Image Source: X
Local – Wealthy residents in Hout Bay stand accused of erecting a heavily fortified fence that prevents ordinary citizens from accessing the beach and mountain.
Land Party leader Gcobani Ndzongana said the structure is part of a longer pattern of dispossession targeting Black and Coloured communities in the Western Cape.
Ndzongana visited Hout Bay after being invited by a community member, where he was taken on a tour showing how residents were being physically blocked from reaching the ocean and mountain.
He said the fence, fitted with barbed wire and CCTV cameras, surpassed anything he encountered during his years working in maximum security correctional facilities.
“Not even the prison fence is built in that way. That fence is totally dehumanising. It’s totally segregatory. It’s discriminatory. It’s really an insult to the people.”
District Six Part Two
The activist drew parallels between Hout Bay and District Six, arguing that the Western Cape government has spent the past 15 years redirecting valuable land toward wealthy, predominantly white developments.
He said what is happening in Hout Bay is a continuation of racialised spatial planning that Black and Coloured communities have faced for decades.
Ndzongana further alleged that the CCTV infrastructure surveils the surrounding Coloured community in ways that violate their privacy, claiming the cameras can scan residents even inside their homes.
“Those cameras, never underestimate them. They can see you while you are inside your house. They can scan you. So that is the kind of surveillance that has been put there.”
In response, Ndzongana said the Land Party is mobilising communities across Hout Bay, with plans to stage a peaceful march from Hout Bay to the Cape Town city centre.
