.
The Council is committed to the preservation of our democracy, for the sake of all South Africans.
Diakonia Council of Churches
21 November 2009
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