Lwandle Evictions in Cape Town

ANC-DA Axis of Evil and the Lwandle Evictions in Cape Town

Today, the 2nd of June 2014, as I am sitting on my desk minding my own business and browsing

the latest news headlines on Twitter, one unbelievable hashtag hits me hard and very shockingly

so (#Lwandle). The South African National Roads Limited (Sanral), a South African government’s

national roads urgency is evicting people from “illegally” erected shacks from Sanral’s land in a

black township known as Lwandle on the outskirts of Somerset in Cape Town. What really disturbed

me even more about this is that, today the temperature being 16 degrees and the 60% predicted

rain already pouring, I know how exactly how it would feel to be outside and with nowhere to go. I

know this because I am here in Cape Town permanently for the past 17 years. Cape winters are the

harshest and the least forgiving in South Africa.


The feelings of disbelief and shock are brought by the vivid memories of my personal experiences of

such evictions between 1983/4 in what was known as Old Crossroads in Cape Town. I feel and react

in that way because, in my forgiving heart and ideal thought, after the Marikana Massacre, I did not

expect the ANC to pull another Verwoerd-Botha on our people. “Not so soon” I murmur to myself.

While still confused about what message is the ANC sending to the voters who gave them a fresh

governing mandate just 26 days earlier, I come across something even worse. 


The ANC faithful, loyalists and diehards are already riding the social media wave accusing and

demonising the DA and its voters for these evictions. At this stage I could not sit around and do,

or at least say nothing. This paper is my response to the confused and misguided ANC faithful,

loyalists and diehards who continue to spread deceit, lies, untruths and half truths about the callous

behaviour of their own party towards poor blacks. On February 14 Sanral had obtained a court order

to evict these poor landless blacks from what is fundamentally state land. However, because we

were so close to a general election, executing the court order on time would have caused serious

backlash for the ANC, especially in the Western Cape where they were looking to topple the DA from

power. It had to be postponed until after election.

Even more worth noting, when the ANC agreed to the property clause during Codesa, it failed to

demand a moratorium on evictions until there is a properly balanced land policy accommodating

the land owners, and more so the landless. It failed to demand this even though the majority of its

constituency was landless blacks all over South Africa. This is where the ANC sacrificed poor landless

blacks at the altar of power. This is where the Lwandle evictions were agreed to between the ANC

and the Apartheid government and “landowners” largely represented by the DA today. When the

ANC assumed political power since 1994, it became government charged with formulating and

implementing policy nationally. Provinces had limitations to intervene in matters administered by

the national sphere of government. 


Now Sanral, an ANC national government roads agency is evicting poor landless blacks in the heart

of the Western Cape, where it failed to win power from the DA which has ruled the province since

2009. As Sanral is a national government entity, it is executing a transportation policy of the ANC. It

is the ANC that has brought us Sanral. Therefore, evictions have become a policy of the ANC through

various state agencies including the Department of Minerals and Energy. However, because DA

does not regard blacks as natural citizens of the Western Cape Province, and it has been busy with

its own evictions against blacks for a while, it had to congratulate the ANC for a job well done for

today’s evictions. And it did as City of Cape Town human settlements MMC Siyabulela Mamkeli said

after these evictions today: “The City cannot incentivise illegal land invasion by providing alternative

accommodation as we have a duty to protect the rights of those people who are on the housing

waiting list”.


ANC loyalists would do well to understand that the Lwandle evictions serve two purposes for the

ANC. One, is to punish the poor landless for its own failure to topple the DA from power in the

Western Cape. The Cape winter has ensured that these poor people feel the ANC wrath and do

not forget it soon. The timing and weather were perfected to engrave this in their minds and their

hearts. Secondly, when shove comes to push, the ANC shall and will always sacrifice poor blacks to

meet and protect the needs and demands of white capital to protect its narrow power interests.

The Evil Axis of Power and Capital are well presented and well presented by the ANC-DA Axis of Evil.


Mandla Magidela