Dear Friends and Supporters

We were due to be in court this coming week on the 24th and 25th November but Deputy Judge President Goliath, who was allocated to hear the case, has fallen ill.  The Judge President refused to allocate it to another judge.

This means that the hearing will not be taking place 24th and 25th of November. A date is still to be confirmed, and may only be in 2022, hopefully January.

This is obviously disappointing as the longer this is delayed, the more concrete is placed on site.

But please understand the following

1.       The High Court review will decide on the appropriateness of the decision to allow the development to proceed. If it strikes out those decisions, it has the power to order the site to be returned to the state it was in when we first served our paper in August.

2.       The High Court review will be preceded by an interdict to halt any further construction whilst the High Court review proceeds. That was going to be heard on the 24th and 25th November. If we succeed in the interdict, which we are hopeful of, it will freeze any building activity on site.

 To update you on the court process:

1.       The Forest People’s Programme, an international NGO dedicated to empowering indigenous organisations to promote an alternative vision of how the environment should be managed, has applied to join the case as an amicus curiae (friend of the court) to bring perspectives based on international law and indigenous people to the case. We have supported their entry as amicus. The respondents (the City, DEADP and LLPT) have opposed their entry.

2.       The respondents are attempting to strike out various parts of our affidavits, including any reference to SAHRAs grading of the River club as a National Heritage site, and to strike out the supporting affidavit that confirms that Amazon has and had other choices to locate their HQ, and which therefore renders implausible the City's claims that Amazon will leave Cape Town if the development is halted. This is not surprising as these are troublesome facts for the developers and the government departments supporting them.

SAHRA are proceeding with the grading process for the Two Rivers Urban Park for national heritage but could not access the River Club site for a number of weeks. The River Club is is part of the Park being assessed for grading. Having nominators of a heritage site present on a visit would be normal practice for SAHRA but the LLPT prevented the OCA, TRUP and the Goringhaicona Khoi Khoin Indigenous Traditional Council from accompanying the SAHRA delegation. There is no plausible reason for such behaviour other than they did not want any contradiction to their narrative when engaging SAHRA. SAHRA are considering issuing a provisional protection order over the River Club site. 

On Friday 26th, the Liesbeek Action Campaign will be joining a global protest to Make Amazon Pay, in which thousands of workers and activists will rally in over 20 countries across the globe. You can see more on this video and get more information about Make Amazon Pay and its manifesto on its website.

Our protest will take place at and on the Liesbeek River on Friday 26th. We will be gathering at 3pm at the TRUP mound opposite the River Club and Hartleyvale. Join us to make a statement that Amazon cannot desecrate sacred land and destroy a floodplain for profit!

To support out court case, we need your financial support to interdict the building and get a proper plan in place that will make this a heritage precinct. Please consider assisting us with the legal fees. You can contribute at our fundraising site.

For more information, please visit our website and follow the Liesbeek Action Campaign on twitter: @LiesbeekAction.

Now is the time to Make the Liesbeek Matter!