Jason Felix
THE spotlight has fallen on the interim interdict used at Lwandle, with the commanding officer monitoring the evictions saying he was “seriously” worried that it was not a final order and that it may not have given the SA National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) the right to evict people.
Western Cape Public Order Police Unit operational commander Lieutenant-Colonel Jimmy Lucas said he was also worried whether residents had alternative accommodation.
Lucas was questioned yesterday by members of the Lwandle Inquiry about the removal of more than 1 000 people from the land, which is owned by Sanral.
It emerged that the interim court order stipulated that the sheriff could only prevent new people from building homes on the land.
Lucas said he had questioned Sanral’s lawyers and they were sure their court order allowed them to remove people and structures.
“I personally had a lot of concerns and every time the legal person from Sanral assured me that this order was approved at the highest level.
“I had no reason at all to believe that this was not a valid court order.”
Lucas said he would have been held in contempt of court if he had not kept order at the evictions as stipulated by the interim order, granted on January 24.
The inquiry, set up by Human Settlements Minister Lindiwe Sisulu, is probing the removal of residents from the Sanral road reserve in February and on June 2 and June 3.
Its chairman, advocate Denzil Potgieter, differed with advocate Ncumisa Mayosi, for the SAPS, yesterday over the interpretation of the order.
Potgieter said that under the order, Sanral was only able to stop people trying to build on the property in the interim.
It did not allow Sanral to evict people living on the land.
To remove these people, proper eviction procedures would have had to be followed, Potgieter said.
Lucas said he had faxed the order to the police’s legal department for scrutiny, but he could not recall the name of the person who signed it off.
Inquiry members were also shown clips from police video footage, but a few minutes into the screening of the footage, some of them questioned the aim of the exercise.
“I fear a situation where the police are going to show us what is of interest to them and not the full picture of what happened,” said Mampe Ramotsamai, a former ANC MP.
Potgieter said the differences could be debated after the clips had been seen.
The clips showed police officers in full riot gear attempting to advance to the shacks.
Residents were seen throwing stones and petrol bombs at a police Nyala and officers, and blockading the road into Lwandle with burning tree stumps and other material.
Officers randomly fired rubber bullets or stun grenades.
Police announced on loudspeakers, in English and Xhosa, that residents were behaving illegally and action would be taken within 10 minutes if they did not disperse.
Residents overturned a shipping container and pushed it into the road, blocking it. Police acted in less than 10 minutes because the situation was volatile, Lucas said.
Police reinforcements in Nyalas arrived and barbed wire was laid down. Shacks were seen being pulled down.
Asked by inquiry member Annelize van Wyk what he would have done differently, Lucas said: “I would not have done anything different. The major action was the petrol bombs thrown at police. That endangered our members’ lives and the lives of others… We did not evict anybody.”
The hearing is to continue tomorrow.