Attacks on state facilities and July looting are linked, claims Blade Nzimande

The violence and looting that happened in July last year, this week’s parliament fire, and the vandalism at the Constitutional Court were all planned and executed by “counter-revolutionaries” SACP general-secretary Blade Nzimande has claimed.

Addressing the 27th anniversary of the late Joe Slovo‘s death in Soweto on Thursday, the SACP leader urged members of the tripartite alliance to “mobilise and defend the revolution.”

“We want security and law enforcement agencies to go very deep into this thing… but we have our own suspicions as the SACP.

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“The burning of Parliament is not unconnected to the counter-revolution that was waged in July last year, and on the day [after] the Acting Chief Justice [Raymond Zondo] gave state capture report to the President, someone is busy vandalising the Constitutional Court. It is not by accident,” he said.

“We are suspicious that this thing is planned. We cant sit like this and relax when we are seeing the counter-revolution coming, it is an oncoming train.

“In honour of Joe Slovo, lets unite as the alliance and all progressive forces to defend our revolution and go and seek to unite the widest possible sections of SA society to defend our revolution.”

Nzimande did not clarify who the “counter-revolutionaries” were.

Security expert Johan Burger said making allegations without proof was dangerous.

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“We haven’t had real proof on what may be behind these incidents. There is no substantiated proof,” Burger said.

However, risk analyst Jasmine Opperman warned that should another round of insurrection similar to last year’s happen, it could be more organised and more effective.

“My worry is that if what happened last year repeats itself, we could be in more trouble. The July insurrection wasn’t successful because the momentum was scuppered in Gauteng. Do we have good intelligence services to counter this? That worries me,” said Opperman.