Trucks violence reeks of terrorism, xenophobia – expert

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s statement on Wednesday condemning the wave of attacks on trucks shows that government is worried about what has gone beyond mere protest and is becoming economic sabotage and terrorism.

Some drivers were injured when their trucks were petrol bombed in Gauteng, following other attacks in KwaZulu-Natal. Police have made arrests and a driver died on Monday from injuries.

Ramaphosa has set up an emergency task team of four ministers – Thulas Nxesi of employment and labour, Fikile Mbalula of transport, Aaron Motsoaledi of home affairs and Bheki Cele of the police – to give him an urgent report on the situation.

Road Freight Association (RAF) chief executive Gavin Kelly this week urged Ramaphosa to act to end the attacks on truck drivers.

Ramaphosa said the violence had caused economic disruption “just as the country was focused on rebuilding the economy”.

“We cannot tolerate this loss of life and destruction of property,” Ramaphosa said.

Presidential spokesman Tyrone Seale confirmed that Ramaphosa was concerned about the escalation of violence, hence he asked a cluster of ministers to compile a report.

“The president will be waiting from the ministers to submit the report. He is very concerned about what is happening in the industry,” Seale said.

But security and policing expert Dr Johan Burger said the current violence pointed to something more than economic sabotage – possibly economic terrorism.

He said the character of the violence had the elements of terrorism as described in the Terrorism Act, where the perpetrators instilled fear to disable economic activity to achieve their ends.

“It’s absolutely amazing that this violence continues to happen all across the country with massive damage to the economy,” Burger said.

“The question is: what is the government doing about it? We are hoping that behind the scenes there is high-level work being done by security agencies and the department of transport to uncover who is behind this.

“This is more than economic sabotage, but it is terrorism and it should be dealt at that level.”

He said the bombings, the shootings and attacks were meant to terrorise the victims and destabilise the economy.

“During those acts, people became afraid and in this case, they would get scared to used the public roads affected by the attacks, and that is the central objective of terrorism,” he said. “The brazenness and the scale of these attacks indicate an act of terrorism.”

He said the attacks also had an element of xenophobia as foreign truck drivers were often the targets. Employers were blamed for hiring cheap labour from neighbouring countries to make profits.

South African Transport and Allied Worker’s Union (Satawu) deputy general secretary Anele Kiet said indeed there were attacks on foreign drivers but distanced his union from such acts.

He said Satawu encouraged foreign drivers to get permits and not to accept lesser wages which was killing the jobs of locals.

“We cannot fight for this economy and at the same time seek to sabotage it. It is a wrong narrative to say striking workers are sabotaging the economy,” Kiet said.

However, he did not rule out the possibility of economic sabotage by other elements outside the union sector.

– ericn@citizen.co.za

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