Where were the cops in July? Here’s what we can work out from the blame game

South Africans could hardly believe their ears.

Was this a replay of the Keystone Cops, the bungling policemen that had audiences rolling in the aisles during the silent movie era?

It would have been hilarious, except that 359 people had died, and anarchy let loose as thousands of people swarmed into shops, malls, businesses and looted, destroyed and set fire. Fear turned neighbour against neighbour and racism, usually suppressed by consequences of law, reared its ugly head resulting in blood and loss of lives.

Three months ago SA’s top cops testified at the SA Human Rights Commission hearing into the unrest that swept through KwaZulu-Natal and parts of Gauteng in July.

Despite police training, which would have prepped them to testify in court or before a panel, the men in blue failed in their attempts to convince that they did not know what was happening on the ground when chaos erupted.

There were no police present when 26-year-old Naledi Manyoni tossed her two-year-old child from a ledge of a high-rise building as it burned in the Durban city centre. The group of people below cried out in fear and anxiety as the child hurdled towards them. Still, there were no officers present when Manyoni and her child were both safe on the ground.

There were no police around when Bongani Mkhize crawled on the N2 freeway and hid under a bridge after he had been shot near Wentworth, south of Durban, when residents took the law into their own hands, fearing that looters would ambush their suburbs. There were no officers there when looters stabbed each other over a bottle of whisky as they raided bottles stores.

The police operational plan only covered the arrest of Jacob Zuma — despite clear threats that “blood would flow” if the former president was jailed.

In the immediate aftermath, scores of supporters of the former president issued threats of a bloodbath and promised to form a ring of steel at his Nkandla home.

In his presentation to the SAHRC, KwaZulu-Natal premier Sihle Zikalala said tensions had already been building since June 29, when the Constitutional Court ordered Zuma's imprisonment.

“In the immediate aftermath, scores of supporters of the former president issued threats of a bloodbath and promised to form a ring of steel at his Nkandla home. These groups said they would do everything to prevent the SAPS from taking the former president to a correctional services centre to serve his sentence.”

However, police did not take the threats seriously then. They didn’t take the threats seriously even when sporadic outbursts of violence began on the night Zuma was jailed. 

KwaZulu-Natal started to burn and provincial police commissioner Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi had no operational plan to quell the fire.

Enter national police commissioner Khehla Sitole. Well, not quite. The national police told the hearings he was too busy running operations to show his face.

He had been appointed in 2016 by Zuma, one of a long list of crooks and incompetents appointed to the positions.

Sitole’s long-winded answers led to one critical point — SAPS had no intelligence ahead of the unrest despite the threats made in Nkandla and on social media.

Responding to minister Bheki Cele’s statement to the SAHRC that he had not received any intelligence report before or during the unrest from police, Sitole said there was no intelligence report before the outbreak of violence.

Sitole agreed with Cele that the police had made no concerted effort to properly plan for the unrest. He said the police could not plan as they did not have accurate information before the events unfolded.

While absolute chaos broke out in KwaZulu-Natal on July 9 and spread to Gauteng three days later, Sitole had what he called a “bird’s eye view” from an office. No one knows what he was doing there and he battled to explain what instructions he had given to provincial commissioners to curb the violence.

Sitole, and other officers, were missing in action as thousands of people made their way to shopping centres and industrial hubs such as Queen Nandi Drive to loot.

When I was national commissioner, I pulled a team. I pulled everybody together. I minimised every and any conflict. I had a wonderful team.

—  Police minister Bheki Cele

Footage of the looting at Value Logistics showed luxury cars parked on the N3, while their owners went into the facility for goods. Looters formed a 3km queue to strip the warehouse bare. It went on for three days.

The looters even stole the company’s boardroom table.

Drieka Smith had to shut down her bridal shop in Empangeni after looters destroyed and stole exclusive weddings dresses, suits and more than 400 bridesmaid’s dresses.

No business, big or small, escaped the looting. Even schools were looted and vandalised.

Again, police were nowhere to be found.

Still Sitole believes he is fit to hold his position.

Adv Smanga Sethene put it to Sitole that he showed “brazen incompetence” in relation to the unrest.

“Why do you think that you are still fit to be SA police commissioner? The material and brazen security lapses that embarrassed the country, the head of state could not even receive the intelligence report — why does General Sitole think he is still fit to be the national commissioner of police?

“Do you still want to do it when you have proven beyond doubt that you have failed? You have failed the country. You have conceded that an estimated R50bn has been lost. The country’s image has been dented. Investor confidence has nosedived. Why do you think you still deserve to hold the position?”

However, Sitole was not shaken by his words.

“I can still do the job,” he said.

Sitole didn’t seem fazed that his subordinates are more qualified. He doesn’t possess a post-matric qualification, the SAHRC heard.

But it was clear from Cele’s testimony that he thought it was time for Sitole to go.

He spoke of a force that had lost its way. He blamed Sitole, but insisted his relationship with the national commissioner was not frosty. 

“When I was national commissioner, I pulled a team. I pulled everybody together. I minimised every and any conflict. I had a wonderful team,” said Cele.

He said Sitole had not visited Phoenix during or after the unrest.

“I don’t remember seeing the national commissioner during the unrest. I heard he said I was trying to find him in the wrong places. He should have tried to be in the right places. The right places were where things were happening, where people were dying, where looting was taking place,” Cele said.

Sitole shocked South Africans and evidence leaders when he did not know the number of victims killed in the racially motivated attacks in Phoenix during the unrest. Thirty-six people were killed by vigilante groups of residents, who blockaded entrances of Phoenix during the unrest.

The commission heard that black South Africans were profiled. Some were shot for just walking on the street.

Mkhwanazi tried to create the impression that he was everywhere and that, while he was supposed to be isolating after coming into contact with a Covid-19 positive spokesperson, he still went out to try to calm the situation.

But he admitted that KwaZulu-Natal’s 18,000 police officers couldn’t be everywhere.

Mkhwanazi even alluded to a possible “inside person” as rioters were one step ahead of police at all times. However, the commission did not interrogate this.

In a highly defensive explanation of how he went to Pretoria for the birth of his child and then drove his wife and four-day newborn over 1,000km to a safe house outside of KZN, before making his way back to the province, Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi disputed Mapisa-Nqakula’s claim that he was away at the height of the unrest.

He didn’t hold back when the SAHRC cautioned him about telling the “real story” behind ex-defence minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula’s allegations that he was uncooperative, disrespectful and on paternity leave when KwaZulu-Natal was burning.

He told the commission that he had called Mapisa-Nqakula out on a lie — telling the public that 800 SA National Defence Force soldiers were deployed in the province. He didn’t know if that had offended her but he noted that when she mentioned that he went on paternity leave, she had “become personal”.

In a highly defensive explanation of how he went to Pretoria for the birth of his child and then drove his wife and four-day newborn over 1,000km to a safe house outside KZN, before making his way back to the province, Mkhwanazi disputed Mapisa-Nqakula’s claim that he was away at the height of the unrest.

Mkhwanazi was all too happy to tell the commission that Mapisa-Nqakula was at the five-star Beverley Hills Hotel leading “some operation, I don’t know about”.

Deputy provincial commissioner Maj-Gen Phumelele Makoba, who had been acting while he was on leave, corroborated his evidence, saying that the police were not invited to the hotel where the SANDF and minister were supposedly having meetings. She gatecrashed but was welcomed and introduced to Mapisa-Nqakula.

Mkhwanazi sat back with his arms folded, chuffed, when the commission said it may make an application to call Mapisa-Nqakula again to explain what the KZN top cop called a “blatant lie”.

He testified that the army arrived in KwaZulu-Natal only after the looting and violence had ended.

Cele’s testimony was highly anticipated. After all, he visited all the hotspots where chaos and violence had erupted. He had spoken to witnesses, had meetings with government and community leaders, and would have been aware of what went on behind the scenes.

But he rambled.

Cele said nothing about the cause of the unrest, the failure of police or the looting, and had to be reminded by evidence leaders to present his evidence in the sequence in which events occurred.

Then he dropped a bombshell.

He alleged that public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane had “dealings” with one of the so-called instigators of the July unrest —  Zamaswazi Majozi, whose Twitter handle is Sphithiphithi Evaluator.

In his explanation that Majozi was taking him to court for loss of income, Cele said she had taken the matter to the public protector.

“This Sphithiphithi has been in communication on political matters with the public protector about some cabinet members. The public protector goes to the investigators to get the docket, a hot docket that is in court.”

The police did not hand over the docket, Sitole said.

Police minister Bheki Cele said nothing about the cause of the unrest, the failure of police or the looting, and had to be reminded by evidence leaders to present his evidence in the sequence in which events occurred.

Hawks head Lt-Gen Godfrey Lebeya is dealing with the matter.

When asked about the lack of effective intelligence, Cele spoke about his refusal to sign off a R500m budget, which could have led to not having enough capabilities.

Cele then went on to say that the money in the secret service coffers was the “most abused money in the SAPS”.

“There is a law that says the minister, president and Treasury must know about this money. You have money that people use to go to eat, to run their conference in Nasrec. People who want to run a parallel conference in Nasrec.”

Earlier this month the Supreme Court of Appeal upheld a high court ruling that found Sitole, along with two others, in breach of duties relating to the procurement of a R45m “grabber” before the Nasrec conference.

Cele told the SAHRC that money for crime intelligence seemed to be signed off by those who had no authority to do so.

He had asked Sitole about the unauthorised signing and an investigation into it.

“When I met with the national commissioner and asked: ‘Where is my report?’ I was told that he had appointed someone to investigate. There is a trend there that the newly-appointed people are signing things,” said Cele.

His explanation shifted blame from himself for the lack of intelligence ahead of the unrest. More than once, he said as the police minister, his duties related to policy.

Still he visited KwaZulu-Natal with Mapisa-Nqakula and state security minister Ayanda Dlodlo in the aftermath of the violence.

Were they communicating? The SAHRC panel didn’t know as Mapisa-Nqakula and Cele were not asked how they worked together during that time.

However, Mapisa-Nqakula had testified that the call for the SA National Defence Force to be deployed did not come from the police.

She said when the president called for soldiers to be on the ground, she contacted  Cele to co-sign the letter requesting deployment.

Mapisa-Nqakula briefly lost her cool during her almost five-hour grilling at the hearing when the evidence leader referenced her public contradiction of Ramaphosa’s definition of the crisis as a “failed insurrection”.

The former minister shook her head, saying she was not on trial, that she had been maligned in the media for contradicting the president because she didn’t believe the unrest, which caused billions of rand in damage, was an incident of insurrection and that the evidence leader was “ruffling her feathers”.

Chairperson of the hearing Andre Gaum had to intervene and ask Mapisa-Nqakula to take a “deep breath”. He clarified that the political controversy around how the unrest was defined in public was important to the hearing.

She said: “There was a lot of quibbling and negativity surrounding the terminology in defining what happened. I think that the manner in which it unfolded is something I hate to go back to, and how I was portrayed by some media which demonised me for contradicting the chief in command (CIC)/head of state. It was as if to say, who do you think you are, and that I was supportive of what was happening.”

Dlodlo is likely to testify at the hearing’s next sitting, which begins on Monday. Therefore it is yet to be seen if her evidence will also barely touch the surface.

In the three weeks that the SAHRC sat in Durban, it heard strong evidence from people whose lives were changed by the events of those few days of July. These witnesses spoke of the terror, the injuries and even job losses.

For SA’s top cops, nothing has changed.