Last Thursday March and March attacked us – all documented refugees – who have been forced to live on Che Guevara Road since 22 May. We spent the whole winter living outside on the road after being forced from our homes and having our businesses seized or destroyed by fascist mobs. Two of us have died on the road. We were initially promised temporary shelter at North Beach next to the Elangeni tent and others at Mansel Road but when we arrived at the temporary shelter we were driven out by the fascist mobs. We then went to the Durban Central Police Station seeking protection from the police. They brutally attacked us.
Since we were displaced from our homes March and March, accompanied by the uMkhonto weSizwe Party, have repeatedly tried to attack us. Last Thursday they came to Che Guevara Road, armed as they always are, and accompanied by the police. When they arrived the police tried to keep a line between them and us but they pushed the police out of the way and attacked us. After they attacked us the police intervened with stun grenades, etc. March and March should never have been allowed to gather and proceed to Che Guevara Road while openly carrying weapons. The police should never have allowed them to come so close to us. They should have been kept at least 200 metres away from us.
Now March and March say that they will return to Che Guevara Road tomorrow for another ‘cleanup operation’. Unless the state acts to stop them they will arrive with weapons and they will attack us again. They are also demanding that we be deported and the ‘legal arm’ that they have set up after their meeting with AfriForum says that it will take legal action to ensure that we are deported. This will never happen. It would be a gross violation of international and national law to deport documented refugees.
The state continues to demand that we either return to the communities from which we were violently expelled or be taken to Lindela, the migrant detention centre. Some of us have agreed to accept being taken to Lindela, something that the government has pushed and the UNHCR has agreed to.
The premier says that we must be assisted to ‘go back home’. We are refugees and cannot go back to the countries from which we fled due to wars. We cannot go back to the communities from which we were expelled as we will come under attack again. March and March say that they will mobilise every Thursday until the election in November, which means that until November we will not be safe.
What those of us who do not want to go to Lindela are asking for is safe, temporary accommodation and a clear commitment from government to act against the forces that have attacked us and plan to do so again. If the attacks stop after the election then it may be possible for us to return to living in the communities from which we were displaced or find other communities where we can live.
The government must instruct the police to:
- Ensure that March and March are prevented from gathering and marching with weapons.
- Ensure that March and March are kept at least 200 metres away from us at all times.
The government also needs to make it very clear to everyone that we are all documented refugees who are in the country legally and that it is the people who have attacked us, driven us from our homes and destroyed or seized our businesses who are breaking the law and that the demand that we be forcibly ‘repatriated’ is a demand that is in violation of the law.
We are also calling on the media to please ensure that we are also interviewed and that it is not only March and March that are granted the right to speak, that we are allowed to clearly explain our situation, that it is made clear that we are legally in South Africa and that it is the demand by March and March that we be deported that is illegal, that it is illegal for March and March to carry weapons and that March and March have repeatedly attacked us. We are also calling on the media to refrain from uncritically using the language of March and March by, for example, calling an attack on us a ‘cleanup operation’. Finally, it is important that the media stop saying that all the refugees who have been living on Che Guevara Road are Congolese. We are refugees from seven different countries.
We are in a desperate situation and are calling for all progressive forces, all human rights organisations and monitors, all people of good conscience and all Muslim and Christian leaders to be with us on Thursday and to form a human chain around us. We are appealing directly to the South African Council of Churches to mobilise their affiliates to protect us.
Bishop Raphael Bahebwa
068 226 9355
Kafuti Muyumba
0754668269
