Bullets fly at EFF march (Pretoria)

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Lucas Buck

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Bullets flew at Mooiplaats informal settlement on Tuesday when residents, mobilised by the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), attempted to march to the Union Buildings with their grievances.

Police fired rubber bullets at them in an attempt to stop the march.

Buses arranged to transport them to Pretoria were blocked by the police, and residents decided to walk with their hands raised, from Mooiplaats to the Union Buildings. The raised hands, a gesture of non-violence, did not stop police officers from shooting rubber bullets and releasing tear gas canisters.

The informal settlement residents were supposed to start their march against poor service delivery from the old Putco bus depot in Marabastad, to the Union Buildings.

Instead, the march was cancelled and traffic officials stopped the five buses carrying the protesters from leaving Mooiplaats. The residents decided to walk to the Union Buildings.

Residents had permission to march on Tuesday, but the march was postponed to Wednesday by the city authorities.

The march was organised by the community and the EFF to demand proper housing, water and sanitation.

The EFF’s Eddie Galane said: “The first postponement was okay, we agreed with them. And now they come on the morning of the march and tell us that it has been postponed again. We have already paid for buses and people are ready to march and it gets cancelled. That cannot happen.”

While walking to Pretoria on the R55, police officers ordered them to stop, but they did not. When they passed the groups of officers on the road, the marchers walked with their arms in the air to indicate they were not fighting. The police told them to disperse and when they did not, they opened fire and released tear gas canisters.

At least 10 people were injured.
One of them, Reginah Mabule, was shot near the eye.

Blessed Magongoa had three rubber bullet wounds on her arm.

The injured were taken to Kalafong Hospital.

One of the marshals, Tshepo Makobe, said: “We were not violent. All we wanted to do was continue with our march, but the police did not want to listen. We were trying to negotiate with them and they just started shooting.”

A few AgangSA activists were also in the area and they tried to intervene between the police and residents. The party’s lawyer, Tshepiso Ramphele, said they would lodge an urgent application in the Pretoria High Court so the residents could march. “Saying that there is no one to accept the memorandum is not a reason to cancel a march. It is an excuse that can be used continuously. Reasons to stop the protest should be that traffic will be disturbed and that there is danger posed to persons.”

Residents threatened to burn factories, but at a community meeting held at a soccer field after the shooting decided they would wait for feedback from Ramphele and then march to the Union Buildings. “We will sleep at the Union Buildings. We will be the first community to do so,” said Galane.

Tshwane police spokesman Isaac Mahamba said: “We have been trying to get hold of two community leaders from last week to cancel the march. We told them last week and they insisted that they would march. There was no one in the D-G’s office to accept the memorandum.” He said four people were arrested for public violence.

Last month, residents stoned police vehicles over service delivery issues...Link
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Edit: Link added
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Fulcrum29 said:
http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/bullets-fly-at-eff-march-1.1602697
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Yeah, but you [OP] cannot just post news and essentially pass if off as your own. Sauce is important.
Also, Garyvdh has been asking that we not post the news in full [long reason given].

Ah, there is a post from the mods regarding this.
http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php/568981-Posting-guidelines

morkhans said:
5) When posting News Articles from other sites and major news outlets, please do not quote the entire article as this will most probably be a violation of copyright. Rather just post the link and then quote two or three of the most relevant paragraphs. We do not want people to steal the MyBB articles in their entirety so we wish to show the same respect to other sites. Quoting entire articles also steals advertising revenue from other sites. See below for an example of how to quote articles from other news sites.
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Poor form from city officials and cops there.
Julius may just become the next fascist dictator in 5-10 years as some analysts have suggested...
 
Not sure how newsworthy this is, you are going to see a lot more of this.
I would not be surprised if there has been a directive from the top down for the cops to take a hard line with the EFF.
 
I agree with them that the second postponement of the march was not right and came to late but then again, if that is what happened then you have to suck it up and postpone. There are other channels to take the matter up with the municipality or whomever said that it could not go ahead.

To just blatantly disregard this is a clear indication that the rule of law is ignored and that their own political agenda is more important.
 
froot said:
Yeah, but you [OP] cannot just post news and essentially pass if off as your own. Sauce is important.
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Hey, if you're going get all preachy about peoples posts, you could at least spell source correctly.
 
2012 said:
Hey, if you're going get all preachy about peoples posts, you could at least spell source correctly.
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"Sauce" is a commonly used colloquial term to refer to the source of an article. It is deliberately spelled that way in many forums. ;)
 
MKFrost said:
I agree with them that the second postponement of the march was not right and came to late but then again, if that is what happened then you have to suck it up and postpone. There are other channels to take the matter up with the municipality or whomever said that it could not go ahead.

To just blatantly disregard this is a clear indication that the rule of law is ignored and that their own political agenda is more important.
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Said all "Idealists/freedom fighters around the world"... NOT! ;)

When one is driven to protesting and marching AND you've followed proper legal protocol and had those protocols thrown in your face.
Frustration and the need to get your point across sometimes takes presedence over those legal parameters.
And you've just gotta go with your gut.

It happens.
 
Garyvdh said:
"Sauce" is a commonly used colloquial term to refer to the source of an article. It is deliberately spelled that way in many forums. ;)
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It makes little to no sense why anyone would willingly do that. It's not even funny the first time. Anyone demanding a source or providing a source should know better.
 
Shake&Bake said:
Said all "Idealists/freedom fighters around the world"... NOT! ;)

When one is driven to protesting and marching AND you've followed proper legal protocol and had those protocols thrown in your face.
Frustration and the need to get your point across sometimes takes presedence over those legal parameters.
And you've just gotta go with your gut.

It happens.
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Agreed, there will be times where this would be necessary but in this case could they not have done otherwise i.e. have a peaceful protest where they were etc... Cancel the walk to the union buildings and invite the press over to where you are and say your say and make your point. The idiots in the union building feels squat in any case.
 
Shake&Bake said:
Said all "Idealists/freedom fighters around the world"... NOT! ;)

When one is driven to protesting and marching AND you've followed proper legal protocol and had those protocols thrown in your face.
Frustration and the need to get your point across sometimes takes presedence over those legal parameters.
And you've just gotta go with your gut.

It happens.
Click to expand...

Agreed, there will be times where this would be necessary but in this case could they not have done otherwise i.e. have a peaceful protest where they were etc... Cancel the walk to the union buildings and invite the press over to where you are and say your say and make your point. The idiots in the union building feels squat in any case.
 
MKFrost said:
Agreed, there will be times where this would be necessary but in this case could they not have done otherwise i.e. have a peaceful protest where they were etc... Cancel the walk to the union buildings and invite the press over to where you are and say your say and make your point. The idiots in the union building feels squat in any case.
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Granted they could've taken the avenue you suggest.
But what would that get them anyway?
Same result, from the same people in those buildings whom don't care.

Thing is that their walk was peaceful, hands raised.
Sure they disrupted traffic, but hey...

When the DA had a peaceful, legal march to Cosatu House - they were beaten up by Cosatu/ANC cronies and only had a small police contingent along with them (the DA) as given to them by the city - knowing full well that **** would go down.

So the city officials in both instances are wanting to negate the impact of a march that chooses to show them (the officials) in a bad light.

(Am I wearing a tinfoil hat now...? :erm: :p )
 
Using the cops and senior government officials as leverage against your political rivals, or to silence them, sounds eerily familiar...
 
DJ... said:
Using the cops and senior government officials as leverage against your political rivals, or to silence them, sounds eerily familiar...
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This march was not only an EFF march, it was a community march. Some Agang members were also shot in between. The community has been trying to get a date from the metro police for age, however our lovely -marxist- mayor keeps on using the metro police as his own private militia.
 
2012 said:
It makes little to no sense why anyone would willingly do that. It's not even funny the first time. Anyone demanding a source or providing a source should know better.
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Get back into bed and try climbing out with the other foot...
 
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