Police gone MIA in riot hot spots, says Steenhuisen

DA leader John Steenhuisen has called on the government to dispatch police resources from other provinces to riot hot spots in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.

On Tuesday, Steenhuisen was in Durban to assess the damage left by demonstrators who have caused havoc in the province.

The opposition leader spoke at a virtual media briefing from Durban.

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“It is no exaggeration to say that neighbourhoods like Phoenix, Verulam and Cornubia have been turned into a war zone by marauding mobs, and there is still no sign of the violence letting up.

“The residents I spoke to are shattered by these events. They are struggling to understand how this was possible in our constitutional democracy, and how the state did not offer them, their loved ones, their property and their businesses any protection at all. They all told me today that they felt abandoned and left to fend for themselves,” he said.

The looting spree continued unabated in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal despite the deployment of the SA National Defence Force (SANDF).

Steenhuisen added both the police and soldiers were nowhere to be seen in several communities around Durban.

“There has been no re-establishment of law and order at all – we saw buildings still burning, and we saw bodies still lying in the streets. The reassurances offered by the ministers of the security cluster in their press briefing could not possibly be more meaningless. They are not close to having a handle on the situation here.”

He said the DA would be laying charges against EFF leader Julius Malema, and former president Jacob Zuma’s children, Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla and Duduzane Zuma, for inciting violence on social media.”It is also imperative that we snuff out the co-ordination and incitement of these criminal acts at the source. It is no secret that leaders of the pro-Zuma faction, as well as others with aligned interests, have been fanning the flames on social media with impunity. Our society is already a powder keg and we cannot afford any more of these incendiary sparks.”

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Steenhuisen added the deployment of only 2 500 SANDF personnel was far from sufficient for the entire country.”If the government could deploy many times this number during earlier phases of lockdown to enforce lockdown regulations, then they should certainly be able to match, if not exceed, this number in a crisis such as this,” he said.