'They came when it was quiet': Soldiers a no-show at height of July unrest, say Gauteng community leaders

Community leaders from Soweto and Alexandra which were affected during the July 2021 unrest say soldiers were nowhere to be seen during the height of looting and unrest in both townships.

The civic leaders testified before the SA Human Rights Commission in Johannesburg on Thursday as the commission continued its probe of the circumstances that led to violent unrest that flared up in KwaZulu-Natal and spread to Gauteng after the incarceration of former president Jacob Zuma.

“We have the barracks [just outside Soweto], but we did not see soldiers there. They came two or three days afterwards — only when it was quiet,” said Tshidi Madisakoane from the Baduli Bahlali non-profit organisation in Soweto.

Benjamin Chisare, a community leader from Alexandra, said: “The military was deployed [to Alexandra] three days after [the start of the looting]. The military presence was there to implement oppression. We had to be locked up in our homes. It frustrated us.”

Themba Makhubela, also of Baduli Bahlali, said it was painful to see the defeated and outnumbered police officers who arrived at the scenes of crime.

“It was a bad scene looking at men in blue standing there while they witnessed crime being committed in front of them,” Makhubela said.

It appeared as though the police had received instruction to “stand down” and not act against looters.

“They would park their van and observe.”

He witnessed the start of the looting at Diepkloof Mall, where initially only one police van with two officers had been deployed to the scene which was threatening to boil over.

About five personnel from a security company had tried to also protect the mall, but they were outnumbered.

“As a leader [I believed] police must act without fear or favour, but we felt powerless too,” he said.

This incident was the consequence of previous inaction on looting, particularly on foreign-owned shops. He suggested this had built up the courage of looters.

Madisakoane said the people of Soweto were failed by the police system.

“The state failed in its duty to protect us, as citizens.”

Chisare said the officers who responded in Alexandra had also seemingly given up on stopping looters.

“The police were there. They were standing there and just looked while goods were taken. They understood that they were outnumbered, but the intelligence was outrun. Normally, intelligence would have picked it up [the looting and destruction plans] before it starts.”

Chisare said this incident of police watching looters take goods gave those behind the incident something to brag about, as they openly defied the law in front of people meant to enforce it.

Chisare said it seemed the strategy was to agitate the community by riling them up on their social ills — some of which were caused by the Covid-19 lockdown, while also pushing the #ReleaseZuma campaign, but the instigators ensured they did not leave an ATM unbombed.

The looting of shops was meant to serve as a distraction to law enforcers, who as they tried to contain that, would be under-resourced to attend to numerous ATM bombings.

“We should not be foolish enough to say the drive [behind the looting] was the #ReleaseZuma campaign. That propaganda was funded by the ANC itself. We know that, including the way it was mobilised,” said Chirase.

“There were certain comrades in the ANC who were given resources to drive these things, rally the young minds who knew nothing. It was a strategy to create a diversion ... while orchestrators leave with money. Not a single one of them is arrested, even today.”

Ordinary community members who got away with clothing, food and other household items used it not only to benefit themselves, but others within their communities.

“People shared the stuff they looted among community members — from mealie meal to roll-on [deodorant],” he said.

But people soon felt the consequences of their actions when, in the aftermath, they had to travel long distances to get to shops for bare necessities and ATMs.

“We thought we are being heroes, little did we know we were destroying our own infrastructure,” Chirase added.

Makhubela said while he understood the poverty that people suffered, he did not believe the looting’s root cause was poverty.

“This was driven by criminality more than anything. Our people have starved and are still starving. If we blame it on poverty, there is still poverty till now [after the looting],” he said, adding that the most vulnerable of society have, even in their trouble, remained resilient and disciplined.

Despite scores of people being arrested after the unrest, Madisakoane said: “Justice is not [yet] done because we have not found the main role players behind it.”

The hearings continue on Friday.  

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