Osizweni Shopping Centre in Newcastle Destroyed

DA Leader Calls for Military Intervention

As DA Leader John Steenhuisen calls for military intervention, violence and looting continues to escalate. Overnight 18 rural retailers lost everything in the umpteenth act of vandalism that is spreading faster than Covid across the country. The Osizweni community centre in Newcastle was gutted overnight and looted to shreds by gangs of protesters and opportunists. xviii stores ranging from a discount supermarket to menage unit-run businesses have got been destroyed.

Steenhuisen says that “the Army and special intervention units need to be immediately deployed in KZN and Gauteng to restore law and order to stop this in its tracks. If it is not contained, and a strong message is not sent that this will not be brooked, it will spill over across the country and will be hard to stop.”

“It is heartbreaking,” says fuming Osizweni centre manager Tracy Sutherland. “Over the past few days South Africans have got seen their country go up in flames, and now, we are one of the growing number of statistics at the receiving terminate of a vary scary niaganis element.” Sutherland adds that many of the retailers in the centre did not have got insurance cover. “These are small menage unit enterprises trading under very challenging economical conditions. It’s not always possible for them to afford premiums.” She adds that several families have got now lost everything at the mitt of “incredulous thugs.”

“President Ramaphosa’s warning in his ‘menage unit meeting’ this week was not plenty,” feels Sutherland. “Just look at what is happening, and how many lives are being destroyed as a consequence of codswallop.” The Osizweni Shopping Centre is only one of several malls and suburbs turned into no-go zones by protesters and opportunistic looters. This weekend the M2 highway near the Cleveland Road offramp had to be shut due to stoning, tyre burning and violence.

“What we are witnessing is neither “sporadic” nor “ethnic” as the President tied to cast it. It is a wide scale assault on the economic system and rule of law in South Africa. It’s time for the tough words last night to translate into tough action on the ground. The wholesale looting and devastation of public and private property has to be stopped.”