18 March, 2016 beateditor@gmail.com | Website: thebeat.linmedia.co.za
GOVERNMENT / POLITICAL
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Mookgophong burns in violent service delivery protest
Protesters blocked roads amid violent protests in Mookgophong, during which at least one person was killed and another wounded.
Bernice Mills Mookgophong residents launched a protest march to the municipal offices on Wednesday 9 March, to deliver a memorandum of complaints to Monyamane. She was apparently in Venda and could not receive the document in person. The protesters proceeded from there to the police station in town. All exits from the township to the industrial area were blocked with burning tires, rocks, and large branches. The group of approximately 3 000 protesters moved in the direction of the police station, overturning dustbins and strewing trash en route.
Name boards in Nelson Mandela Rd were vandalised and Mama Afrika, a restaurant in that street, was also damaged. The protestors targeted the Mayor’s house on their way back to Sector 1, hurling rocks at the residence. Manyamane’s supporters and the protestors were involved in a scuffle and the rear window of Monyamane’s Toyota Fortuner was damaged in the process. The police’s Public Order Policing Unit from Modimolle dispersed the crowd with rubber bullets, but were forced to intervene again on Wednesday night when residents threatened to rage out of control. The protesters were more peaceful on Thursday, 10 March, and employees could return to work, but the police once again had to disperse a crowd in the evening.
Colonel Jan Koekemoer, the station commander of the Mookgophong Police, says that additional rubber bullets had to be requisitioned and two Nyalas were deployed on Friday, 11 March. The protesters attacked the police with rocks and petrol bombs. Monyamane was escorted the bridge over the N1 highway, which was being used as a barrier, on Friday, 11 March, to receive the memorandum. “The memorandum was not handed over, as there was no memorandum,” she told The BEAT’s sister paper The Post. When The Post visited the Mayor at her home on Sunday, 13 March, no violence was in evidence, although her home was being guarded 24/7 by members of both the local police and Triotic, a security company. On Monday, Monyamane told The Post that
she would not resign. Violence erupted again on Monday afternoon. Ben Matlou, a resident of the town, was fatally wounded during the protests in the afternoon of Monday, 14 March. He was in his thirties and according to family members, had not been involved in the protests. He was on his way home when he landed in the crossfire. Philemon Charlie (16), one of the protesters, was hit in the head and was taken to the Voortrekker Hospital at Mokopane for treatment. It is alleged that a Triotic guard detail opened fire on a group of protesters who were allegedly charging the Mayor’s home, but it is still unclear who shot these men. Smoke still cast a pall over Sector 1 on Monday, 14 March, and shots could be heard from the direction of the town.