A crowd of angry Hout Bay residents shouted down Premier Helen Zille, gave her the middle finger and then came close to lunging at her on Friday night at a rowdy community meeting to discuss housing.
Police had to form a human chain to protect Zille and mayor Dan Plato from the crowd. The meeting lasted 30 minutes before Zille was whisked away.
The meeting was held with residents of Hangberg - a poor community living above Hout Bay harbour - to discuss the illegal erection of informal structures on the Sentinel, a world heritage site.
The 500-odd residents who attended the meeting in the Hangberg Sports Complex turned hostile towards Zille 10 minutes after the meeting started.
The hall has no stage and Zille and Plato were separated from the gathering only by a lectern. As the mood darkened, people stood up and gesticulated wildly, made threatening gestures and inched closer to Zille and Plato.
Police officers then formed a human chain to prevent some in the audience from getting to Zille.
Before the meeting police had searched every person for weapons with a metal detector.
The meeting began fairly calmly after 6pm, but when the premier raised the matter of demolishing the illegal structures the gathering turned hostile.
The trouble started after Zille said that the land invaders should demolish their own structures, but when they loudly declined to do so, she said the authorities would "break them down".
As the gathering became rowdier, Zille took a hard stance, threatening to scrap a City of Cape Town upgrade that had been on the cards for Hangberg for three years.
She said that although the provincial government was keen to go ahead with the project, it could not do so until the illegal structures had been demolished.
She accused residents of "not holding up their end of the deal" because they had not yet formed a representative committee and had erected informal structures on Hangberg's firebreak and the Sentinel nature reserve despite requests not to do so.
"We've got the message loud and clear," she said. "You don't want to stand by your side of the agreement and you clearly don't want the development, so we will walk away from it."
With the audience in an uproar, Zille struggled to be heard.
Community leaders tried to urge the audience to calm down, but this only fuelled their anger.
A South African Communist Party leader in Hout Bay, Barry Mitchell, had to be restrained when he tried to speak to the crowd.
"There is no point in continuing this meeting because nobody can be heard," said Zille, barely audible over the commotion. "I'm afraid we are now going to have to draw the line."
With that, Zille left, followed by Plato and her entourage, and was whisked out by a back entrance.
Residents fumed as they left the meeting, saying they had not been given a chance to speak.
Community leaders criticised Zille after the meeting, saying she had not come to listen to the community's concerns, but rather "dictate" what would happen in Hangberg. "You can't come into a community with a BMW, bodyguards and a large contingent of police," said Mitchell. "The premier speaks, but she doesn't give an opportunity for the voices of the community to be heard."
Another community representative, Kevin Davids, said Zille was only infuriating people further.
And he warned that if the authorities arrived on Monday to demolish the shacks, "there will be trouble".
"When they come to break down people's homes, there will be trouble. We're will burn tyres, we will fight the police, we will not allow them to break down our people's homes," he said.
The role players plan to meet again tomorrow to discuss the way forward.
- Cape Argus
Police had to form a human chain to protect Zille and mayor Dan Plato from the crowd. The meeting lasted 30 minutes before Zille was whisked away.
The meeting was held with residents of Hangberg - a poor community living above Hout Bay harbour - to discuss the illegal erection of informal structures on the Sentinel, a world heritage site.
The 500-odd residents who attended the meeting in the Hangberg Sports Complex turned hostile towards Zille 10 minutes after the meeting started.
The hall has no stage and Zille and Plato were separated from the gathering only by a lectern. As the mood darkened, people stood up and gesticulated wildly, made threatening gestures and inched closer to Zille and Plato.
Police officers then formed a human chain to prevent some in the audience from getting to Zille.
Before the meeting police had searched every person for weapons with a metal detector.
The meeting began fairly calmly after 6pm, but when the premier raised the matter of demolishing the illegal structures the gathering turned hostile.
The trouble started after Zille said that the land invaders should demolish their own structures, but when they loudly declined to do so, she said the authorities would "break them down".
As the gathering became rowdier, Zille took a hard stance, threatening to scrap a City of Cape Town upgrade that had been on the cards for Hangberg for three years.
She said that although the provincial government was keen to go ahead with the project, it could not do so until the illegal structures had been demolished.
She accused residents of "not holding up their end of the deal" because they had not yet formed a representative committee and had erected informal structures on Hangberg's firebreak and the Sentinel nature reserve despite requests not to do so.
"We've got the message loud and clear," she said. "You don't want to stand by your side of the agreement and you clearly don't want the development, so we will walk away from it."
With the audience in an uproar, Zille struggled to be heard.
Community leaders tried to urge the audience to calm down, but this only fuelled their anger.
A South African Communist Party leader in Hout Bay, Barry Mitchell, had to be restrained when he tried to speak to the crowd.
"There is no point in continuing this meeting because nobody can be heard," said Zille, barely audible over the commotion. "I'm afraid we are now going to have to draw the line."
With that, Zille left, followed by Plato and her entourage, and was whisked out by a back entrance.
Residents fumed as they left the meeting, saying they had not been given a chance to speak.
Community leaders criticised Zille after the meeting, saying she had not come to listen to the community's concerns, but rather "dictate" what would happen in Hangberg. "You can't come into a community with a BMW, bodyguards and a large contingent of police," said Mitchell. "The premier speaks, but she doesn't give an opportunity for the voices of the community to be heard."
Another community representative, Kevin Davids, said Zille was only infuriating people further.
And he warned that if the authorities arrived on Monday to demolish the shacks, "there will be trouble".
"When they come to break down people's homes, there will be trouble. We're will burn tyres, we will fight the police, we will not allow them to break down our people's homes," he said.
The role players plan to meet again tomorrow to discuss the way forward.
- Cape Argus
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