A call by President Cyril Ramaphosa to calm widespread unrest in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng following the jailing of former president Jacob Zuma wasn’t enough to stop thousands of looters, many opportunistic, to attack and pillage businesses in South Africa’s two most populous provinces.
Especially small businesses, many of which are owned by foreigners, bore the brunt of attacks linked to supporters of the former president, now a criminal. “The Small Business Institute strongly condemns the wanton looting of businesses, destruction of vital economic infrastructure, burning of trucks and blockading of roads, primarily in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng,” the institute said in a media release.
The SA Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s CEO, Alan Mukoki, said: “There is no protest that involves breaking into a shop, removing TVs and fridges, damaging property, going out to the streets and damaging infrastructure. That is not a legitimate protest, notwithstanding the fact that the constitution allows you the right to free protest and also allows other people not to protest if they don’t want to.”
At the time of writing, shopping centres in Durban, Pietermaritzburg, Soweto, Roodepoort, the Johannesburg central business district and Mamelodi, among others, had been ransacked. In a press briefing on 13 July, police minister Bheki Cele said about 800 people had been arrested. Assurances by Cele and state security minister Ayanda Dlodlo that no lapses in intelligence gathering had occurred before the outbreak of violence, didn’t convince everyone.
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