(Left to right) Zackie Achmat, Sifiso Zitwana, Malwande Msongelo, Nomthetho Kilo, Axolile Notywala address the media about the national police commissioner’s response to the Khayelitsha Commission of Inquiry recommendations. Photo by Mary-Anne Gontsana.
12 August 2015
The Social Justice Coalition (SJC) and Ndifuna Ukwazi (NU) have called for the resignation or dismissal of national police commissioner Riah Phiyega, saying she has failed the people of Khayelitsha and poor people in South Africa as a whole.
In a press briefing set up outside parliament on Wednesday, the SJC’s Axolile Notywala expressed disappointment at Phiyega’s response to the recommendations of the O’Regan Commission of Inquiry into allegations of police inefficiency in Khayelitsha.
“This has been a struggle for more than ten years. In 2003, the Treatment Action Campaign started doing work to make sure that informal settlements such as Khayelitsha are safe. People who live in Khayelitsha experience crime and violence on a daily basis. This is the people’s dignity that the commissioner is not taking care of. Poor people who live in Khayelitsha also deserve to be as safe as the people who live in Sea Point or Green Point,” said Notywala.
Notywala, SJC members Sifiso Zitwana, Malwande Somngelo and Nomthetho Kilo, and the NU’s Zackie Achmat announced a programme of action against the “disgraceful response to the Khayelitsha commission by the national police commissioner”.
In a press conference on Friday, 7 August, Western Cape Premier Helen Zille released Phiyega’s response to the Inquiry. Phiyega’s 22-page document, addressed to Zille, is marked “strictly confidential”. The SJC and NU had tried for months to obtain it from the Minister of Police, before Zille released it with her response.
The police commissioner “denied, disputed or redirected to the Western Cape Provincial Government and City of Cape Town” every recommendation, said Zille.
Kilo told GroundUp that she had time and time again been affected by crime in her area of BT Section, Khayelitsha Site C. “I have seen vigilantism with my own eyes. I have seen a person being beaten and set alight right in my backyard. I have seen three boys who had robbed people at the station being taken by community members, beaten and set alight.”
“Just a week ago the body of a girl was found dumped in a drain after being beaten up.”
“Our children are growing up in these circumstances and they end up being violent themselves,” said Kilo.
“The community is trying to work with the police. There is a relationship there, but there are some people who have lost hope and are taking matters into their own hands. And with a response like this from the commissioner, more and more people will lose hope,” said Kilo.
Achmat said the tragedy was that his colleagues on the panel had all either seen a murder, had a relative who had been murdered or had a close friend who had been murdered. “The minister of police has undermined all the good work that has been done since September.”
“The police have tried their best, but Khayelitsha is the township with the highest number of murders and rapes. The three police stations there have three times fewer police than Rondebosch, Claremont or Wynberg – that’s what the commission found. Figures were hidden from us until the commission showed it. So the commission demonstrated that black lives don’t matter when it comes to the South African state and how resources are allocated to poor communities,” said Achmat.
For the next two weeks, the SJC will be organising pickets in Khayelitsha and the city centre, leading up to a march to parliament on 25 August. A memorandum will be handed to Minister of Police Nathi Nhleko, demanding that he respond to the findings of the commission and take urgent action to implement its recommendations. The march will be followed by a 72-hour sit-in outside parliament.