comunicato stampa dei senza terra del NATIONAL LAND COMMITTEE & LANDLESS PEOPLE’S MOVEMENT, dopo l'arresto dei 73 attivisti.

NATIONAL LAND COMMITTEE & LANDLESS PEOPLE’S MOVEMENT



Joint Press Statement

‘Brutal clampdown on fundamental freedoms of Landless People on the eve of the WSSD!’

Approximately 3000 landless people from around Gauteng peacefully gathered at Premier Mbazima Shilowa’s offices in Simmonds Street yesterday, the 21st of August 2002,
to hand over a memorandum calling for an end to the apartheid- style forced removals of urban informal settlement dwellers in the province. Instead of being responded to,
73 of the protesters, including the media consultant to the LPM and NLC, were arrested late yesterday evening.

The NLC’s Director, Zakes Hlatshwayo, Land Rights Co- ordinator, Andile Mngxitama, Gauteng LPM leader, Maureen Mnisi, and media advisor, Ann Eveleth, were among
those who were arrested between yesterday and this morning. Ann Eveleth, a United States citizen is being threatened with immediate deportation on grounds still yet
unknown.

The NLC and LPM unequivocably denounce these arrests, and condemn the ongoing and deliberate destabilization of the LPM’s organizing activities and gradual
intimidation of its leadership. We find these vicious attacks on the LPM as a direct clampdown on the fundamental freedoms of poor people of South Africa to express
themselves through public protest, and tantamount to the kind of brutalities inflicted on the dispossessed masses during the dark days of apartheid. Clearly the SA
government through these merciless actions intend to crack down on any form of protest action, peaceful or not, in order to show the rest of the world that are here for the
WSSD that poverty and landlessness do not exist in the country.

The NLC and the LPM demand the immediate release of the ‘WSSD 72’, and further appeal to our international comrades to highlight and publicize the rising tide of state
repression currently underway in the ‘new’ South Africa.

Issued by: the Landless People’s Movement and National Land Committee on the 22nd of August 2002

For more information contact:

1.NLC Director, Zakes Hlatshwayo on 083 4596274
2.NLC Board member, Marc Wegerif on 082 4523861
3.National Land Committee on 011- 403 3803