Africa-Press – South-Africa. For an hour, newly appointed City of Johannesburg Mayor Dada Morero was holed up in what is known as The White House – a tent in front of the Eldorado Park police station – while community members yelled over him.
Scores of people were squeezed into the 5m x 6m enclosure in the midday heat. Temperatures reached 32 degrees Celsius.
Morero joked about his height at Monday’s swearing-in ceremony for members of the mayoral committee (MMC), as speaker Colleen Makhubele towered over most of them.
“There is a height issue in this council,” the mayor said. “We’ve got a speaker who’s supposed to conduct oversight – we have struck a balance – she will perform her duties easily, keep us on our toes and conduct the necessary oversight.”
Makhubele then responded:
That is really the long and short of it.After they were sworn in, the new MMCs went to Eldorado Park, which has been plagued by gang violence for years.
For the last 29 days, The White House has been home to residents who are too afraid to sleep at home during a particularly brutal period of infighting between rival gangs in a drug turf war.
Twenty young people have been killed in the past three months. They were either targeted directly or caught in the crossfire.
In 2013, former president Jacob Zuma and his Cabinet arrived in the area to meet with the community.
They promised to create a national anti-drug blueprint from the solutions they would bring to the community.
Today, however, the issues are still the same.
Morero made the social issues in Eldorado Park a priority on his long list of problems to fix in the City.
Eldorado Local Drug Action Committee chairperson Cheryl Pillay shouted into the microphone: “We’re sleeping in this tent because it’s not safe to sleep at home anymore – it’s safer to stay at the police station at night.
“Mothers are having to go and identify their children by their hands and feet because their faces are blown away.”
Anti-drug activist Dereleen Jame was in tears.
Graffiti representing the 20 youths killed in the Eldorado Park gang violence in the last three-months, decorates the road outside the police station in the south of Johannesburg. News24 Alex Patrick “Why have you discriminated against us? Why have you forsaken us – for 10 years we’ve been dealing with this.”
“People here are afraid to come forward in case they are targeted by gangs, but they know who [the perpetrators are]’,” James continued.
“When [former] president Jacob Zuma came here, he promised Eldos would be the blueprint for the drug master plan.
She asked:
Is blood on the streets the blueprint for a national plan?According to James, when the community asked previous multiparty government leader Mpho Phalatse to intervene, they were told the national or provincial government would deal with most of their issues.
James said the community was taking lessons from the Khoisan representatives who camped on the lawn of the Union Buildings in Pretoria for almost four years while they waited for the government to meet demands related to their heritage in the country.
Like the Khoisan representatives, members of the Eldorado Park community intend to stay at the site until they feel safe.
Addressing the community, Morero promised that the Johannesburg Roads Association would be in the area next week to inspect the roads.
He said next Friday and every week after that, MMCs would report back to the community about the progress in addressing infrastructure issues.
He added that the derelict swimming pool, which has become a den for gangsters, would be torn down.
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