UPDATE: Joburg let Lion Park burn

UPDATE: 5.30am, 11 March

One dead at protest scene

LION PARK – Thabo Mbeki protests lead to pedestrian’s death.

The chaotic traffic caused by the protest action on Malibongwe Drive saw a hit and run near the riot scene.

According to spokesperson for the Muldersdrift police, Warrant Officer Hitler Ngwenya a case of culpable homicide was opened at the police station, and they were investigating the death.

Ward 96 councillor Matome Mafokwane offered his condolences to the man’s family, adding that this should never have happened if government took time to listen to the complaints of settlement residents involved in the protest.

Mafokwane had received numerous death threats, with residents blaming him for their woes.

11am, 11 March

The chaos on 11 March at Thabo Mbeki informal settlement could have been prevented, since roadblocks and fires on Sixth Road have been a long time coming, said Ward 96 councillor Matome Mafokwane.

Mafokwane was ready to meet with residents and housing MMC Dan Bovu on 9 March, where government would have responded to residents on their complaints for housing, electricity and safety services.

But the Department of Housing cancelled the meeting, reportedly telling Mafokwane that the protest would go ahead regardless of their intervention.

At 3am angry residents took to the streets, setting alight whatever they could find on Malibongwe Drive. They also erected crude barriers to block traffic.

Mafokwane phoned Fourways Review in the early morning to say that the protest had started, now surprisingly directing blame against him and the Democratic Alliance.

Community leader Godwill Adams said Mafokwane had to prepare himself to step down.

The councillor maintained he was merely a means for residents to have their voices heard, and he could not be held accountable for government’s failure to provide services to shack dwellers.

Adams said everyone in government had failed them, and ruined their opportunities for a better life. He said the protest was an outcry from residents for a better life.

Police from Krugersdorp, Randburg and Muldersdrift were dispatched to the riot scene, with Johannesburg Metro police.

Superintendent Wayne Minnaar, spokesperson for Metro police, said in the early hours of the morning the protest seemed to be without violence. By 8.30am most of the protesters had disbanded.

During the protest a mob attacked the car of a Fourways Review journalist with branches, and screamed that the newspaper should publish how upset they were.

Bovu met with residents at the settlement in the early afternoon on the day of the protest, and residents handed him a memorandum with their demands.

Spokesman for the Department of Housing Palesa More said their requests would be considered.