Several dozen protesters gathered near Amazon’s SA headquarters in the new Riverlands development last Friday as part of a global campaign accusing the online retail giant of labour abuses, environmental degradation and threats to democracy.
The Make Amazon Pay campaign, led by UNI Global Union and Progressive International, was launched in 2020 and is meant to disrupt the peak online shopping days of Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
The protest on the corner of Liesbeek Parkway and Observatory Road last Friday was organised by the Save Our Sacred Lands (SOSL) campaign and supported by the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign (PSC), South African Jews for Free Palestine (SAJFP) and MK and GOOD members of Parliament.
Held on the UN International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, the protest also showed support for the Palestinian people.
Riverlands is part of a R4.6 billion mixed-used development by the Liesbeek Leisure Properties Trust (LLPT). It includes offices, shops, flats and an indigenous-culture centre. Amazon is set to be the anchor tenant. (“Riverlands sod turning greeted with mixed feelings,” Southern Suburbs Tatler, March 28).
SOSL convener Tauriq Jenkins said the development has been built on sacred land.
“When this Liesbeek River flows and goes into that private property, where Amazon Web Services is putting up its headquarters, it would no longer be called the Liesbeek and would be reframed into a stormwater ditch,” he said.
Referring to the Palestinians, Mr Jenkins said: “The fathers and mothers and children are our families in the deepest way, and as a indigenous community, we know what Apartheid looks like.”
In a statement, the SOSL said it was opposed to Amazon’s support of the Israeli government’s Project Nimbus cloud computing project.
Mr Jenkins was part of an indigenous group that, together with the Observatory Civic Association, mounted an unsuccessful court battle to stop the River Club development, which has gone ahead with the support of another indigenous group, the Western Cape First Nations Collective.
MK member of Parliament Wesley Doughlas said the party stood in solidarity with the people of Palestine.
“We want the genocide against the Palestine people to stop, and we, as the MK, are standing with the people of Palestine and we are holding Amazon accountable for a new wave of colonialism in Africa.”
The conflict in Gaza mirrored South Africa’s Apartheid past, he said.
“In South Africa, the Khoisan is the oldest indigenous group in the country, and yet they do not have any rights and are ignored by government, and the same applies for Palestine where they are the indigenous people of their land and their land was taken by the force of the barrel of the gun.”
SAJFP representative Megan Choritz said that as an anti-Zionist Jew, “I have a duty to be involved in the community where I live and as a representative of SAJFP, our focus is on the liberation of Palestine.”
She added: “Our focus is on the freedom of Palestinians, but we will not tell people what to do or how to do it. We will stand by and be an ally for the freedom of Palestinians and the freedom of indigenous people all over the world, but particularly, where we live.”
PSC representative Mohammad Groenewald said colonialism “has not changed its face; it has just become more sophisticated”.
He added: “Stealing of land still continues up until today if you look at Palestine and South Africa. Today we stand on a sacred plain where there was resistance against Dutch colonialism.”
What was happening in Gaza was not a Muslim issue, but a “human issue”, he said. “There are no churches, hospitals and schools standing in Palestine as they are targeted as ethnic cleansing.”
In a statement, Amazon said: “These groups represent a variety of interests, and while we’re always listening and looking at ways to improve, Amazon takes our role and our impact in South African communities very seriously.”
Amazon said it had moved into the Riverlands office a few weeks ago but it was not yet operating from that location.
In a statement, Liesbeek Leisure Properties Trust said: “This development will have a First Nations Heritage Centre, run by the Western Cape First Nations Collective (WCFNC), which will honour the memory and living culture of the First Nations.”
The centre for first nations heritage was a first for Cape Town and was made possible through the collaboration between private developers, companies and the WCFNC, which was a fact conveniently overlooked by the protesters, the statement added.
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