Victory lap for LALIT 50 Joint Committees for Asbestos Housing Estates
07.11.2022
The victory lap of meetings of the 50-odd Joint LALIT and Asbestos Housing Committees is taking place. Saturday, there was a meeting, for example, in Bel Ombre for people from that Cité as well as for representatives of Le Morne, Riviere des Galets and Rianbel. Crowded into the big Kiosk at Bel Ombre, in occasional heavy drizzle, people celebrated the victory: with over 20 years of struggle together with LALIT, we have, together through our mobilization at the grassroots, finally forced the State to take on not just the destruction of the asbestos housing, but its replacement with a new safe house.
One woman present was moved to see that Ragini Kistnasamy of LALIT had brought with her a copy of the LALIT petition from 2002, in which one of the signatories was her late husband, along with dozens of other people from the Bel Ombre Site, when LALIT had first set up a table to begin the struggle that would be the 50 or so Committees of “Joint ‘LALIT Regional or branch’ plus local inhabitants”. From then onwards, by putting our heads together and working out the precise demands, and what the problems were that prevented the Government from acting, we have reached victory, Ragini said. Lindsey Collen, also for LALIT Q-Bornes and Western region, said the State will safely dismantle, remove and bury the asbestos panels, rebuild a house 49 square metres, and pay Rs 5,000 a month if people need to rent a place in-between. Everyone present realized that this demand for rent is a way to keep the pressure on government and its sub-contractors to build fast. The Government will also propose and pay the notarial fees for getting ownership established by the occupiers. A man present said how, when they get the key to their new houses, they will thank people, like his late wife, who was a pillar of organizing the bus to the first big demonstration in Port Louis in 2018, and who has since died young of cancer. Their lives live after them, because they were involved in bringing this victory, he said. The happiness was in the realization that this long and coherent struggle was now won, politically with a small “p”, and now each family has responsibility for the next phase.
Many new generation children, now adults, were present to take over this last lap of the struggle, which will rely on individual families co-ordinating, themselves, with the different government agencies for the destruction, rebuilding, and also for getting rent money for the interim time.
One of the important victories in this struggle has been that the demonstrations and individual letters each occupant or owner of an asbestos house sent to the Prime Minister, the local vigils and marches in different Site and petitions, have all finally forced the State to accept a major social problem not being addressed before: what people call “lakaz zeritye”. This problems goes well beyond the asbestos housing, but has been highlighted by the struggle to replace asbestos housing. The problem stems from the Napoleonic Civil Code, when mixed with the Government’s policy of individual home-ownership, means that each house now belongs to a number of families. The house, typically, is still in the name of a long dead grandfather or grandmother; they had, say, six children, each of which married and had three. That is a lot of heirs, or “zeritye” to own one tiny house. Thus the problem that now the Government is going, for the first time, to address.
When people parted, each was given a copy of a leaflet descriting the exact nature of the victory, point by point. And everyone was informed that no money needed to pass hands. Anyone who appears before you and says a family has pay something probably is most likely a trickster, who is not even a government employee, so beware! People present were asked to inform everyone of the danger of fraudsters coming out from under stones. People also took extra copies of the leaflet to give to people who may be isolated, or not able to attend. One man said he wanted an extra one to give a man who had, when he invited him to one of the past demonstrations, replied to him in public in a loud voice, “U pe perdi u letan ar sa bann LALIT la!” (“You are wasting your time with those LALIT people!”) Now, he will find an opportunity to present him with a copy, and announce victory.
Before this meeting, in the Quatre Bornes and Western LALIT Regional, we had already held an earlier big meeting in Cite La Ferme Bambous, as part of the “victory lap” where the same two LALIT members together with Veronique Topize who has helped in this struggle from 2017, spoke. The Government has said it will begin with the Site in Goodlands and in La Ferme, as in these two places the number of asbestos houses is the greatest. Government has already sent officers to do a survey in almost every Site, it has been reported to our different branch members looking after their region.
And from each Site, as the Joint Committees begin the process of closing down after the victory, there are youngsters who have given their names to continue the broader struggle for socialism. They have requested to be invited to local or regional LALIT meetings on all the issues facing society: jobs, food security, health, housing, education, and to get these, we need to work towards socialism.
