Remember September 3 1984: Grave Fees Must Fall Campaign – Asinamali!

Stop the Privatisation of Cemeteries

We, concerned burial societies and community organisations of the Vaal area, invite everyone in the region to support our struggle against high fees and privatisation of cemeteries. Our people are already living in poverty and struggling to access basic services and a better life because of privatisation. Now they want to charge us high fees and profit from the death of our loved ones! We working class people of the Vaal can not afford the high fees they are charging for graves – fees that are so high and on top of it we still have to pay for tombstones, caskets and reopening if we want to bury another person on the site! Asinamali! Grave fees must fall! We demand free graves!

Yesterday it was our electricity and water. Today it is our cemeteries and burial rights. Tomorrow it could be the air we breathe. We are saying no to privatisation! Help us build a movement to defend our human and constitutional rights and to roll back the privatisation and commercialisation of basic services.

Join us to commemorate the victims of the Vaal Uprising and to continue and build the struggle against the privatisation and commodification of basic services and human rights and for true liberation.

Date: Saturday 3 September 2016
Time: 09:00
Venue: Zone 7 Stadium, Sebokeng

REMEMBER SEPTEMBER 03 1984

#GRAVE FEES MUST FALL CAMPAIGN! ASINAMALI!

STOP THE PRIVATISATION OF CEMETERIES

We, concerned burial societies and community organisations of the Vaal area, invite everyone in the region to support our struggle against high fees and privatisation of cemetery’s. Our people are already living in poverty and struggling to access basic services and a better life because of privatisation. Now they want to charge us high fees and profit from the death of our loved ones! We working class people of the Vaal can not afford the high fees they are charging for graves – fees that are so high and on top of it we still have to pay for tombstones, caskets and reopening if we want to bury another person on the site! Asinamali! Grave fees must fall! We demand free graves!

We do not have land, but the ruling party and its government are selling our land to private individuals (some of whom are believed to be government officials) to profit from by opening private cemeteries. They know that everybody must die and that if they are not cremated they must be buried and cemeteries are already getting overcrowded. They also know how seriously we Africans take funerals and the burial of our loved ones and for them this is a market to corner; another area of our lives for them to privatise and profit from. Asinamali! We will not pay to bury our dead in their own land!

Under the ANC’s neoliberal GEAR policies every aspect of our lives is privatised, commercialised or commodified. This means that every aspect of our lives, all our rights and services, is turned into a profit-making project that makes the ruling class (private capitalists and state managers) rich at the expense of the poor working class majority. Asinamali! We will not pay to make the rich richer while we get poorer!

WE DEMAND:

• Better security at cemeteries
• Free public toilets at cemeteries
• Free tombstones Permit
• Free reopening
• Free municipal grave sites
• Free basic services for the poor
• An end to privatisation of basic services and human rights
• No to Profiting from the Death of our Loved Ones!
• Stop the Privatisation of Basic Services!

Yesterday it was our electricity and water. Today it is our cemeteries and burial rights. Tomorrow it could be the air we breathe. We are saying no to privatisation! Help us build a movement to defend our human and constitutional rights and to roll back the privatisation and commercialisation of basic services.

Date: Saturday 3 September 2016
Time: 09:00
Venue: Zone 7 Stadium, Sebokeng

Organise, Unite and Fight!

[For more info contact 083 285 5901/ 078 618 6532]