Wanza: Rondebosch Common just the beginning – 4 February 2012

We did not struggle against apartheid simply to install a democratically elected government and then return to our hovels, our ghettos and our miserable lives, says Mario Wanza, leader of the movement to occupy Rondebosch Common.

Nor did we struggle so that we could watch our elected representatives squander and loot our birthright, he says.

“When the people marched against PW Botha we did not forsee that 20 years later we would be dealing with a clone – Premier Helen Zille – who uses the self-same tactics of ciminalising the poor through her jack-booted Metro Police and eviction orders.

“The issue is equality. How do we bridge the divides between rich and poor, and between black and white? The only answer is: By living together. By integrating. By sharing. That was what was agreed in 1955, when we signed the Freedom Charter.

“But since 1994 only a few black people, who have ‘made it’, have managed to relocate from the ghettos to the suburbs, while the vast majority of the poor continue to live on the margins.

“This is why we are saying that Rondebosch Common must be used to house the poor. We are saying that the story government tells us, that there is a shortage of decent land in the Cape to build homes for the poor, is nonsense. Look at the land that is available in Constantia, in Bishopscourt, in Rondebosch. Are they saying that golf courses are more important than housing the poor?”

Instead of realising the vision of the Freedom Charter, South Africa had developed a value system driven by personal greed, Wanza said.

“This is not about party politics. It is about the greed of ANC and the DA politicians. They have failed the poor. We are pleading with the ANC to return to the people. And we are pleading with the DA to stop following the old National Party model of division.”

Wanza, a UDF activist in the 1980s and founding member of the Proudly Manenberg community organisation, was arrested at the end of January for organising what was declared by authorities an “illegal gathering”on Rondebosch Common. The protest was forcefully broken up by police.

The demonstrators, comprising members of organisations including Proudly Manenberg and Cosatu, returned to the Common on 4 February, and intended occupying other strategic land parcels in the days to come, Wanza said.

“I’m standing in Manenberg, looking across the Cape Flats towards UCT. I see lavish Constantia, Claremont and Newlands. All along the mountain is where the greed lives. It is time to integrate. How we get there is a conversation,” he said.