Publisher note: This statement by Lynn Munsamy was first published on the public listserve of the Centre for Civil Society (CCS). It has since been published in a number of others places. This is an important document that details the authoritarian and controlling involvement of academics working for the Centre for Civil Society at UKZN. It lends a lot of evidence to the way Heinrich Bohmke and his friends seek to direct community groups and poor people's movements from above. It provides direct evidence that Heinrich Bohmke is not the type of disinterested researcher he claims to be.
First published: July 2007
Lynn Munsamy was a founder member of the Crossmoor Informal Settlement in Chatsworth and she was elected onto the Crossmoor Committee where she played a leading role. This is the statement that she made after 3 staff members (Heinrich Bohmke, Shannon Walsh & Orlean Naidoo) at the Centre for Civil Society sent around emails accusing her and others of stealing money.
This followed:
1. A letter from Lynn on behalf of the Crossmooor Committee to the Crossmoor Lawyers (LRC) asking them to please deal directly with the Crossmoor Committee and not with the Centre for Civil Society, to please not arrange meetings at times and venues unsuitable for Crossmoor residents, to please keep the Crossmoor Committee rather than the Centre for Civil Society updated with the progress on the case, to please give a written explanation to the Committee with regard to the role of two Centre for Civil Society staff members (Heinrich Bohmke and Orlean Naidoo) in the case and stating that Fatima Meer was not a stakeholder in Crossmoor.
2. Lynn asking when Orlean and her husband took over control of the representation of the settlement from the elected committee.
3. An email from Lynn to the CCS listserve asking that all CCS staff including interns, outreach officers, visitors and film makers please stop coming to Crossmore and that they stop presenting Orlean Naidoo (employed by CCS and resident in Malvern) as the leader of the Crossmore settlement.
4. The replacement, by the Centre for Civil Society, of the elected Crossmoor Committee with a new Committee. Because this was done with violence and undemocratically the Social Movement Indaba KwaZulu-Natal [SMI-KZN] described this action as 'regime change'.
5. Threats against people in and out of Crossmoor who spoke out against this regime change.
CROSSMOOR – STATEMENT FROM LYNN MUNSAMY
On the 26 June 2007 I went for a march that was organized by Orlean and Fundis [with money from CCS]. The march went peacefully, until the latter end when a comrade asked a question and before answering Pinkie (Orlean's husband) lashed out verbally at me, ("shut up, you are a piece of shit, you are a nothing"). He also stated that he would set Fundis people for me. This was embarrassing and humiliating. I decided at this point to maintain a safe distance from Orlean and Pinkie as I believed that they were a threat to my safety. However this does not mean that I withdrew my participation in the Crossmoor Struggle.
First published: July 2007
Lynn Munsamy was a founder member of the Crossmoor Informal Settlement in Chatsworth and she was elected onto the Crossmoor Committee where she played a leading role. This is the statement that she made after 3 staff members (Heinrich Bohmke, Shannon Walsh & Orlean Naidoo) at the Centre for Civil Society sent around emails accusing her and others of stealing money.
This followed:
1. A letter from Lynn on behalf of the Crossmooor Committee to the Crossmoor Lawyers (LRC) asking them to please deal directly with the Crossmoor Committee and not with the Centre for Civil Society, to please not arrange meetings at times and venues unsuitable for Crossmoor residents, to please keep the Crossmoor Committee rather than the Centre for Civil Society updated with the progress on the case, to please give a written explanation to the Committee with regard to the role of two Centre for Civil Society staff members (Heinrich Bohmke and Orlean Naidoo) in the case and stating that Fatima Meer was not a stakeholder in Crossmoor.
2. Lynn asking when Orlean and her husband took over control of the representation of the settlement from the elected committee.
3. An email from Lynn to the CCS listserve asking that all CCS staff including interns, outreach officers, visitors and film makers please stop coming to Crossmore and that they stop presenting Orlean Naidoo (employed by CCS and resident in Malvern) as the leader of the Crossmore settlement.
4. The replacement, by the Centre for Civil Society, of the elected Crossmoor Committee with a new Committee. Because this was done with violence and undemocratically the Social Movement Indaba KwaZulu-Natal [SMI-KZN] described this action as 'regime change'.
5. Threats against people in and out of Crossmoor who spoke out against this regime change.
CROSSMOOR – STATEMENT FROM LYNN MUNSAMY
On the 26 June 2007 I went for a march that was organized by Orlean and Fundis [with money from CCS]. The march went peacefully, until the latter end when a comrade asked a question and before answering Pinkie (Orlean's husband) lashed out verbally at me, ("shut up, you are a piece of shit, you are a nothing"). He also stated that he would set Fundis people for me. This was embarrassing and humiliating. I decided at this point to maintain a safe distance from Orlean and Pinkie as I believed that they were a threat to my safety. However this does not mean that I withdrew my participation in the Crossmoor Struggle.