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eThekwini Municipality Fails to stop Communities |
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CCS supports the South Durban Community and Environmental Alliance, in
lobbying Transnet to halt an environmentally racist and climate-damaging
petroleum pipeline to Johannesburg. (CCS provided technical assistance
in SDCEA's Environmental Impact Assessment critique of the pipeline,
filed on 29 October 2008.)
The South Durban Community Environmental Alliance gathered outside the ICC Durban and picketed against Transnet and their plans to develop a multi products pipeline through poor communities with high industrial risk.
Transnet were guests at a Business Management meeting hosted by Absa. The SDCEA
The Durban Metropolitan Police Services denied permission for the protest the afternoon before it was scheduled despite their being informed two weeks and a half prior. This is in breech of regulations which say that they must give 24 hour notification of their decision. Furthermore, the reason given for the denial of the protest was that there would be insufficient resources to police a gathering. Police services however, were in full force for another event and could easily have demarked an area for protesters.
The government will not be allowed to close down our space to raise our
voices against unjust practices. Durban needs a police service that does not
criminalize the common people but rather support their right to stand up and
be heard. We are prepared to die to stop development that will impact on our health, security, livelihood and rights says Desmond D'Sa, SDCEA Coordinator.
The SDCEA is not alone in their cause to stop the pipeline. Some twenty
organizations that will be affected by development have joined their cause
to unite against development that they believe to be both unsustainable and
in full negation of human rights.
This pipeline is not apart of the lives and culture of the thousands of
Coloured, Indian and mostly Black people that it will affect. Transnet has
top engineers and high profit yields, yet still they intend to carry our
environmental racism against the poorer people in the south of Durban. It is
unacceptable and just as no one has stopped our right to protest, no one
will stop our rights to stop Transnet and their flawed EIA processes and
tactics explained Shirley Scullard, SDCEA Vice-Chairperson.
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