Mondli Hlatshwayo, Johannesburg
Khanya College, one of South Africa's leading left-wing labour movement support organisations, and the Workers Library are fighting attempts to evict them from their historic premises in Johannesburg's Newtown arts precinct.
At the end of last year, the Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA), a company established by the African National Congress-controlled Johannesburg City Council, ordered the Workers' Library and Khanya College to vacate the old municipal workers' compound in Newtown by the end of March.
The eviction order was illegal because the lease agreement between the Workers Library, Khanya College and the Johannesburg City Council stipulates that there has to be negotiations before any changes in the lease.
The Workers' Library and Khanya College are independent organisations that have worked with the organisations of the working class and the poor since the 1980s. The two organisations use the old compound for offices, a library and museum, and as a venue for social movement and trade union activists to meet.
The Workers Library and Khanya College have developed the compound, which once housed black council workers, without assistance from the city council and have also submitted the long-term plans to the JDA.
The intention to evict Khanya College and the Workers Library is part of a general attack on the working class and the poor by the city council.
The JDA and the "red ants", overall-clad private security thugs, have evicted artists, homeless people and organisations that work with the poor. The council's police are often directed against so-called illegals, fuelling xenophobia and violence. Hawkers have been pushed off the streets and into expensive market areas.
The poor are being pushed out to make way for housing for the better-off.
A campaign has been launched to demand that the eviction of Khanya College and the Workers' Library be halted, that they be granted a long-term lease and that the Johannesburg council and the JDA stop all forms of evictions and harassment of the poor. International solidarity is welcome: Please send messages of support to <Mondli.Hlatshwayo@khanyacollege.org.za>.
From Green Left Weekly, April 7, 2004.
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