Community split over Mid-Ennerdale Primary School attack

The ongoing violence over a lack of housing in greater Johannesburg finally split a community when protesters threatened to burn Mid-Ennerdale Primary School – and parents and other community members thronged to protect it.

And yesterday, messages circulating on social media have warned the protest will shut down Eldorado Park, Ennerdale and Finetown as frustration – or criminality, depending on who’s talking – reaches its peak.

Yesterday started predictably enough, with tyres burning and rocks strewn across side roads off the R558 main road through Ennerdale, and police in pursuit of stone-throwing protesters, who “just want land, so we can live”, according to one.

Local ward councillor Danny Netnow, who has been the target of residents’ ire for allegedly not engaging with them, told The Citizen yesterday all local government needed was a little time.

“At this moment, the protest is not about service delivery, it’s purely criminal. I’m working with the Ennerdale Stakeholders Association,” said Netnow.

He said at a meeting between city officials and the association on Tuesday it was agreed that residents were frustrated.

“The agreement they made was that because the new leaders of the city had only been in their posts for six months, they feel it’s unfair to put all the issues of the past on them,” Netnow said.

The City of Johannesburg speaker Vasco da Gama now has a two-week deadline in order to advise the community of what its plan is for the way forward, Netnow said, and in return the protest would be suspended. Netnow blamed “looters” for holding a meeting last night and calling for the action to continue and called the protest “sheer criminality”.

Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba said yesterday he had met with a number of community members, activists and civic groups.

Mashaba said he would be meeting with the Minister of Human Settlements, Lindiwe Sisulu, Gauteng MEC for cooperative governance and traditional affairs and human settlements, Paul Mashatile, and Tshwane mayor Solly Msimanga to “discuss the challenges faced by the community of Eldorado Park and others like it”.

He promised feedback soon.

And while the talks continue, the protest rages on, with at least one man, believed to be Elton McClaire, alleged to have suffered a tear gas projectile to the face. He was believed to be in hospital yesterday.

Others claimed police were being heavy-handed and fired tear gas and rubber bullets indiscriminately, one of which allegedly cracked a protester’s windscreen.

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