SA is on a knife edge as violent riots have escalated to the point of police being in running battles with in some cases thousands of protesters organised to loot and then burn malls and warehouses and sabotage strategic infrastructure.
So far, the effect of the deployment of the SA National Defence Force (SANDF) to assist the police with their operations to quell violence, which erupted on Friday in KwaZulu-Natal before spreading to parts of Gauteng, has been minimal as the looting continued well into Tuesday.
With the death toll sitting at 72, mostly from stampedes, and with 1,234 people arrested across the country by late Tuesday, state security agencies told Business Day the SANDF deployment of 2,500 soldiers to the front line would be “enhanced” on Wednesday.
Police minister Bheki Cele said in a joint news conference that included defence minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula that his department was working around the clock to quell the violence triggered by the imprisonment of former president Jacob Zuma.
“No amount of unhappiness or personal circumstances from our people gives the right to anyone to loot, vandalise and do as they please and break the law,” Cele said.
The riots, which have morphed into a wider outpouring of discontent against poverty in a country in which unemployment is at a record 32.6%, could tarnish SA’s credentials as a safe emerging market for private and foreign capital.
The rand extended losses for the second day running on Tuesday, falling by as much as 2% to levels last seen more than three months ago, after weakening by 1.7% the previous session. Investors also offloaded Massmart and Shoprite shares, which fell 7.53% and 4.11%, respectively.
Early on Tuesday, images started emerging of the destruction of factories, businesses, shopping centres and street-facing shops — indicators of massive job losses in the Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal economies.
Cele said the situation on the ground was under strong surveillance to ensure it did not deteriorate any further.
“We cannot allow anyone to make a mockery of our democratic state and we have instructed the law enforcement agencies to double their efforts to stop the violence and to increase deployment on the ground,” Cele said.
But as the sun set on Tuesday, nothing in the path of looters had been spared.
The Covid-19 pandemic has also taken a back seat in the struggle for food and safety on the one hand, and the mobs of looters on the other.
In Durban, WhatsApp community and security groups were jammed by people requesting where they could obtain baby formula and nappies, chronic medicines and food, often just pleading for a loaf of bread, while panic buying of petrol and diesel at the few open filling stations obstructed security and community protection patrollers from filling up.
This has forced some business leaders to call for a nationwide state of emergency, saying what is happening in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal will spread to the rest of the country.
The acts of public violence seen in the two provinces have rarely been seen since the dawn of the country’s democracy, with Gauteng premier David Makhura being the first government leader to confirm that the situation was “out of control”.
Police fired rubber bullets to disperse crowds metres away from the Meadowlands police station shortly after Makhura went there to assess the damage to property and livelihoods.
“We need to be on the ground,” Makhura said, adding that criminal elements had hijacked the protests, leading to escalating violence. With Tiisetso Motsoeneng
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