Hout Bay is Burning

Fires in the streets continue as the relationship between the police and locals deteriorate

by Diamon Garza, August 30, 2018

Last year I visited Cape Town, South Africa and specifically the neighborhoods in an area outside the city named Hout Bay. The town is segregated, as is much of the country still suffering from the decades of apartheid, the political system of segregation and discrimination on the grounds of race, which negatively affected the Black and Colored population.

Shortly after my departure in June 2017 residents in Imizamo Yethu, a Black neighborhood in Hout Bay, began demonstrations and protests against the local government. Several residents’ homes were burned down in a fire earlier that year. Fires are a recurring issue every summer. Residents were placed into makeshift homes built from medal scraps and wooden sheets on top of a soccer field without electricity or pluming. After the local government didn’t follow threw on a promise to have people back into permanent homes protests began and flames burned in the streets.

Similar demonstrations are happening minutes away from I.Y. in Hangberg, a Colored neighborhood across from the bay. These followed an encounter between three local fishermen and law enforcement. The police arrested two of the fishermen and open fired on another who was on an inflatable raft. Deurick Van Blerk‚ 25‚ who was on the raft when it was shot out, fell overboard into the bay. He was unarmed and posed no threat. It’s now been two weeks since the incident and Van Blerk’s body is yet to be found.

Van Blerk and his friends were only fishing something that is either illegal or restricted for residents, but permitted for companies and corporations by the government. Many locals continue to risk going to jail anyways. Hangberg, I.Y. and other non-tourist neighborhoods are impoverished and essentially have a bay in walking distance that they cannot fully utilize. Last year I met Peter Michaels, a MMA fighter and rapper who goes by the name Spike P. He gave me insight, then, and says things are heating now after the shooting of the fisherman. He expressed his frustration over video chat.

“The government gives local fisher small fry quotas,” Michaels said. “The corporations make millions. The small fishermen struggle and they are the ones that’s actually doing the work — they do the hard work.”

Shootings like Van Berks’ are commonplace in the area. Last September a 14-year-old was shot in the face at close range with a shotgun that shoots rubber bullets while sitting curled on the floor during a protest. He had to have surgery following the shooting. Michaels, who uses much of his free time documenting the unrest and clashes between locals and the police, captured the graphic video. On the video the police do not try to help the boy and Michaels’ calls for concern can be heard in the background.

“Is anyone helping this guy,” Michaels said on the video before becoming angered with the situation. “Jesus Crist he needs f***ing medical attention.”

Michaels, who had a similar run in with police and was also shot, after being mistaken for a poacher, said this is why the people protest and the town sees continuous rioting. He even made a song about the situation. The town is looking more like a police state everyday. Armored vehicles ride threw the neighborhoods and heavily armed riot police shoot at protesters who shut down the roads with burning wooden barricades and anything else they can find. Locals caught in the middle often fall victim getting hit with rubber bullets, arrested or receiving damage to their belongings.

Today police raided Hangberg as part of a drug bust. Innocent people where caught in the crossfire once again. If confrontations like these continue to happen rapports between law enforcement will never begin. For now the people will riot, clashes will continue and the town will burn…

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