The South African government can claim one easy win in restoring the trust of the traumatised people of the country after last week’s unrest and looting, and that is to come clean on exactly what and who failed and why more than 300 people had to lose their lives.
The weeklong looting spree and violent destruction in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng negatively affected human rights, particularly the rights to life, health, food and freedom of movement. But what it also did was expose South Africa’s glaring security failures. The state was unable to protect the people as they are constitutionally mandated to do so, and protect their human rights.
The ultimate accountability lies with President Cyril Ramaphosa and his security cluster ministers who are tasked with keeping the country, and everyone who lives in it, safe.
This is why Amnesty International believes that the government’s admission that it was poorly prepared to deal with the riots calls for the accountability of high-level public officials.
Authorities must reveal what they knew in the days leading up to the violence and why no action was taken.
Reverend Frank Chikane, who is part of the Save our Democracy campaign, made a salient point when Gauteng premier David Makhura met with civil society this week — we do not need a commission of inquiry to investigate what happened, the security cluster should be able to provide that information almost immediately.
But this is not happening. Instead frictions within the state are playing out in the media.
When the security cluster ministers – Police Minister Bheki Cele, State Security Minister Ayanda Dlodlo and Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula – first addressed the media on 13 July, they gave the country little reassurance that they were working together to ensure the situation was brought under control to protect people and human rights.
At the time, Cele said the situation on the ground was under “strong surveillance” and they would ensure things did not deteriorate, but they did. We then heard Dlodlo saying that the State Security Agency provided intelligence, but there were not enough police and soldiers on the ground. Cele, however, has denied that any information was passed onto police.
Makhura, during the meeting with civil society this week, also said that political leaders in Gauteng, including himself, kept passing on information to police. He said authorities had the information but they had not sufficiently planned.
“Something has happened in this period that needs to be accounted for. There was just no response,” he told civil society.
So who is telling the truth? The people of South Africa have a right to know.
While the ministers go back and forth on who did what, and who to blame, there are hundreds of families mourning the death of their loved ones, people are left hungry, jobless and without healthcare services or medicine. Billions of Rands have been lost due to destruction of property and targeted attacks on shopping malls and distribution warehouses. This is devastating for a country that is already dealing with high levels of poverty, inequality and unemployment and a weakening economy.
The destruction, lack of accountability by those in charge, and contradictions by the different ministers show a government in chaos, unable to protect the people.
This while we see a number of reports of continued threats, of police stations on high alert, especially those with arms storage facilities, following intelligence that “instigators” may be planning to attack. How do we know that this time round, if this were to happen, that our security cluster will be ready and prepared?
The government has a duty to be honest and ensure prompt, thorough and transparent investigation into the unrest and violence, and ensure this accountability.
Amnesty International is looking into what unfolded, including the causes of deaths that occurred during the unrest, because at this point of time there is no clear answer.
What is clear is that those who were responsible must be brought to book and due process must be followed, we cannot afford to have more human rights abuses.
But at the same time we are also calling on the government to also take full responsibility for the unrest, loss of life and damage to property.
Do the right thing!
