Ota Benga Alliance For Peace, Healing and Dignity

On 17 January 2010 12:46, Ernest Wamba dia Wamba wrote:
Dear All,
I just returned from the culte d'action de grace for Haiti at the Centre Kimbanguiste (at Force Publique et Sao, commune de Kasa Vubu) in Kinshasa. It was very moving. First, the crowd was immense, mostly women as is often the case (it was the women who had the courage to go first to Jesus's tomb).  read more »

13 Jan 2010

To all those who have lost loved ones, please accept our most sincere condolences. Our deepest sympathies to the entire Haitian population and in particular to those who, prior to the earthquake were already suffering too much, simply because they were continuing a struggle started more than two centuries ago. To those who departed, we wish them eternal peace and the most warm welcome by the Creator and the ancestors.  read more »

Dearest Friends,

Like many people in South Africa and around the world, I am still stunned by what has been done to the people living at the Kennedy Road Settlement in Durban.

From 2005, AbM seems to have managed to overcome many obstacles, but, or so it seems, it has not been able (yet) to overcome the biggest one, namely appearing to be giving a lesson in emancipatory politics to the ANC.  read more »

Sowetan, Soweto, South Africa, 15th October 2009
A Constitutional Court ruling against a section of the Slums Act will prevent mass evictions in a “clean-up” before the 2010 Soccer World, the Black Sash rights group says.

“I hope this judgment sends a very clear message to all the other provinces that might try to copy this law particularly in their haste to ’clean up’ before the World Cup,” said Evashnee Naidu, regional director for the Black Sash in KwaZulu-Natal.  read more »

MAIL & GUARDIAN, JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA Oct 14 2009 13:55 The Constitutional Court ruled on Wednesday that a law that would have allowed mass evictions in KwaZulu-Natal was unconstitutional.

"I conclude that Section 16 of the Slums Act is inconsistent with the Constitution and invalid," Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke said.

"The appeal is upheld."  read more »

Dearest Friends,  read more »

Dearest Friends,

Warmest greetings to all.

In times like these you must be like the person on a not well traveled road who has had a serious breakdown and is wondering when help will appear. Changes in the wind sound like some car/hope in the distance.  read more »

Dear Friends, Foes and all those in between,

Before May 2008, we only knew of Abahlalibase Mjondolo. (AbM), then
in May 2008, we met members of Abahalalibase Mjondolo, at the Kennedy Road Settlement. Each one spoke, expressing in various ways the meaning of emancipatory politics; and then, the next day, we met again with S’bu Zikode, the President of AbM.

After he described the situation in which they were living, we asked what was the way out. “Healing” he responded.  read more »

In South Africa, shackdwellers are under attack. The story was recently covered on the US based DemocracyNow!, and there is a petition to sign in support of the shackdwellers below this heart-breaking video of S'bu Zikode, one of the movement's leaders, recorded in hiding and in fear of his life.  read more »