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Standerton, Belfast, Ekurleni under protestors’ siege

 

Sakhile Standerton anti-corruption protests now enter their second month Oct 13 2009 AfrikanerPrivateSecurityGuardsProtectingCompaniesDuringDemosOct132009FelixDlangamandlaPicBeeld

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Oct 15 2009 – Angry at corrupt Standerton ANC-councillors who refuse to quit, thousands of Sakhile township residents brought the Mpumalanga town to a standstill. Armed Standerton businessmen helped police protect families and shops from thousands of protestors armed with petrolbombs. They tried torching a municipal office and youths from local schools blocked off access roads, torched a truck and smashed motorists’ windscreens.

In nearby Belfast, rowdy protestors also were arrested during these so-called ‘service-delivery protests’ which are growing countrywide against local ANC’s municipal officials’ fraud and incompetence.

In Gauteng at the East Rand, similar protests also occured in Palm Ridge and local ANC-ward councillor Mbusiseni Nkabi’s house petrol-bombed (picture: Sowetan). http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=1078152

Give us money for petrol so we can burn things…

Back in Standerton by 8am today, October 14 2009, SAPA reported that the roads to Standerton all remain blockaded by angry Sakhile residents, with teenagers at the roadblocks demanding motorists ‘give them money for petrol’.

Concrete barriers were moved to the road by the pupils and informal toll booths are manned by armed gangs of teenagers demanding money from cars that approach them."We need the money to buy petrol so that we can burn things," said one of the teenagers. http://www.news24.com/Content/SouthAfrica/News/1059/853e106a16f247aba4a64a7ec702bff4/13-10-2009-10-34/Give_us_petrol_-_Sakhile_teen

 Sakhile Standerton protestors came armed SAPA Oct 13 2009 

SAPA picture: The protests in Standerton are out of control – with more than 10,000 angry residents saying that they are now willing to torch everything in sight. They were set off by a government report on September 25 by the department of Co-operative governance and traditional affairs revealing widespread fraud by Lekwa/Standerton city councillors, the ANC-provincial officials nevertheless are not calling for these councillors’ resignation. Machadodorp also had similar violent protests yesterday, as did Ekhurleni.

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André Damons of Beeld newspaper reported about the increasingly chaotic atmosphere which has started dominating the usually so peaceful rural town of Standerton -- ever since a government official published the damning report which blamed local corruption for the dramatic drop in free water, sewerage- and electricity services to the empoverished residents of Sakhile township.

Standerton Bethal Sakhile Evander Secunda mapSince the protests started, hundreds of residents have been arrested and bailed in Sakhile: on September 26,  October 4, October 6, yesterday…. The Standerton law court is in fact kept hopping just processing bail and scheduling court appearances for public violence and destruction of public property.

ANC does not however urge corrupt councillors to quit:

The provincial African National Congress (ANC) meanwhile issues streams of public statements in which they ‘condemn the violent protests, call for serious action against those who destroy property” – and also “call  on our municipalities to to improve service delivery.”  But at the same time, they also are not calling on those other lawbreakers, namely those corrupt ANC-councillors fingered in the report, to resign… The latest statement condemning the violence was issued by provincial ANC spokesperson, Paul Mbenyane yesterday.

Afrikaners: “We have to be ready to protect our women and children…’

AfrikanerPrivateSecurityGuardsProtectingCompaniesDuringDemosOct132009FelixDlangamandlaPicBeeld Yesterday, armed Afrikaner businessmen and private security guards, pictured by Beeld’s photographer Felix Dlangamandla,  teamed up with Standerton police teams  in Mbanani Mayisele Street in downtown Standerton. The businessmen mostly carried legally-registered shotguns, reported Damon  – but following police advice, they had been given rubber bullets to use them as ‘stoppers’.  However they did have their birdshot-pellets ready for use in their gunbelts.

“We have to be ready to protect our women and children,’ said one businessman.  Jannie Kasselman, owner of Kasselman Private Security services, said the Standerton businessmen were there to help the police – they were merely standing by to keep an eye on the protestors, to look after the safety of the business premises and also to protect their family homes.

This is not an unnecessary precaution: last week, a Somalian shopkeeper was attacked, his spaza-shop looted and torched after mourners from Sakhile started demonstrating outside his shop where Thabiso Mkhwanazi, 21,  a local youth, had been killed during riots, probably by police but the forensic reports are still being awaited due to the massive backlog of cases at the SAPS forensics labs. The Somalian shopkeeper has now fled with his family from the region altogether.

Resign within 24 hours or else… Yesterday, thousands of Sakhile residents marched to the municipal office in Standerton with just one intention, they told reporters, and that was to cause as much damage and chaos in Standerton as they could. Over the past three weeks they haven’t done too badly in this department either: torching the Somalian refugee’s shop, several municipal cars, three town councillors’ homes, their own library and their own community hall in Sakhile. Yesterday they marched to Standerton to hand over a memorandum in which they gave the city councillors only 24 hours to resign.

They came prepared for violence: armed with petrol bombs, guns and ‘traditional weapons’:  police said rubber bullets and teargas had to be used to stop the massive crowd, estimated at some 10,000 marches. One petrol-bomb thrown at the municipal offices set alight some curtains, and the fire was quickly doused.  Children were roped in from the schools and set up road-blocks outside town, stopping motorists from entering the CBD.

“If you go there, your windows will be smashed…”

Standerton Protest Oct21009 AntoineDeRas_TheStarThe crowd kept regrouping and the township’s schoolchildren also were organised into well-managed road-blocks surrounding the town. The police were eventually forced to close off the R23 between Standerton and Balfour altogether, with traffic officials warning motorists away from the CBD because a group of children had even erected their own ‘toll-gate’. “If you go through there, your windows will be smashed,’ warned the traffic officials. “It’s chaotic over there’.

This protest has been growing steadily ever since the government report was published two months ago. Over the past three weeks, it has taken on an increasingly ferocious and violent nature. And yesterday, all the schools were closed and the pupils also were roped in to bring Standerton to a complete standstill. The roads were blocked off with destroyed telephone boxes, borning tyres, torn out road signs and one road was blocked by a large torched truck.

Even an old cannon dating from the British war against the Boers (1899-1902) and which had been on display in downtown Standerton, was dragged to an intersection to block off a road. And Sakhile’s  residents remain adamant: threatening to vandalising Standerton and to destroy everything in town if their demands aren’t met.

The ANC-councillors had to quit within 24 hours, they said. Oddly enough, none of the journalists at the scene have as yet quoted any comments from these accused councillors, however.

Municipal office of Makhazeni and garbage truck torched:

“We are not going to stop these protests” – Standerton community leader Fanuel Manana

Community representative Fanuel Manana said last week just after the Somalian shop was torched that ‘the funeral went well at first and the police escorted us, but all hell broke loose when we were returning to the township. That is when  the uncontrollable masses decided to burn the shop.(…) “One thing is for sure; We are not going to stop these protests until a solution is found that favours the people," he said.

Related Links

Sakhile Standerton residents demand corrupt ANC officials resign Sept 28 2009 SABC