SPEECH BY EXECUTIVE MAYOR ALDERMAN PATRICIA DE LILLE ON THE OCCASION OF THE SIGNING OF THE HANGBERG PEACE ACCORD, September 20 2011

The Premier of the Western Cape, Helen Zille,
The representative from SanParks,
The people of Hangberg,
The mediator, Brian Williams,
Officials,
Ladies and gentlemen.

We are honoured that you could join us here. For we come here today in the name of peace. We come here today in the name of healing. We come here today in the name of hope. We come here today for the future.

Emerging from the pain and the suffering of the past, we come to join hands. We come to move forward, together. This is a historic day for our city and for the people of Hangberg. Once more, they take their rightful place as a valued and recognised community in our metro.

Today marks the end of a complex peace process, one that has involved months of negotiations, delicate democratic processes and careful agreements. It is an end that brings together a range of diverse interests. It is an end that will ensure that we put violence behind us. It is an end that ensures the continued development of Hangberg.

This agreement will see those who live above the firebreak come down below the firebreak  and then back into the Hangberg community below the sloot. In so doing, they will ensure their safety and the safety of their community, especially against fires and floods.

Those who move beneath the firebreak will be encouraged to move into areas that we can provide services to before they move back into the Hangberg community below the sloot. Still others will move into new housing opportunities once developed. Others will receive the transfer of the 60 row houses after all legal processes have been completed.

The whole community will receive services. They will especially receive the benefits of the City's departments of Economic Development, Social Development, and Sports Departments, as well as the department of Human Settlements, to say nothing of general City Services. We have been engaged in mediation since November 2010.

That mediation was born from a web of illegal actions, violence and resistance. It was born from pain. But that pain was the culmination of a relationship that had broken down.

We know what we have lost. But now we must know what we have gained. For the first time in too long, the people of Hangberg and the City are talking to each other again. We are engaging each other as equal partners in the future.

Our new relationship will enable us to improve the lives of the people of Hangberg. That is the significance of the Peace and Mediation Accord that we sign today. There will be those who seek to prevent us from forging this bond. There are always those who selfishly benefit from chaos.

There are those whose interests are served by promoting illegal behaviour and unrest. They are the enemies of peace. But we will not be deterred by them. I ask you all to join me in signing today. Let our signatures be the pact that shows our commitment to each other. That commitment will let us build an inclusive city, together.

Issued by the Communication Department, City of Cape Town, September 20 2011

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