South
Africa
Police to people of Makause: 'March and there'll be
another Marikana'
The road
to Mangaung looks like a movie production these days, and every visible move is
being played out in the national media. But far away from headline news, in
places like Makause on the East Rand, the daily skirmishes for power unravel
unseen.
Here,
community leaders say they’re being threatened by an ANC-aligned police force
that’s trashing their right to gather, and make their voices heard.
By MANDY DE WAAL.
“The SAPS
in Primrose are not responding positively to the cases that have been forwarded
to them for their attention,” says ‘General’ Alfred Moyo from the Makause
informal settlement, located in Primrose in Germiston on the East Rand, where
people want a better life. There’s no access to formal sanitation, no electricity,
and access to water is fraught. To make matters worse, says Moyo, the police
don’t react to residents’ complaints, and reported cases of crime (like theft,
violence and mob justice) are just ignored by the police. Moyo is a leader of
the Makause Community Development Forum, which wants to march to the SAPS
station in Primrose to protest against police brutality and the police’s
alleged refusal to investigate residents’ cases.
