On 26 September 2009, it was reported that a violent group chanting ethnic, pro-ANC and threatening slogans attacked an Abahlali baseMjondolo Youth Meeting (AbM-YL) in the Kennedy Road informal settlement. The resulting violence left 2 people dead and hundreds or thousands displaced. Threatened with death, leadership of the AbM movement in Kennedy Road went into exile. Twelve members of the movement were arrested and charge with public violence and murder. Following the attack there was a controversial trial which was postponed many times amidst claims of political interference by ANC officials and framing by police and eventually thrown out of court.
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Attack on Kennedy Road Informal Settlement
On 26 September 2009, it was reported that at about 11 p.m. that evening a group of about 40 people entered the Kennedy Road informal settlement wielding guns and knives and attacked an Abahlali baseMjondolo youth meeting. The attackers chanted ethnic and pro-ANC slogans, demolished residents' homes and threatened to kill named individuals associated with Abahlali baseMjondolo. The attack was witnessed by the makers of the award winning film 'Dear Mandela'. At about 5 a.m. the next morning two people were killed. Many others were injured and displaced in conflict. According to an Abahlali baseMjondolo (ABM) press statement issued on 27 September 2009 "As far as we know two of the attackers were killed when people managed to take their bush knives off them. This was self defence." The next day, reports indicate that, in the presence of police, a number of homes of AbM members were demolished by the same mob and hundreds or thousands fled the settlement.
Claims of ANC complicity and involvement
It was reported by members of the Abahlali baseMjondolo movement that the attackers were affiliated with the local branch of the African National Congress and that the attack was carefully planned and sanctioned by the local police. However this has been denied by the ANC and the police who blame a 'forum' associated with Abahlali baseMjondolo for the violence. However academic research confirms that the attackers did self identify as ANC members and that ANC leaders at Municipal and Provincial level later provided public sanction for the attack.
The Mail & Guardian newspaper described the attack on Kennedy Road as a "hatchet job" and reported that "Two weeks earlier, eThekwini (Durban) regional chairperson John Mchunu, addressing the ANC's regional general council, had specifically condemned the ABM for trying to divide the tripartite alliance" and that an ANC source had confirmed there "was a battle for the hearts and minds of the people of Kennedy Road ... There is a political twist to this thing." The Mercury newspaper later reported that "The chairperson of the ANC's biggest and most influential region in KwaZulu-Natal, John Mchunu, has been awarded tenders [in housing construction] worth at least R40-million by the eThekwini municipality." Abahlali baseMjondolo claims to have been at the "forefront of exposing local government corruption, especially in the allocation of housing."
The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Safety and Security held meetings for stakeholders after the attack however these were condemned as unrepresentative by church leaders, AbM representatives and a survey by the Mail and Guardian Newspaper which described them as "a sham". AbM said that they are victims of a 'purge' and that they refused to sit side by side with their attackers and have called for an independent investigation into the attacks that should "in the interests of justice and truth, carefully and fairly investigate the actions of everyone, including the local and provincial ANC, the police, the intelligence services, the prosecutors, the courts and our movement, its various sub-committees and our supporters."
Following the attack AbM and the KRDC, democratically elected structures, were removed from the settlement and the provincial government replaced these structures with an unelected ANC affiliated Community Policing Forum. According to the Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa it seems that the attacks "were orchestrated by the local branch of the ANC, with police complicity and most likely with provincial ANC endorsement."
It has been suggested that the ethnic aspect of the attacks are linked to the use of ethnic mobilisation by Jacob Zuma. It has also been suggested that the successful challenge by Abahlali baseMjondolo to the so-called 'Slums Act' in the Constitutional Court was a factor in the attacks.
Human rights violations
The attacks garnered national and international condemnation with some people labelling the events a 'coup'. Churches also issued statements of condemnation.
A number of well known intellectuals, including Noam Chomsky, expressed concern about the attacks and Human Rights Watch, the Centre for the Study of Democracy, The Norwegian Centre for Human Rights and Amnesty International supported the call for an independent commission of inquiry into the attacks. The government ignored this call.
The Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions in Geneva issued a statement that expressed "grave concern about reports of organized intimidation and threats to members of advocacy group, Abahlali baseMjondolo."
The Kennedy 12 court case
Following the attacks at Kennedy Road, 13 members of Abahlali baseMjondolo were arrested. No members of the mob that attacked the AbM meeting were arrested. The case of one of the defendants was withdrawn while the other 12 defendants had their bail applications postponed for a number of months and the trial postponed for over a year resulting in claims of political interference. The remaining 5 defendants were refused bail for a total of 10 months until the magistrate condemned the prosecutor and police's recurring delays. Churches, academics and human rights organisations expressed considerable about the legal process of the Kennedy 12 trialists. The New York-based Centre for Constitutional Rights sent an urgent appeal to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders to ask her to investigate the attacks on Abahlali baseMjondolo and the consequent legal process. Amnesty International expressed concern about the legal process.
The Kennedy 12 trial was compared to other civil rights trials and Paul Trewhela has underlined the importance of the political nature of the trial saying that "The AbM trial in Durban/eThekwini is now the most graphic faultline in the struggle to preserve democratic freedoms in South Africa"
On 18 July 2011, the case against the 12 accused members of Abahlali baseMjondolo was thrown out of court without the defence having to lead any evidence. The Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa issued a statement saying that the "charges were based on evidence which now appears almost certainly to have been manufactured" and that the Magistrate had described the state witnesses as "“belligerent”, “unreliable” and “dishonest”. The organisation also noted that one witness had reported being tortured by the police and that another had reported death threats and an assault by ANC members. Amnesty International noted that the court had found that "police had directed some witnesses to point out members of Abahlali-linked organizations at the identification parade".
According to Paul Trewhela "The scandal is that this political prosecution was ever instituted in the first place, and that it was dragged on, month after month, by magistrates, prosecution and police without a shred of reliable evidence - with plentiful evidence, rather, of manipulation and intimidation of witnesses by the police and local ANC structures."
Abahlali baseMjondolo is currently suing the police for the failure to intervene in the attacks.