Open Letter To Ethekwini Mayor and City Manager
On Saturday December 3rd, the international day for a climate action march, the 500 strong Democratic Left Front contingent made up of activists from different parts of the country, arrived at the Botha Park Assembly point with its banners demanding: ‘1 Million Climate Jobs Now!’ ‘Africa is Burning, Transform the System!’ and
‘Listen to the People!’. Our red t-shirts said the same thing.

Our activists also prepared their own posters the night before. We had our own marshals and sound system. We were unarmed and intent on acting peacefully.

We were participating in the march to peacefully condemn the ruling elites who are obsessed with profit making market mechanisms as the solution to the climate crisis. Such solutions have not worked, will not work and are taking all of humanity closer to planetary destruction.

We were also there to celebrate and amplify the call of other components of the climate justice movements for genuine alternatives like 100% renewable energy, binding and ambitious emission reduction targets, climate jobs, food sovereignty, mass public transport systems, the rights of nature and the vindication of climate debt.

On arrival at the assembly point at 9.30am we were physically attacked by a group of 150 youth. Our posters were torn and our banners were also pulled down.

We were also pelted with stones and bottles. In this context we defended and restrained ourselves.

The police stood by and watched. (The story of this violence and intimidation was covered in the Mail and Guardian online weekly.) Our  attackers wore green tracksuits and hats that were branded with the  Ethekwini Municipality logo.

The tracksuits also explicitly stated these were volunteers for COP17. It turns out that this was standard gear issued by the City to COP17 volunteers and such volunteers were meant to assist visitors to the City.

These volunteers were meant to be the goodwill ambassadors of the City and of South Africa.

We would like to pose the following questions to the Mayor and City Manager of Ethekwini (Durban) Metropolitan Council:
(i) Why were these volunteers, who were meant to be busy with organizing COP17, allowed on to the march?
(ii) Based on our investigations it was established that these were a group of special volunteers linked to the Mayor’s office and were paid by the City. Why did the City leadership instruct these volunteers to physically attack us and constantly disrupt the march?
(iii) Why were these volunteers brandishing ANC banners, posters (100% Zuma) and ANC paraphernalia when they were meant to be non-party
aligned?
(iv) Why should we not ask the Public Protector to investigate you for abusing public finance to fund an ANC goon squad?

The physical attack we endured was more than an attack on the DLF. It was an attack on our democracy, on our democratic rights and freedoms we have as citizens to assemble and to protest peacefully.

With the world watching, the City of Durban has embarrassed South Africa and has shown to the world the ugly side of how the ANC rules.

The climate crisis will worsen in South Africa and the world, but be assured at every moment we will be using our democratic freedoms and rights to
struggle for climate justice and transformative solutions.

Mazibuko Jara 0836510271 and Vishwas Satgar 082 775 3420
For The Democratic Left Front National Convening Committee Addition:
On the 8th of December at the Durban City Hall at a so called ‘consultation’ between President Zuma and civil society, activists also suffered violent attacks and intimidation by the green goons employed by the Durban City Council as volunteers.

Activists were not allowed to wear t-shirts, carry placards or even their banners.
Instead a climate of fear was created inside the City Hall and civil society voices were essentially stage managed or selectively chosen to vocalize their concerns.
See the video of the green goon attacks on activists inside the City Hall.

MAIL&GUARDIAN online

COP17 protesters to lay charges after march attack

NIREN TOLSI – Dec 04 2011 20:41

“They were [saying to] us: ‘How much money must I pay for your bitches?’ Both the marshals and the fellows in green [tracksuits with the COP17 volunteers' logo] were saying this. We were angry, very angry’,” said Mercia Andrews of the Rural Women’s Assembly (RWA).
Andrews was recounting her experience and that of her fellow RWA activists after they had been moved behind a group of COP17 volunteers during yesterday’s civil society march on COP17 in Durban who had abused and intimidated them.

The organisation had been moved forward to act as a “buffer zone” between the Democratic Left Front (DLF) and what appeared to be agent provocateurs who, the Civil Society Committee for COP17 is alleging, were ANC members planted at the march by the local eThekwini Municipality so as to disrupt it. The green-suited group of about 300 people engaged in skirmishes and threw projectiles at members of civil society before the march had begun.

The Civil Society Committee and members of the DLF confirmed to the media on Sunday that they intended opening criminal cases against those individuals alleged to have set fire to DLF members’ placards and to have attacked them with water bottles and stones.

The DLF’s Vishwas Satgar also confirmed that the organisation would approach the office of the public protector Thuli Madonsela, to “investigate what we endured, which appears to be the use of public funds by this government to attack us”.

A complaint with the police’s Internal Complaints Directorate would also be lodged, because of the “police’s failure to act against what amounted to sustained and provocation and abuse”, said Satgar.

‘Major failure of the police’
According to a statement released by the committee, “a group of about 300 protesters, dressed in official COP17 volunteer uniforms, tore up placards [and] physically threatened and attacked activists participating in the march. In spite of heavy police presence throughout the march, including mounted police, riot police, air-patrol … snipers and requests to address this disruption, police did not take any action. This was a major failure of the police to act to prevent this group from destabilising the march and injuring other activists.”
“The threatening behaviour during the march yesterday constitutes an attack on democracy and cannot be tolerated”, the statement continued.
Satgar confirmed that one DLF member had injured his arm and received medical attention at a local hospital.

GroundWork’s Bobby Peek said the incident, which directly affected civil society’s constitutional right to protest, reflected badly not just on the municipality and South African government but also the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, because those in COP17 volunteer gear that had disrupted the march were associated with all of these organisations.
Their actions were “directly contradictory to what [COP17 president and international relations minister] Maite Nkoana-Mashabane and [UNFCCC's] Christiana Figueres told us when we accepted the memorandum — which they would engage with us”.

‘Unnecessary violence’
The green track-suited volunteers who descended on the march had initially tried to take over at its head before being sent to the back. While other activists were gathering and organising before the march started on Saturday morning, the “volunteers” situated themselves ahead of the DLF in the march.

The Mail & Guardian witnessed verbal provocation and the throwing of stones and water bottles at the DLF activists before the march began. Provocation continued for about half the time of the five-hour march.
Volunteers interviewed by the M&G said they were there “in support of COP17″ and to “defend our president, Jacob Zuma”. Many claimed to be either ANC supporters or members from areas like KwaMashu and Umlazi. Several carried Zuma kangas and placards stating “100% Zuma and 100% Cop” and “Fire Malema”.

The committee statement also noted that “as volunteers {are] paid daily by the municipality of eThekwini, it is of grave concern that their intimidation of peaceful marchers was left unchallenged by those in authority. As such, the city manager [Mike Sutcliffe] and mayor [James Nxumalo], together with the UNFCCC, must answer to the involvement of this group and the failure of authorities to address this unnecessary violence.”
Ethekwini municipal manager Mike Sutcliffe said: “I thought the march went incredibly well. I know of no disruptions and certainly together with my team in monitoring the march saw nothing to suggest otherwise. I do know at the beginning there was a small issue and we took action to defuse things and as I say the march was pretty peaceful.”
He later said: “I understand there were actually a number of incidents and am rather surprised that only one is highlighted. I also find it strange that the city is being challenged when my teams have done so much to make the civil society space work.”
Sutcliffe refused to put a figure to, or detail, the incidents his monitoring team had picked up, calling the committee’s claims “silly”.