LISTEN | EFF ‘proud of the youth’ participating in national shutdown

EFF spokesperson Sinawo Tambo says they are proud of young people’s participation in the national shutdown. He says the youth have always been at the forefront of change in South Africa. 

“We are proud of the youth. We are saying to them, be fearless. We are saying to the parents of the youth in South Africa, don’t watch your children get murdered and abused and sit on the sidelines,” said Tambo. 

Several protesters, some believed to be students, were arrested on the streets of Braamfontein in Johannesburg on Sunday night. 

Tambo was speaking to the media in Pretoria on Monday during the party’s planned nationwide shutdown. The EFF is calling for President Cyril Ramaphosa to resign and an end to load-shedding.

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More than 3,400 South African National Defence Force members have been deployed by Ramaphosa until April 17 to assist the police under Operation Prosper. 

Former ANC member Carl Niehaus, chairperson of the African Radical Economic Transformation Alliance, was in Pretoria at the shutdown. Like the EFF,  Niehaus has called out the massive deployment of the army, saying should the army be “unleashed against the people” they would deal with Ramaphosa. 

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