July 2021: Riots? What riots?

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Two years to the day since KwaZulu-Natal, and Gauteng to a lesser extent, was rocked by widespread looting and riots, authorities remain unwilling — or unable — to divulge who the “masterminds” of the unrest were.  

This is exactly the same position the South African Police Service (SAPS) management was in at this time last year. 

The police and their minister, Bheki Cele, however, have made much of the 4 000 Public Order Policing (PoP) recruits brought in to quell increasing protests or another insurgency. 

Although additional numbers should be celebrated, experts in policing tell us that it is the training of the PoP members that should get our attention, as should the equipment at their disposal.

Consider that in the eThekwini area, which morphed into a quasi-epicentre for rioters in 2021 and since then experiences violent service delivery protests weekly, police last year had only 51 functioning vehicles: 41 soft tops, three Nyalas (essential for public order policing), two new generation Nyalas, two Casspirs and three trucks. Fifty-two vehicles were out of commission, among them another 16 Nyalas. 

Poor maintenance at stations and of policing equipment is nothing new, and remains an area that opposition parties and oversight bodies consistently highlight.

This week the police told the Mail & Guardian that PoP was “continuously being resourced” to ensure it had what was needed to control large crowds.

“There are currently 8 600 trainees undergoing the basic police learning development training programme. A batch of those in training will also be deployed to PoP to capacitate the unit. In July this year the SAPS will advertise another 10 000 posts to bolster its capacity,” said police spokesperson Brigadier Athlenda Mathe.

The police service had also received its first batch of drones, she said, and officers had recently qualified as drone pilots in Gauteng.

A suspected looter is fired upon with rubber bullets by Ekurhuleni Metro Police Department officers (EMPD) on patrol inide a flooded mall in Vosloorus, on July 13, 2021. (Photo by MARCO LONGARI / AFP)

As for the National Prosecuting Authority, it still has cases from those eight devastating days on the court roll. A number of cases had not been finalised, the NPA told the M&G. Some of the “challenges” identified for those not enrolled included an inability to identify suspects, insufficient evidence and an inability to identify the owners of looted items recovered from the accused.

The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) — featherweight in authority — is yet to release the findings of its erratically held three-month investigative hearings into the unrest, which ended in June last year. The delay, it has said, is the result of an abundance of information provided by those testifying, and the departure of one of its report writers. It now has two.  

The commission said it will issue its preliminary report this month, but the release date for the final offering will depend on stakeholder input to the provisional report. In other words, no definitive timeline, no deadline.

President Cyril Ramaphosa, who described those eight days as a failed insurrection, has still not called a briefing to update the nation about the implementation of the recommendations made by the expert panel in its report. Nor has a simple press release been issued about updates on investigations into those allegedly driving the plot to unseat his administration.  

As for the economic damage caused by the unrest, the treasury initially estimated that it shaved between 0.7 and 0.9 of a percentage point from annual GDP growth in 2021. But those estimates did not consider value chain disruptions or output effects.

Polarisation: During the riots in KwaZulu-Natal last July, 36 people were killed when armed community members patrolled the streets in Phoenix. (Guillem Sartorio/AFP)

According to figures sent to the M&G this week by the Durban Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which represents about 3 000 formal and 54 000 informal sector businesses, the net cost of the unrest on businesses and the economy in Durban was R12.8 billion. 

Value of lost sales and stock amounted to R40 billion, damage to property was R15 billion, and the value of lost equipment and machinery, R20 billion. Sixteen thousand businesses were negatively affected and 91 000 jobs placed at risk.

If there has been one positive thing in the aftermath of those ghastly eight days, it has been the conscious banding together of the community groups that were formed at breakneck speed as the violence unfurled. Those informal neighbourhood watches and ragtag civilian patrollers have formalised, joined community policing forums, and are working closely with the same police who in July 2021 did not protect them. 

And individuals, no doubt to the chagrin of the autocratic Cele, have legally armed themselves.

“See that. That is my house. You come into that house, I shoot,” a father of two in the Umbilo area of Durban told the M&G. “Cele can go to hell. My gun is legal. If [looters] come [again], I shoot.” 

Dozens have concurred.

It is not an uncommon sentiment in Umbilo, which was so infested with armed (illegally acquired, according to police) criminals over those eight days, that the stench of gunpowder and the crack of gunshots filled the air. The cartridges of shots into the sky courtesy of drunk looters landed in gardens, on roads and penetrated roof tiles.

The ineptitude of the policing and state security sectors during those eight days remains more a machete than a thorn in the side for scores of residents but, as stated earlier, at a local level, relations with police are healing, or have healed.

The proactive role that law-abiding civilian forums can play in a “failed insurrection”, crime infested areas and violent service delivery protests has been publicly acknowledged by KwaZulu-Natal’s police commissioner, Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi.

A straight shooter and career cop, who appears to have a degree of disdain for politics in policing, Mkhwanazi is viewed by some senior officers this publication spoke to as the man who, should he one day be appointed national commissioner, could actually refocus the police service. But that may be precisely why he was overlooked for the job last year, and probably will be again.  

As for the elite crime fighting unit, the Hawks, it has to date arrested 67 accused on various charges relating to allegedly instigating the riots.

A member of SAPS shoots rubber bullets to disperse a crowd looting outside a warehouse storing alcohol in Durban on July 16, 2021. (Photo by GUILLEM SARTORIO / AFP)

When pressed by the M&G about investigations into the so-called masterminds of the unrest, and whether they were among the arrested instigators, Brigadier Thandi Mbambo said it was “[a] matter that is still subject to investigation and will be presented in the court of law before being publicised”.

The way most of us will read this is that the police still do not have a firm grip on the identities of the architects of the violence, and for those who are known, political consideration has, is and will take place.

More than 2 000 looters were arrested by the police during and just after the riots, among them young adults. Many were released with fines and warnings, while the youth were scuttled into “diversion programmes”.

The efficacy of those programmes remains a mystery, as does how to “divert” the myriad teenagers — and much younger — that this journalist saw during those eight days. They were looting, setting tyres alight and helping to haul barricades into roads — conscious attempts to scupper overwhelmed PoP members from bringing criminals to heel.  

The residents of Umbilo, and of Berea, Musgrave, Morningside, the Bluff, Wentworth and myriad other areas in the city and the province are still keenly aware of those eight days. Talk of service delivery protests today sets them on edge.  

Storing bottled water and canned goods (for those who can afford it) has become the norm for many, who remember the food shortages in the province after the riots. 

In the case of water, the need to store has been exacerbated by the frequent infrastructure breakdowns courtesy of eThekwini municipality, and the distrust that tap water is safe to drink.

Today, residents are often reminded by the inept eThekwini metro that it is experiencing “challenges” because of Covid-19, the 2022 floods and climate change — all well out of its control.

The social and economic repercussions of the riots— a direct consequence of ANC infighting and deployees not knowing how to plan or govern — are, on the other hand, mostly passed over.

If we have learnt one thing from the unrest two years later, it is this: there will be no final answers, because for Ramaphosa and his allegedly governing ANC, those eight days in July are just another stain on bedclothes so thoroughly soiled that there is simply no way to remove them.