Riots are government’s chickens coming home to roost

The riots in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng may have started as protests against the jailing of Jacob Zuma, but this was simply the spark in a tinderbox of failed promises, poverty, and hopelessnes.

The near-complete collapse of the country’s intelligence services, with former agents sympathetic to the former president fingered in stoking fires, also contributed to authorities being unable to stop the situation from spiralling out of control.

Former senior State Security Agency (SSA) and ANC members aligned to Zuma have been identified as key instigators of violence, particularly in KwaZulu-Natal, State Security minister Ayanda Dlodlo has confirmed. During the Justice, Crime Prevention and Security (JCPS) Cluster media briefing on Tuesday, the minister was at pains to explain how so much destruction was not foreseen and could ensue right under their noses.

Intelligence on overdrive

Dlodlo insisted that the intelligence machinery was on “overdrive”, intelligence was sent to the police and that their responsibility ended there.

“We refuse to acknowledge that there was spectacular failure of intelligence. Intelligence has done what it could. We have supplied information to law enforcement to do its work … There was information that we missed there and there, but it is not as if there was spectacular failure from intelligence leading to the fact that police could not effect arrest,” she said.

The minister said a lot more damage could have occurred if there was no intelligence for police to act on, saying it was what the public could not see that was averted.

She said a possible attack in Sandton and a few more in other locations in Gauteng were averted, as well as attacks on an electricity substation in Msunduzi, KwaZulu-Natal, the provincial ANC headquarters, and rioting at Westville prison.

Police were unprepared

Institute of Security Studies (ISS) security research consultant Dr Johan Burger, however, doubted that there would be so much destruction, which is still continuing, if intelligence structures were in the tip-top shape Dlodlo claimed.

He said if the SSA has been giving intelligence to the police but the attacks still not averted, it means the police did not act on the information.

“That is a serious accusation… From what we see police were unprepared. Let us assume they had the intelligence about the violence, why then did they not act? SSA must be clear on this because they are accusing the police of failing to act on the information. I think (Saps) did not have this information,” Burger said.

SSA and CI crippled by previous leadership

The misuse and looting of both Crime Intelligence and the SSA is well documented, with Burger saying despite pockets of excellence, the structures had been hollowed out during the tenures of Lieutenant General Richard Mdluli and Arthur Fraser.

Burger said Mdluli, who was considered a Zuma ally, appointed people loyal to himself and not to the Constitution.

“He took firm control, to the detriment of intelligence and capacity. It was the same with Fraser at SSA… If those agencies were functioning, we would have been prepared to deal with the high level of violence,” Burger said.

Poverty playing a bigger part than Zuma

Senior Public Administration lecturer at the University of Mpumalanga Dr John Molepo said the rioting had very little to do with Zuma’s incarceration and largely due to inequality, poverty and unemployment.

“We are going to see more of this, because young people are unemployed and anything can happen. It is a bomb that has been ticking since after 1994 with failed promises. Anything can happen now,” Molepo said.

“For 27 years politicians have been making promises but have failed to address the issue of poverty, inequality and joblessness. You cannot have so many young people despondent. It is a recipe for disaster.”

– siphom@citizen.co.za