South Africa. Johannesburg and Durban - Looting and Arson

R

Resistense

Guest
MSN article of CNN article: Indians Targeted In South Africa | Violence After Zuma Arrest | International News | CNN News 18
7/14/21
Indians being targeted in South Africa after the imprisonment of former president of Jacob Zuma. Violence broke out in several parts of the country including Johannesburg.Crowds clashed with police and ransacked or set ablaze shopping malls in cities across South Africa on Tuesday, with dozens of people reported killed, as grievances unleashed by the jailing of ex-president Jacob Zuma boiled over into the worst violence in years.Protests that followed Zuma’s arrest last week have widened into looting and an outpouring of general anger over the hardship and inequality that persist 27 years after the end of apartheid.Poverty has been exacerbated by severe social and economic restrictions aimed at blocking the spread of COVID-19.

7/10/21 article on SOTT.n_et: 28 arrested as protests erupt in South Africa over jailed former president Zuma

I think Zuma was imprisoned last Tuesday, so over 8 days and 70+ dead in rioting or violence, 10 in a stampede in one place, but I have seen no other information.
 
"The mayhem of the last 48 hours has wiped out our supply chain in KZN. Last week it was there, but today its gone. That complex web of transactions that moves goods across the landscape, like an army of ants on a single minded mission, each moving their package relentlessly throughout the colony of ants. Our network is now gone.

So as the day dawns I can reliably predict that we will rapidly start to encounter shortages of crucial goods like fuel for motor vehicles, food for hungry stomachs, medication for the sick, cash to grease the wheels of trade and spare parts to keep the machinery of commerce going.

ATMs are gone, so we will rapidly run out of cash. Grocery stores have been destroyed, so even if they can procure goods from the warehouses now burned to the ground, they will be unable to transact because the tills are gone and the point of payment card machines destroyed. The retail malls have been so destroyed that it will take months to rebuild them. More importantly, the Clicks and Diskem pharmacy chains that are the most efficient delivery vehicles for the national vaccine rollout, are simply no more."

Thoughts On Mandelaland

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Interesting read from Anthony Turton (former military intelligence and analyst)

After a 24 hour orgy of violence, I sit alone in my whale watching room and reflect as I read the many messages that have been sent to me by an informal network. I pause to gather my thoughts before the new day dawns. What will that new sunrise bring?

We now sit with a stark reality that everyone has to deal with, so let me distil, at least for my own use, the essence of what our next faltering steps will be.

The firestorm of violence that engulfed us yesterday was no surprise. We have seen all the warning signs, and were even sent clear unambiguous messages of what was to hit us on Monday morning. Few took heed, and many even dispelled these messages as being the usual drivel from the EFF.

Well they weren’t. In fact the EFF was nowhere to be seen in the day of mayhem. But neither were any elected leaders, or the security forces they command. The Man in the Hat became invisible, just like his police force, who ran out of ammunition where they were present, and had to be resupplied by civilian networks.

Yes this is true. A private security contractor had to procure front line ammunition for the embattled police force, because they had run out early in the day. So let us unpack this single observation so we can learn from it.

We have a leadership vacuum in the country. People in leadership positions, like the Man in the Hat, are there only because of political connections, and not because they have the core skills to do the job. Same with the bloated civil service they command, with too many generals, all unable to plan for, and procure the stuff that’s really needed. Like ammunition.

That same leadership vacuum is present in our intelligence service. If I could collect credible information through my informal network, without any resources at my disposal, and then make reasonably accurate forecasts about what to expect, then why can’t they with their bloated staff compliment and billion Rand budget squandered on inappropriate procurement and self enrichment schemes?

Which brings me back to the core issue – supply chain management. The mayhem of the last 48 hours has wiped out our supply chain in KZN. Last week it was there, but today its gone. That complex web of transactions that moves goods across the landscape, like an army of ants on a single minded mission, each moving their package relentlessly throughout the colony of ants. Our network is now gone.

So as the day dawns I can reliably predict that we will rapidly start to encounter shortages of crucial goods like fuel for motor vehicles, food for hungry stomachs, medication for the sick, cash to grease the wheels of trade and spare parts to keep the machinery of commerce going.

ATMs are gone, so we will rapidly run out of cash. Grocery stores have been destroyed, so even if they can procure goods from the warehouses now burned to the ground, they will be unable to transact because the tills are gone and the point of payment card machines destroyed. The retail malls have been so destroyed that it will take months to rebuild them. More importantly, the Clicks and Diskem pharmacy chains that are the most efficient delivery vehicles for the national vaccine rollout, are simply no more.

I therefore predict an acute shortage of fuel, food and medication. These three things will hit almost everyone, and very soon.

This is my first prediction about which I have great confidence. Enough to make a public statement for which I will gladly be held accountable.

But what about the leadership issue? How might this unfold in the days to come?

What I witnessed over the last 48 hours tells us a lot, so let me distill the essence. In the beginning the mob was in control. Yes they were clearly in control as they marched relentlessly forward like an army ant formation advancing through the jungle. They devoured all before them and they were unstoppable. But importantly, they were controlled and focused. There was a clearly defined plan, so command and control is alive and well, but invisible. They knew when to hit designated targets. They knew where the police were absent. They knew where shopping mall security was most vulnerable. They were collectively acting as part of a plan.

Who are those central but invisible command and control people? Will our intelligence services possibly start to figure this out?

But the other thing that was clearly visible was the rapid way that civil society responded to the communal threat. Groups of citizens rapidly formed into militia, and mostly acted with restraint and to great effect. I don’t know the final numbers, but my gut feel is that more arrests were made by citizens acting in well-organized groups, than by the police.

I also note that some of the militia went beyond the act of arrest, and meted out instantaneous justice. Its unclear what the body count it, but certainly there were many. Some shot, some beaten and some even hacked to pieces by machete. I have seen credible video evidence across this entire range.

But the core lesson is that civil society responded by organizing themselves, rapidly and effectively. We will now see the dawn of a new era, where those civil groups become better organized than the government, which has clearly failed. In effect we had no government over the last 48 hours, because while this mayhem was playing out, Jesse Duarte gave a press briefing about an NEC meeting pretending to still be in control.

The Ruling Party has simply lost control. The civil service is so dysfunctional as to be a liability now easily bypassed by an increasingly confident and effective civil society.

Clearly attempts by government to disarm civilians will fail. Of this I am certain. Just as certain as I am about the emergence of self-organized militia centered on credible leadership and existing networks of security force personnel that have been sidelined by government purges.

This is the real New Dawn. Not the feeble message spewed out by the now embattled and increasingly illegitimate Ruling Party. Their days are numbered.

Will we now see the emergence of an invigorated Moderate Middle, united by core values but free of the shackles of past prejudice and racially defined bias?

Or will the rabble rise in a boiling froth of anger, purging the Ruling Elite with vengeance, just as past revolutions ultimately consumed themselves with relentless waves of counter revolution?

We live in profoundly uncertain times, but the vibrancy of civil society was clearly demonstrated yesterday, as loose molecules came together to form militia capable of clawing back control in the vacuum left by an incompetent Ruling Elite whose time is nearly over.

Anyone who thinks this can’t or won’t happen here is deluding himself. The only reason that this hasn’t happened in the U.S. so far is that unlike South Africa, Blacks are in the minority; but it means that where they are a significant proportion of the population, this will happen — think Minneapolis and Ferguson, times ten.

I see burned-out city centers, and rampant poverty and lawlessness therein. After that, I’d really rather not speculate.
 
You have probably read reports and watched news footages about looting and distruction of shopping malls and warehouses, what Z.Kodwa, the Deputy Minister of State Security, called yesterday emerging ‘insurrection‘. Personally I do not share his view. I see this situation as planned retaliation, a byproduct of the 15 month jail sentence of the previous SA Prezident, combined with the long standing botched development consequences of the ANC policies and governance.

The unrest is not countrywide spread. It is local to Gauteng and Kwazulu Natal provinces, and in specific to Northern and Southern Johannesburg and Durban, basically areas with shopping malls and warehouses. Manufacturing businesses and high capacity trucks have also been distroyed, the MSM floated reason for that being xenophobia. Again, as I see it, it is just a reiteratiion of the incitement used to fire up previous rioting events, all politically related.

The effect of the riots is deep. As South Africa’s main transport system relies on trucks, and Durban is the main hub for shipping and warehousing, at least four out of the nine provinces, are going to experience shortages from food to medicine to essential sanitation products and fuel, not to mention appliances and electronics.

The army has been deployed to assist the police in restoring calm. The Taxi Industry, has now started to be involved in keeping order on their routes and petrol stations, with preference to taxis of course. There are reports from Durban that Taxi Bosses have mobilized a clean-up operation in the looted areas. That is interesting as it proves the vacuum of power and governance at municipality level and explains fully the local riots based on non-service delivery. There are also reports for local communities in Johannesburg and Durban mobilizing and physically protecting Shops and businesses, thus pointing again to the vacuum of power and governance.

Coming back to the insurrection notion, there is something positive and encouraging. Random leaders on video chant we are not stupids, we are not idiots, we are not hooligans, we are not monkeys together with Amandla Awetu showing a strong capacity for self governance for constructive drive. Is that going to show in the upcoming local government elections or even sooner? Only time will tell.

African time has finally caught up with South Africa.
 
@Ina Thank you for the update. South Africa is leading the way. At least I can imagine similar situations affecting many other places too.

I looked up a couple of South African newspapers like Eyewitness News | EWN and IOL | News that Connects South Africans which just posted:
The government has called on all South Africans to unite in creating a better future for all by resisting any attempts to incite violence, create panic or fuel divisions after days of looting and violence. The number of soldiers deployed in KZN and Gauteng has been pushed up to 25 000, and all SANDF reserve members were ordered to report to their units this morning.
And the following echoes a bit what you were saying regarding the reasons, and of course one can not miss the influence from the Covid measures.
Nothing about the protests, the looting and the violence we’re currently seeing is new.

Decades of crushing inequality, poverty, hunger and unemployment – that have all worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic and the related lockdown periods – seem to be coming to a head right before our eyes. The police have been slow, to the point of lethargy, in their response to this weekend’s protests, riots and violence, and now the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) has been deployed under Section 201 of the Constitution and Sections 18 and 19 of the Defence Act.

As explained by Darren Olivier, the Director at the African Defence Review, this means that the SANDF soldiers have been deployed in co-operation with the South African Police Service (SAPS), meaning that they are likely to be involved in patrols and roadblocks so that SAPS officers are freed up to attend to anti-riot operations. This is the correct approach to the deployment given that Olivier asserts that, for the most part, the SANDF lacks anti-riot gear and training.

It has been disconcerting to see social media abuzz with videos – many of them old, unverified, not from South Africa and/or decontextualized – which have fanned the flames of violence. This has made it even harder to separate the facts from fantastical fiction, and worse yet, from messages calling for violence in support of former President Jacob Zuma, or vigilantes declaring that they are willing to take up arms to protect their businesses, property and homes.

Unfortunately, none of what we’re seeing is surprising given that so many South Africans are desperate, unemployed and hungry, and the extension of level 4 lockdown by another 14 days – with no mention of the re-introduction of the Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grants – means that they will struggle for longer with no help from government.

We’ve known for years that our high unemployment rates are a significant contributing factor to the high levels of crime and violence in the country, so the moment we had to shut down large parts of the economy and told millions of people to stay at home in order to mount an effective response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we also should have known that without significant spending on emergency and relief measures for the poorest and the hardest hit by the economic slowdown and lockdowns, something akin to what we’re seeing today would happen. This doesn’t mean that this was inevitable; it means that the right spark was enough to catalyse widespread unrest.

I wouldn’t describe Zuma as the right spark, but the political moment that we are in made him exactly that. It would serve us well not to think of his imprisonment and the days leading up to it as the cause of the current chaos. Instead, I think we should recognise the Zuma years as an enormous contributing factor to the situation we find ourselves in.

The protests should be understood as a result of a decade of lost economic growth, increasing inequality, more than a decade of failed service delivery and the erosion of our law enforcement agencies due to political interference. That the pandemic has thrown all of these issues into sharp focus, this is a reminder to us that none of South Africa’s problems are new.

I also think it would serve us well to understand that many of the underlying issues that led to Zuma’s imprisonment are due to one, singular factor: the destructive, never-ending factionalism within the African National Congress (ANC) that consumes so much of our public life. The fact that the ANC never held Zuma accountable for his actions through successive years of state capture brought us to this point. The fact that a political crisis of the party’s own doing saw their former party president – and a former state president – found in contempt of court for refusing to appear before a commission of inquiry that he himself established, brought us to this point. The fact that the SAPS’s crime intelligence infrastructure was captured by Zuma acolytes like Richard Mdluli, who protected the former president and hounded his opponents, is what brought us to this point.

It is bitter irony then that President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that he would be relying on the SAPS’s Crime Intelligence in the government’s response to the chaos of the last 72 hours. Much of the country’s law enforcement is still struggling to recover from the years of state capture, as journalist and author Caryn Dolley recently detailed.

If we had a thriving and growing economy, the violence might not have been as severe as we have seen in a matter of a few short days. If we had a governing party that didn’t settle its political scores in courts after years of shielding corrupt and unscrupulous politicians, it could have been much more difficult for Zuma and his cronies to incite much of this violence in support of him. If we had a police service with a functional crime intelligence unit that could have acted far more pro-actively to prevent this violence, we might not have had to watch Ramaphosa announce the deployment of the military into Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal to assist the police in their work.

We are where we are today because maladministration, corruption and the state’s inability to provide for the poor were dramatically worsened by a deteriorating economy and rising levels of hunger. Yes, there is likely a criminal element to the looting and violence – particularly in terms of the businesses and shopping malls that have been targeted in multiple acts of arson – but the truth is that those criminal elements are taking advantage of the anger of ordinary people who have very little left to lose. While all of this may have started as a protest in support of Zuma, the grievances lie far deeper than just a desire to see Zuma set free.

If we don’t recognise just how much of this violence has deep, complicated roots in multiple social and political issues in our society, we might find ourselves sending out the police and military more often and against more people.

None of our problems are new; they have been more than a decade in the making.

Ziyanda Stuurman is a Masters graduate in Conflict, Security and Development from Sussex University, the author of the book, _Can We Be Safe? The future of policing in South Africa, and is a regular commentator on policing policy and security analysis. You can follow them on Twitter on @ZiyandaS_.

You can purchase the book here:
Exclusive Books website (R287): https://tinyurl.com/hkajnm68
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You say:
African time has finally caught up with South Africa.
But is there not an additional layer of time that affects all of us. May I call it Wave time? At least, I do not think what is happening in SA now with thousands of troops involved can be excluded as possibilities in Europe and the US.

I saw in one fleeting headline that 26 people had been killed in the riots during one night, but I recall the murder rate is anyway high. The article below put it at close to 60 per day, so 26 extra per day for a few weeks is not going to upset the stats too much especially as some would have died in the rioting areas anyway.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...ncrease-to-highest-in-more-than-a-decadeSouth Africa Murders Increase to Highest in More Than Decade
By
Michael Cohen
and
Paul Vecchiatto
July 31, 2020, 10:38 AM GMT+2 Updated on July 31, 2020, 11:53 AM GMT+2

The number of murders in South Africa climbed to the highest level in more than a decade as the police force struggled to get to grips with violent crime.
The number of homicides rose by 1.4% to 21,325 in the 12 months through March -- an average of 58 a day -- the police service said in its annual crime-statistics report. The murder rate of 36 per 100,000 people was little changed from the previous year and compares with an international average of seven per 100,000. The number of rapes, sexual offenses and car hi-jackings also increased, but property-related crime declined.
From Durban there was KZN unrest: I woke up to explosions today. We are under siege and need more troops

KZN unrest: I woke up to explosions today. We are under siege and need more troops​

By Lee Rondganger
Time of article published
21h ago


We woke to explosions again this morning.
We went to bed under the crack of gunfire in the distance.

This has become our lived experience in Durban after a crush of mass looting and rioting laid siege to our beautiful city in the days after former president Jacob Zuma was imprisoned for contempt of court.
As the explosions pierced what ordinarily would have been the quiet of dawn, I turned on Zello - a walkie-talkie like app - to hear what the explosions may be about.
Word was that the explosions were coming from the Massmart warehouse that was looted the previous day but for some sick reason had been set alight during the night.

The images coming through on social media are heartbreaking. The warehouse and industrial zones in the Riverhorse Valley area on Nandi Drive resemble an apocalypse.
Looted goods and clothes that could not be carried away are strewn on the road. There are abandoned fridges and stoves.
Burnt out wrecks of cars bear silent testimony to the anarchy that has befallen.

There are aerial images of mobs of looters at the Makro store in Springfield Park taking what they want with gay abandon.

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Looters cart away goods stolen from the Massmart warehouse in Nandi Drive.Picture: Doctor Ngcobo/African News Agency(ANA)
Not a policeman or soldier in sight.
They even ripped the solar panels that power that store off its roofs.
It was being stripped bare in plain sight and not a single attempt was made to stop them.
I have written stories for IOL on the chaos and bedlam engulfing our city but words do no justice to the true extent of the damage being inflicted on businesses and property.

Play Video
On Monday night when President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed South Africans following a day of rampant looting and declared that the army was being mobilised to quell the violence, there was a bit of optimism that finally help was on its way and the insurrection - no matter how weak and empty of detail his speech was - would be crushed.
But two days later, the rampant looting continues.
Ordinary citizens who have watched how ineffective our police have been to quell the looting have been forced to set up barricades in their neighbourhoods to defend their properties and businesses from looters, many of whom are armed and driving around in bakkies and taxis scouting for new spots to attack.
Two days later and many have not seen a soldier.
As I write this, a relative who lives in a suburb south of Durban has been on his Zello channel all morning listening to how citizens are setting up barricades to prevent mobs from invading the shopping centres on the Bluff and in the south that had not been looted.
“Where is the army,” he asked.
“Why has a state of emergency not been called?”
The defence minister, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula said on Tuesday that the situation at present did not warrant the country being moved to a state of emergency.
Tell that to the people who have been protecting their communities from the armed mobs. Tell that to the businesses who have seen their hard work go up in flames.

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Looters filled bakkies with stolen goods from the Massmart warehouse without a single policeman in sight.Picture: Doctor Ngcobo/African News Agency(ANA)
Tell that to the people, who, because of these businesses being looted and razed to the ground will join the ranks of the unemployed.
Tell that to the investors such as Walmart - the American owners of Makro and Game - who have seen stock and property worth hundreds of millions of rands looted and burnt.
For us, the ordinary citizens who are having to line up for food and fuel, we are in a state of emergency.
For us, the ordinary citizens, who are manning community barricades in the face of armed looters, we are in a state of emergency.
For us, the ordinary citizens, who can’t buy bread, cant buy baby formula, nappies and medicine, we are in a state of emergency.
For us, the ordinary citizens, who are on the Zello App listening helplessly to how the looters are running rampant at our local supermarkets, pharmacies and fuel stations in the midst of zero police or army presence, we are in a state of emergency.
During South Africa’s first lockdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus, Ramaphosa mobilised some 70 000 odd SANDF troops to enforce lockdown. In the midst of unabated civil unrest that has crippled the economy of KZN and Gauteng only 2 500 troops have reportedly been deployed.
What utter madness.
If anything, the riots of the past few days have crystallised how far removed our leaders are from ordinary citizens.
If they only knew the terror we are living under or ventured out of their tax-payer funded homes that are protected 24 hours a day by police, they will know that KwaZulu-Natal is burning and civil war is on our doorstep.
We, the ordinary citizens, need more than 2 500 soldiers to restore peace and stability.
Will it be too late by the time our leaders realise this?
IOL
It is somewhat ironic that the SA government gladly mobilized 70,000 soldiers to maintain the lockdown rules and now, apparently somewhat more reluctantly, use troops to curb social and political consequences that even giving ANC and Jacob Zuma some credit were assisted by the lockdown measures. Or was the first massive mobilization during the lockdowns just a training exercise?

Stay safe.
 
@Ina Thank you for the update. South Africa is leading the way. At least I can imagine similar situations affecting many other places too.

I looked up a couple of South African newspapers like Eyewitness News | EWN and IOL | News that Connects South Africans which just posted:

And the following echoes a bit what you were saying regarding the reasons, and of course one can not miss the influence from the Covid measures.

You say:

But is there not an additional layer of time that affects all of us. May I call it Wave time? At least, I do not think what is happening in SA now with thousands of troops involved can be excluded as possibilities in Europe and the US.

I saw in one fleeting headline that 26 people had been killed in the riots during one night, but I recall the murder rate is anyway high. The article below put it at close to 60 per day, so 26 extra per day for a few weeks is not going to upset the stats too much especially as some would have died in the rioting areas anyway.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...ncrease-to-highest-in-more-than-a-decadeSouth Africa Murders Increase to Highest in More Than Decade

From Durban there was KZN unrest: I woke up to explosions today. We are under siege and need more troops

It is somewhat ironic that the SA government gladly mobilized 70,000 soldiers to maintain the lockdown rules and now, apparently somewhat more reluctantly, use troops to curb social and political consequences that even giving ANC and Jacob Zuma some credit were assisted by the lockdown measures. Or was the first massive mobilization during the lockdowns just a training exercise?

Stay safe.
@thorbiorn , thank you.
The queues to medicine are starting to form as diminished stocks due to Covid lockdown disruptions rapidly finish. I had today to go to three pharmacies to find this month supply of Aropax CR. Not only that, but the mineral and vitamin supplements shelves were nearly empty. I truely hope the situation will be contained and improved, otherwise, we’ll have to go hunting for insulin by the end of the month.
Chin up, and smile on the face. Tomorrow is another day.
 
A short but telling interview of Zizi Kodwa, Deputy Minister of State Security, with Bongani Bingwa, Radio 702, about what might be the real story behind the current events. The stern message is the mayhem is nowhere near over.

 

Thousands of litres of milk 🥛 being dumped in South Africa after looters destroyed the depots​



To that I would add, total distruction of a big generic medicine factory, crematorium, medical centres and pharmacies, chicken meat farms and processing centres, even religious centres....

There are theories discussed among news editors that many arson cases fit the old antiappartheid actions. Even so, what demented ‘ wannabe leader’ would instigate something like that in our times? Before abandoning FB I read few discussions on BLM type local groups advocation total economic chaos and distruction as a means to eliminate inequality. This is clear in America. My sister tells me of similar scenarios behind ‘uprisings’ in Europe. Is that the case? Is there a larger trend going on?

Truth be told what you see on TV is what we feel. Everyone is horrified, sorrow, hurt, disappointed, but in spite of that, the real ‘masses’ here, have not adhered to any kind of mass distruction. Communities get together to defend eachother and to help eachother. What or whom is behind this waves of paid incitement?
 
South Africa is not exactly within the sphere of influence of the US, being part of the BRICS. So there may be opportunists who take advantage of the situation.
I think BRICS has currently a ‘was’ status, and with the advent of Covid, the alignment is at least parallel with UN and Anglo-Biden Am states.
 
I'm not sure if this has been noted in the thread yet, but apparently some supermarkets in Durban, S.A., were limiting shopper's purchases.

The video below shows a large queue outside of a supermarket with a worker announcing: '20 items per person, 1 member per family, 15 minutes to shop, Only cards will be accepted'. Below is an article from the 13th of July confirming this. They claim it's to prevent panic buying.

It reminds me of how S.A enforced harsher lockdown restrictions than many other countries, including banning purchases of alcohol, and, of all things, cigarettes.


Zuma Unrest: Some shops allowing only limited number of items as food, fuel shortages choke Durban​


accreditation

Subscribers can listen to this article
https://www.news24.com/auth/cta/aud...-as-food-fuel-shortages-choke-durban-20210713





TFDC-News24-logo.png

WATCH | #ZumaUnrest: People in Durban queue to buy food at shops spared from violent riots
Durbanites are queuing for food at shops that were spared in the wave of violent unrest and looting.


The devastating aftermath of a wash of unrest and looting has resulted in fears of a food and fuel crisis in Durban.

Motorists and shoppers were seen queuing at petrol stations and grocery stores, flocking to the few places spared by the unrest – and still open for business.

News24 is tracking active looting sites spread across the city and the suburbs that surround it. At Makro in Springfield Park, a crowd numbering in the thousands has overwhelmed the police.


Long queues were seen at Spar outlets in Morningside, La Lucia, Umgeni Park, Durban North and Overport, with groceries rationed to prevent panic buying. At Morningside's Avondale Spar, a Berea resident who asked not to be photographed or named said he queued from 06:00 to 11:00 to get staples for his family.

He said:
I was allowed 20 items.
I got potatoes, butternut, milk, eggs and stuff like that. It was worth the wait. I don't know when the shops will open again.
Fellow resident Cogi Simpson said: "I haven't got a slice of bread at home. I must wait. Normally I take it for granted that I can walk across the road to the Spar. I am so grateful to the people who stood outside last night looking after us. There were gunshots but the residents were patrolling."

Petrol stations – also targeted by rioters – have closed en masse in the city, sparking fears of a fuel shortage. Tankers transporting fuel have been pulled from the roads amid the violence.
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People flee from the Springfiled Park Mall in Durb

People flee from the a mall in Springfield Park in Durban amid looting and riots.
AFP STRINGER / AFP
Sbonelo Mbatha, co-founder of PetroCONNECT and a former chairperson of the Fuel Retailers' Association, said all fuel supply in the province has been halted.

Few
"I never thought I would see anything like this. All fuel supply in KZN has been halted because it is not safe. What you are going to see in KZN is what you saw in Zimbabwe a few years ago," he said, adding:

People are going to get stuck on the road. Very few service stations operating, and unless we can get back to normality soon it is going to be chaos.
"The ripple effect is huge. The entire economy comes to a standstill. I don't even know how to describe it. Imagine no money in ATMs, no bread. You need trucks to transport food and medicine.

https://cassiopaea.org/forum/javascript:;


"The trucks need fuel. People are going to starve to death. The after-effects of this are going to be severe. Right now we still have food. Give it a week. See how you will battle for simple items," he added.
Mbatha has been impacted on a personal level by the unrest, which has seen three of the nine petrol stations he owns attacked and vandalised on Monday. One in Inanda, north of Durban, valued at R12 million was completely gutted.
 
But there is also this:

South Africa - The first country built on "Critical Race Theory" - officially implodes


The meltdown in South Africa isn't a natural disaster or a random fluke. It's a choice. South Africa was the first modern nation to be refounded on the anti-white principles of critical race theory, and now it is reaping the whirlwind of that choice.

South Africa did everything that is being done in America right now. As a hyperdiverse multiethnic, multilingual society, South Africa has followed almost every prescription embraced by the globalist ruling class.

This is about more than riots. This wave of violence will eventually peter out. But there is no reason to be optimistic when that happens. There will be no sense of having survived a calamity, and having a chance to rebuild. When this wave of burning and looting and killing are over, there is nothing to look forward to but the next wave.
 
The new dispensation started with a Bang! South Africa won the World Cup at rugby! That was legendary! But I see you want me to sharpen my eastern Political Economy knowledge with some western Political Philosophy add-on(s). OK :) Got the challenge.
I'll be back!

BTW, South Africa hasn't imploded yet. There is still a lot of time for that, next century maybe.
 
I'm not sure if this has been noted in the thread yet, but apparently some supermarkets in Durban, S.A., were limiting shopper's purchases.

The video below shows a large queue outside of a supermarket with a worker announcing: '20 items per person, 1 member per family, 15 minutes to shop, Only cards will be accepted'. Below is an article from the 13th of July confirming this. They claim it's to prevent panic buying.

It reminds me of how S.A enforced harsher lockdown restrictions than many other countries, including banning purchases of alcohol, and, of all things, cigarettes.

That is possible, as it is a reasonable temporary measure. Same as no more than one of each item. WRT, the alcohol, is currently banned as we are in Level 4+. TG! This time we can smoke.
 
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