Cape Argus

July unrest fuelled by politics

SAHRC Commission­er Philile Ntuli has revealed that the commission’s report had found that July unrest in 2021 was an orchestrat­ed event which required that individual­s act with one voice to achieve its end.

She said the various state institutio­ns which investigat­ed the events which spread from KZN to Gauteng including the blocking of the N3 and N2 and the destructio­n of factories, malls and other institutio­ns, were orchestrat­ed.

Ntuli added that prevalent socio-economic factors in some of the affected communitie­s also played a role in furthering the unrest that resulted in the deaths of at least 337 people in KZN and Gauteng.

Ntuli was briefing the media about the SAHRC’s findings on the July 2021 unrest which started in KZN and moved to provinces such as Gauteng and the Free State. At least 3 400 people were arrested on allegation­s of inciting public violence, murder, arson, and looting.

The Commission also looked at “the social, economic, spatial and political factors prevalent in the various areas and the extent to which these played a role in the July unrests.”

“The commission states the following findings: the event shows that the acts during the unrests were indeed orchestrat­ed. The blocking of the N3 and the N2, the calculated destructio­n of factories and warehouses, the organised disconnect­ion of security and fire alarm systems, the attack on government communicat­ion facilities at the Durban port, the bombing and the removal of ATMs, together cannot be viewed as mutually distinct,” Ntuli said.

In addition to the lives lost the unrest had resulted in more than R50 billion in economic and 150 000 in job losses.

Ntuli said there had been a co-ordinated effort to destabilis­e the country.

There was suspicion that the unrest was in retaliatio­n to the arrest of former President Jacob Zuma who was forced to hand himself over to the Estcourt Correction­al Centre after the Constituti­onal Court ordered that he be arrested for his failure to appear before the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture.

However, Ntuli revealed that while the timing of the events of the July 2021 unrest coincided with the arrest of Zuma, the commission did not find evidence linking the two events.

“The timing of the events of July coincided with the incarcerat­ion of the former president Zuma, this caused an intertwini­ng that blurred the lines between where one ended and where the other started. This intersecti­on of events has led many to conclude that the two are indeed related. However, the commission finds that while timing of the unrest coincided with the incarcerat­ion of the former president it could not find evidence to link the two events,” she said.