Cops and farm workers clash in De Doorns
Roads are closed, vehicles are torched and police open fire with rubber bullets as farmworkers resume striking in the Boland region
JOURNALISTS were attacked, vehicles torched and the N1 outside De Doorns was closed by a group of 7 000 striking farmworkers yesterday while police retaliated with rubber bullets.
It will go down as the most violent day of strikes in De Doorns since November 5, when vineyards were burned and shops looted in the Boland town.
Shortly after 10am, Nosey Pieterse, general secretary of the Building and Allied Workers Union of SA (Bawusa), lead a crowd of around 3 000 people from Stofland informal settlement onto the N1 outside De Doorns.
At that time the road had already been closed due to clashes between police and strikers.
The crowd on the N1 swelled to an estimated 7 000 people. Veld fires were lit along the way and buildings were damaged.
Police drew the line when strikers started moving down the main road leading into De Doorns.
They pushed the crowd back with armoured vehicles and foot patrols firing rubber bullets at will.
The injured were taken to De Doorns local clinic and some were transferred to a hospital in Worcester.
Strikers responded to the shooting by pelting police with stones. A police captain was injured in the violence.
During one of these exchanges, a car owned by Independent Newspapers was caught in the crossfire. The two occupants were journalists with the Cape Times – Xolani Koyana and intern Aw Cheng Wei.
An eyewitness to the attack, who asked not to be named, said the vehicle was obstructing strikers from reaching a police caspir – which they apparently intended to torch.
“It was unbelievably scary and chaotic. That sight is still haunting me – people just lost control. I have never seen anything like it,” she said.
The two reporters inside were forced to huddle on the floor of the vehicle while protesters smashed the windows and jumped on the roof.
They eventually escaped and, with the assistance of ANC ward councillor Pat Marran, were whisked to safety. At the house of Andries Kraukamp, a local pastor, they were treated for minor injuries and lacerations from the broken glass.
When the Cape Argus interviewed them, they were clearly still in shock.
“We are just so thankful to the people that helped us escape. Everything happened so quickly, in a matter of split seconds the situation was out of control,” said Koyana.
A petrol bomb, which was apparently intended for the police caspir, was thrown into the car after it was overturned.