‘S. AFRICA UNREST PLANNED’
Hunt on for those who instigated unrest and looting, says president
SOUTH African President Cyril Ramaphosa yesterday alleged that deadly violence and looting that have shaken the country over the past week were planned, as he arrived in the epicentre of the unrest.
“It is quite clear that all these incidents of unrest and looting were instigated. There were people who planned it and coordinated it,” Ramaphosa said.
“We are going after them. We have identified them and we will not allow anarchy and mayhem to just unfold in our country.”
Shopping malls and warehouses have been ransacked in two provinces, stoking fears of shortages and inflicting a devastating blow to the economy. At least 117 people have died, some shot and others killed in looting stampedes.
Ramaphosa’s visit to KwaZuluNatal (KZN) province was his first on the ground since the unrest — the worst in post-apartheid South Africa — erupted in the southeastern province before spreading to Johannesburg.
Protests broke out on July 9, a day after ex-president Jacob Zuma, who wields support among the poor and loyalists in the ruling African National Congress (ANC), began a 15-month jail term for snubbing a corruption investigation.
The protests quickly turned into looting as crowds pillaged shops and storehouses, hauling away goods as police stood by, seemingly powerless to act.
The government said on Thursday
that one of the suspected instigators had been arrested and 11 were under surveillance.
Ramaphosa would “undertake an oversight visit (in KZN) to assess the impact of recent public violence and the deployment of security forces,” his office said earlier.
On Wednesday, the government called out around 25,000 troops to tackle the emergency – 10 times the number that it initially deployed and equivalent to
about a third of the country’s active military personnel.
Defence, security and police ministers and the top army brass went to KZN on Wednesday to assess the situation and oversee the expanded deployment of security forces there.
Although relative calm has returned to Johannesburg, the situation in KZN “remains volatile“, a minister in Ramaphosa’s office, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, said on Thursday.