March 28, 2002
By Thomas Thale
FROM the corner of Plein and Twist Street, the Drill Hall, a former military barracks close to Joubert Park, still manages to look imposing, despite obvious signs of neglect. It is only when I get inside that I am confronted by its secret: an entire squatter community, living in rows of corrugated iron shacks in the darkness of the main hall.
The shacks are randomly scattered around the hall, each the size of an average room. Although the sun is shining brightly outside, darkness envelops the unlit main hall. A brazier stands forlorn in one corner, its fire long burnt out. How many people live here, I ask. Three hundred and fifty families, is the answer.
My nose is assaulted by a stench of urine, stagnant water, sewerage, dagga and other indeterminate smells. Looking well fed and at home, flies buzz around unhindered. Sewerage overflows and only a gaping hole remains where the toilet used to be. The council has provided two portable toilets, but they are hopelessly inadequate. The sole tap in the building still provides drips of water.
A group of men squats in a circle in the yard next to the gate. On closer inspection I realise they are throwing dice. Nearby a group of women is also in their own circle, playing card games for money. Emaciated chickens, selling for R25 each, are in a cage near the gamblers. A spaza shop, next to the entrance, is stocked with small quantities of essentials such as soap, toilet rolls, cooking oil and other goodies. A number of men are perched against the shop drinking beer.
Midday, but in the main hall, it's dark amid the corrugated iron shacks
Adjacent to the hall in which the shacks are, is a double storey building with about a dozen rooms that used to be army offices. The more fortunate residents occupy these rooms. Gideon Mvelase, the chairperson of the Drill Hall squatters committee, is one of these. He shares the room, which has been partitioned with a curtain, with his his wife and two other men.
The structure of the room looks solid, although the paint is soiled and is peeling off. A gaping hall on the wall is all that remains of where the light switch had been when the building still had electricity. A section of the building was reduced to ashes in June last year in a fire accident. Five people died in the inferno.
Gladys Radebe, one of the squatters, said she is not bothered by not having electricity. "We have no electricity in my home in KwaZulu-Natal, so I'm used to using candles for lighting and paraffin for cooking," she said. What does bother her, she added, is the leaking roof that makes it impossible to sleep when it rains. "Our belongings also become soaked," complained Radebe.
The Drill Hall, built in 1904, was the only military installation in the middle of the city. Because of its size, it served as a courtroom for the 1956 treason trial in which 156 activists were charged with conspiring to overthrow the apartheid government. Former president Nelson Mandela, one of the accused in the trial, in his autobiography, described the building thus: "It was a great bare barn of a building with a corrugated iron roof, and considered the only public building large enough to support a trial of so many accused."
When the army moved out in the early 1990s as a result of downsizing, the building stood empty and deserted, prompting homeless people to invade it. Mvelase said the Johannesburg Tenants Association (Jota) led the invasion of the building in 1994. "It didn't make sense to have a building standing empty while thousands of people lived in shacks and on pavements around Johannesburg Park station," said Mvelase. Many of the squatters, according to Mvelase, are unemployed people who came to Johannesburg to look for work.
The Johannesburg council, however, plans to evict the squatters so that the building can be revamped as part of its inner city regeneration programme. Adam Goldsmith of the Johannesburg Development Agency said once the squatters have been moved out, the building's interior and façade will be revamped. The SA Heritage Resources Agency, meanwhile, has proclaimed the building as a protected structure, which it plans to declare a national monument.
Although no final decision has been taken about where the squatters will be moved to, Vlakfontein in the south of Johannesburg has been mentioned as a possible destination. Vlakfontein, however, has already been earmarked by council to resettle communities from the informal settlements of Eikenhof near Vereeniging and Dlamini extension in Soweto. Should the council move the Drill Hall squatters to Vlakfontein, the Eikenhof and Dlamini communities could accuse it of rewarding invaders by allowing them to jump the queue.
Sizakele Nkosi, the councillor responsible for housing in the Mayoral committee, pointed out that the Drill Hall residents may be moved first to a transitional accommodation around the city pending a final decision. "These people are not used to paying for services and we must first teach them to develop a sense of ownership and responsibility," Nkosi said.
The Drill Hall is just one of a number of former military buildings which have become redundant. The Department of Public Works has decided to convert some of these buildings into accommodation while it will dispose of others. In Gauteng, some of the properties up for sale are the Waterkloof Air Base and the Zwartkop Military Base, both in Centurion, and the Randjesfontein farm in Midrand. For more information, visit: military bases
