Pretoria - The EFF in Tshwane has vowed to intensify its programme of land occupation in the municipality despite mayor Randall Williams condemning the political party for being behind last week’s illegal land grab in Ga-Rankuwa.
In addition, the party said it would assemble a team of lawyers to defend the landless people, who ended up being arrested and dragged to court for illegal land occupation.
The stance by the EFF was expressed after the Tshwane Metro Police Department last week swiftly acted against illegal land occupiers in Ga-Rankuwa, resulting in the arrest of a party PR councillor.
Williams applauded the metro police for speedily responding to the attempted land invasions.
EFF regional leader Obakeng Ramabodu accused Williams of peddling “unsubstantiated lies” about land occupation in Ga-Rankuwa and other areas.
Williams said: “Our metro police responded to an attempted land grab in Ga-Rankuwa, where 11 incomplete structures had been re-erected following the removal of 17 structures at the same location two weeks prior.
“During the demolition operation, a group of aggrieved EFF members threatened and hurled stones at metro police officers and our service providers.”
According to him, the group was eventually dispersed by the metro police with rubber bullets, which allowed the officers to stop the illegal land grab.
“Following this, the groups’ leader, an EFF PR councillor, was arrested and detained at the Ga-Rankuwa police station after the metro officers found unlicensed live ammunition,” said Williams.
In response Ramabodu said: “Tshwane EFF wish to state clearly and vociferously that the mayor is misinformed about land occupation developments in Ga-Rankuwa.
“Following a baseless arrest of the EFF PR councillor co-ordinating the land occupation programme in Ga-Rankuwa, the case was struck off the roll because there was no crime committed by the councillor and the residents.”
He said the EFF and the residents would not back down “on the programme of land occupation until the vast majority of our people feel decent and dignified in getting back our land which was taken through violence, subjugation, dispossession and the deceitful acts of the coloniser”.
He questioned why Africans were labelled as land grabbers or invaders of the birthright of their motherland.
“The land belongs to the people of Tshwane, therefore we will not invade but occupy it because it is our land.
“The mere perception of referring to Africans who rightfully occupy the land that belongs to them as invaders is malicious, discourteous and insults the intelligence of all African people stripped of their land by imperial and colonial forces,” Ramabodu said.
He also lamented the fact that many aspiring business entrepreneurs in the townships of Hammanskraal, Soshanguve, Mabopane and many other areas “have no land to establish their businesses, while capitalists own big hectares of land used as game farms for only one ostrich and a zebra”.
Last week, metro police carried out another operation at the Melgisedek Building in Capital Park and demolished another 11 illegal structures after notices were issued.
Pretoria News