Mayhem over ANC mayors

Stone-throwing protesters torch cars

ASIMMERING row over corruption claims erupted in gunfire, torching and hand-tohand fighting in Queenstown’s Mlungisi township on Wednesday.

Police intervened twice to restore order after a group apparently aligned to the South African National Civic Organisation (Sanco) disrupted an ANC meeting.

Ayanda Nuku, the ANC’s Lukhanji sub-region chairman, said party members were trapped in the Skweyiya Community hall as people claiming to be Sanco members bombarded the building with stones and fired guns outside for close to an hour, burnt tyres and barricaded the road with rocks.

By the time police returned for a second time, seven cars belonging to ANC members had bullet damage, smashed windows or were burned and nearly all the windows in the hall were destroyed.

Thembile Sgqolana, a reporter for the Daily Dispatch’s sister paper The Rep, said he was injured in the leg by a stone and later hit in the chest by a rubber bullet.

Police spokesperson Lieutenant Pumzile Makaula confirmed officers were called to manage the incident, but denied rubber bullets were fired.

She said a case of public violence was being investigated and that another incident on Thursday, which may have been linked, was also being probed.

“The latest we’ve had is that people tried to attack an ANC councillor’s house in the morning. It’s not yet clear if the incidents are related, we are investigating,” she said.

The violence was the latest twist in a longrunning dispute over the ANC’s recall earlier this year of executive mayor Mncedisi Nontsele.

Sanco and Cosatu have called for his return, saying he was dismissed to block a corruption probe. Fanelwa Ngqola, the local Cosatu secretary, told The Rep in January Nontsele had been removed to hamper the prosecution of four local government officials accused of stealing R7-million from the council in April 2010.

“People calling themselves Sanco came in singing songs that called for certain ANC members to be poisoned and killed.

“Another song asked why Mncedisi Notsele was recalled even with his struggle credentials,” Nuku said. “The meeting was cut short by the disruption and as we were concluding we heard gunshots from outside and windows in the hall were smashed with stones.

“We then realised the police had left. Our cars were burnt or shot with live ammunition, some had their car windows smashed. Stones kept coming until it was dark and we could not get out of the hall as we feared for our lives.”

Sgqolana said the group supporting Nontsele tried to disrupt the ANC meeting but were removed by police.

“The leadership of Sanco wasn’t there. When we came in, the people outside were throwing stones and the ANC leadership were throwing them back. That’s when I was hit in the leg.

“Then big police vehicles came, fired warning shots to no avail. Then police fired rubber bullets randomly and I was hit on my chest.”

Two weeks ago, The Rep’s senior political writer, Zolile Menzelwa, was attacked by two men while walking home in Ezibeleni’s Zone 2.

He was warned to stop writing stories about “our mayor”, but was not certain which mayor.

National and provincial ANC leaders condemned the attack on Menzelwa.

Sanco’s Chris Hani regional chairman Mlandeli Gxaba yesterday distanced the civic organisation from the fracas, saying that in principle Sanco, which is aligned to the ANC, cannot disrupt ANC meetings.

Gxaba said even if the protestors were Sanco members, they must also have been ANC members as Sanco had not been invited to the meeting. —