ANC must take a stand
The water protests at Mothutlung resulted in the deaths of three people – something needs to change in our
police service
HE KILLING of citizens by the police during times of protest is reaching crisis proportions. South Africa has hardly recovered from the Marikana tragedy and we now have three citizens mowed down last week by the police during a service delivery protest in Mothutlung. Also, a street trader in Pretoria recently died after he was allegedly shot by the Tshwane metro police.
These incidents raise a number of questions. What culture exists within our police service? Is it that of skop, skiet en donner as was the case during the days of apartheid? Have we failed in transforming the policing culture from that of an adversarial and confrontational relationship with the community to that of co-operation?
It ought to worry all of us when some of our police see protesting citizens as potential targets for their service pistols.
The police brutality we see emerging must be dealt with urgently and decisively. Otherwise there will be a breakdown of trust between the police and the community and that is the last thing we want. South Africa has been there before and we know the consequences.
I have no insight into how police are trained, but if the incidents I have cited above are anything to go by, it would seem to me special attention must be given to their training, especially the handling of violent protests.
Our protests, especially those related to service delivery, tend to be violent. The police need to be trained and equipped on how to deal with these if we are to avoid further bloodshed and loss of lives.
The reality is that we will still have more service delivery protests that could turn violent. As South Africans, we have yet to overcome our past violent streak and how apartheid brutalised us.
But that is no excuse for the violence that accompanies service delivery protests. Community leaders who organise such protests have a responsibility to educate their followers about both their right and duty during a protest or march.
A protest does not have to be violent or
Tresult in the destruction of order to register a point.
Often the property that gets destroyed is communal and after it has been razed to the ground, it is the same community that remains the poorer. Community or civic leaders who encourage such behaviour do not, in my view, have the best interests of the communities they lead at heart.
The message must firmly go out to our communities that the right to protest does not mean the right to vandalise or destroy property, public or private.
We need education campaigns around this matter before violent service delivery protests take root and are regarded as the norm in our communities. If we don’t do this, we shall all be losers.
I am aware that all the above measures are merely dealing with the symptoms. The real malaise is the lack of service delivery.
There would be no need for communities to take to the streets if delivery was taking place and/or communities were being regularly given feedback about development targets and progress in their areas. The coal face (municipalities) of service delivery in our country is largely in trouble.
Take for example the very same Mothutlung where three residents were killed. Why would interruptions in water supply occur, and without notice to the community as to when they will end, if the municipality’s technicians knew what they were doing?
For the water pumps to reach the stage where they had to be stripped to assess the extent of their damage, thus causing the interruption in water supply, the question has to be asked as to what happened to infrastructure maintenance. When one adds the allegation that the municipality there has underspent on its municipal infrastructure grant, it becomes clear why the area erupted. We welcome the restoration of the water supply in Mothutlung, but it did not have to take the death of three residents for that to happen.
Also, it did not have to take the intervention of the Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs Edna Molewa. There is a mayor and municipal manager there.
Finally, while we must welcome the ruling party’s condemning of the shooting of residents, Luthuli House must not behave like a non-governmental organisation. It governs South Africa and must call those it has deployed in government to account for the unfortunate incidents of Mothutlung and Tshwane. And its brief message to them must be: not in our name.