Moscow Anarchists Protest at South African Embassy

Libcom.org Jul 10 2010

Today (10 July) a group of anarchists stages a protest at the South
African embassy in Moscow. Their protest raised a number of issues related
to the World Cup and, also, the repression of Abahlali baseMjondolo. The
World Cup finishes on Sunday and the trial of 12 residents of the Kennedy
Road settlement begins on Monday. The 12 were arrested after spontaneous
resistance to a state backed attack on the movement was stopped by the
police. Their arrest and the legal protest afterwards have been highly
politicised.

Self defence is no offence.

This afternoon, about 13 hours, the South African Embassy in Moscow, a
small group of anarchists held an unauthorized picket in support of social
activists and residents of informal settlements in South Africa.
Participants unfurled a banner "No to repression against activists in
South Africa," had scattered leaflets in the open windows of the embassy
and lit the fireworks. On the banner was the emblem of the movement
represented "Abahlali baseMjondolo" ("Movement Shack Dwellers") - a
powerful grass-roots protest movement of the poor in South Africa, which
is subjected to repression.

Everyone managed to escape from the scene, and a banner left at the neck of
a perturbed police officer.

Text of leaflet:
No to repressions! STOP REPRESSIONS!!! No to repressions!!! STOP
REPRESSIONS!!!

We do this action in order to express solidarity with all oppressed people
in South Africa! Since the residents of informal settlements, are being
evicted in the transit camps «Blikkiesdorp», with informal traders, who
at the request of FIFA banned the trade during the World Cup in the tourist
areas. We express our solidarity with those whose voices are silenced and
silenced in the modern "democratic" South Africa - a movement "Abahlali
baseMjondolo" in Durban, which in September 2009 and underwent a planned
attack in the settlement, "Kennedy road".

We see how, after coming to power of the African National Congress, the
majority black population continues to live on the brink of
poverty.Deportations to concentration camps, the demolition of informal
settlements, forcing the poor as a class outside of the cities that are
intended elites should be a place of residence of the rich and the cradle
of their capital - that is what the ANC offers for their citizens who
fought for many years against apartheid and received in return a new
system of exploitation and oppression.

We want to remind the Government of South Africa that the whole world looks
up to you! As a long time ago, we express our protest, and his anger
policies of oppression and domination in the poorest residents of South
Africa.

With Anarchists
Moscow