Tutu joins as world laments deaths of Khosa, Floyd
THE DESMOND and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation has joined the global chorus for justice following the deaths of George Floyd in the US and Collins Khosa from Gauteng.
The death of Floyd, who was seen on video gasping for breath as a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck, has sparked outrage and protests across the US and further afield, including the US embassies in Berlin and London.
Closer home, on Good Friday Khosa was assaulted at his Alexandra home, allegedly by members of the SA National Defence Force for allegedly contravening the lockdown rules by drinking alcohol in his yard. A post-mortem report indicated that he died of blunt-force trauma to the head.
In a statement, the foundation said the “distasteful truth” linking the deaths of Khosa and Floyd at the hands of security forces in South Africa and the US was that the lives of certain people in society were considered more precious than others.
“Floyd’s last words – ‘I can’t breathe’ – as he was suffocated under the knee of Minneapolis policeman Derek Chauvin last week, speak for billions of human beings who are fundamentally dis-empowered because they are poor, because they are black, because they are women, because they are gay, because they are of ‘other’ faiths, because they are defenceless… because they fall on the wrong side of their society’s power divide, the systemic inequality gap.
“Khosa died after being strangled, slammed against a wall and hit with the butt of a machine gun by South African soldiers over-zealously enforcing Covid-19 lockdown regulations, his family said.
“The soldiers involved in the incident have been cleared by a defence force inquiry, but a police investigation is ongoing,” the foundation said.
The foundation said the Covid-19 pandemic sweeping the globe was a summoning call for collective action and a new kind of leadership with the courage to focus on sustaining humanity and the Earth.
“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor,” Tutu said.