The Red Ants

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The name “Red Ants”, is shorthand for the Red Ant Security Relocation & Eviction Service, a private security company in Johannesburg that operates with relatively extreme force.  They usually operate equipped with riot shields and crowbars, and in a single paramilitary operation, can deploy up to six hundred infantry. Their trademark red overalls and helmets are easily recognizable and are not an unusual sight within the city, with private property owners often hiring the Red Ants to enforce eviction orders.
        These evictions that the Red Ants are contracted to enforce, result from a long-standing conflict between property owners and the lower classes, the latter of which are denied access to the urban economy. The Red Ants represent the government's inability to accomplish effective land management due to a lack of adequate housing programs, leading to unsatisfactory results regarding the population's demand for housing.¹
        The monopoly of private estates over much of the land within Johannesburg, has encouraged Black communities to illegally appropriate pieces of land from White land owners.  Stellenbosch is but one example of this phenomenon, in which a community of Black South Africans who felt betrayed by the failure of the seemingly corrupt African National Congress party, took over a vineyard owned by a White farmer, and turned the lands into their own township. The South African state has not moved to address this specific case, as of yet.

Image source:  Oatway James, The Red Ants evict residents and destroy an informal settlement near Pomona, 2012, Panos Pictures, Pamona.