EDITORIAL | SA needs reassurance that the July riots won’t happen again

July marks one of the ugliest blots on SA’s history and yet four months down the line, those who orchestrated our collapse into turmoil remain at large. 

Triggered by protests in KwaZulu-Natal as a show of force by former president Jacob Zuma’s supporters demanding his immediate release after his imprisonment at the Estcourt detention centre, the civil unrest snowballed over 11 days into a gargantuan beast of racial profiling, attacks and killings, arson, looting and violence which claimed 336 lives. 

Financially it brought SA to its knees as the unrest is estimated to have cost the economy R50bn in GDP growth. Last week finance minister Enoch Godongwana said an additional R11bn would be allocated to the South African Special Risks Insurance Association (Sasria) to allow the state-owned insurance company to continue settling business claims from the unrest. This in addition to R48.9bn in fiscal support already allocated due to the unrest of July and the ongoing Covid-19 national lockdown.

The salve will only come in the form of tangible action — justice for those who were killed  — instead of the political rhetoric that has been pushed down our throats in an effort to placate society.

Small, medium and large businesses — which were already ravaged by the economic turbulence and restrictions of the pandemic — were further devastated by the civil unrest forcing many to shut their doors forever, resulting in wide-scale job losses. These seismic pressures threaten our already vulnerable society. 

On Monday, the SA Human Rights Commission started a painful probe into the impact of the unrest and its associated activities, including the inequality between certain communities, unemployment levels, poverty, hunger and food insecurity.

The riots dialled up existing racial tensions and pitted South Africans against each other in the most heinous manner.

This came out on day one of the SAHRC hearing after the first witness, a resident of an informal settlement in Pietermaritzburg in KwaZulu-Natal, spoke of her nephew’s death after rioting, chaos, looting, verbal and physical abuse and witnessing a murder at the hands of armed security and groups of Indians.

The chair of the investigative hearing explained that its scrutiny will focus on the cause of the unrest, racially motivated killings, the lapse of police and the role of security companies. 

There is no doubt that this process will provide much needed catharsis for a wounded nation. The investigation will come up with short, medium and long term measures to be adopted by relevant stakeholders and the state to address the resultant human rights violations and prevent a recurrence of future unrest, including better public order policing.

But the salve will only come in the form of tangible action — justice for those who were killed  — instead of the political rhetoric that has been pushed down our throats in an effort to placate society.

Even as late as last month, police minister Bheki Cele issued his umpteenth statement of confidence that, “eventually, police will get to the bottom of the failed insurrection in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng in July”.

The truth is that while 18 people have been arrested on charges from treason to incitement, the brains behind the insurrection that led to a cabinet shake up, billions of rand in losses, hundreds of lives lost and a regression of social harmony are still at large. 

And while Cele believes that police foiled a second attempt of unrest on a much larger scale in August, the state’s inability to close the net on the instigators speaks of the impact of the deep fractures within the ruling party.

Instead of putting aside its sectarian interests in favour of national security, the message that emerges is that the state is unwilling or incapable of protecting the public from harm again.

This doesn’t bode well for the ruling party, already smarting from a bruising at the recent polls. They need to deliver justice for those who lives were lost and irrevocably ruined, by delivering the masterminds.