South Africa has recently experienced its worst violence since the end of the apartheid regime 27 years ago. More than 200 people were killed and thousands arrested in a week of civil unrest during which hundreds of shops were looted, factories set ablaze and government infrastructure destroyed. The Guardian's Africa correspondent, Jason Burke, explains how the violence was sparked by more than just the jailing of the former president Jacob Zuma, and what impact it could have on a country where more than half of the population lives in poverty
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Gross inequality stoked the violence in South Africa. It’s a warning to us all | Kenan Malik
The country’s social contract has broken, fuelled by corruption and extreme poverty
‘It feels qualitatively different this time.” There are few people I know in South Africa who don’t think this about the carnage now engulfing the nation. Violence was institutionalised during the years of apartheid. In the post-apartheid years, it has rarely been far from the surface – police violence, gangster violence, the violence of protest. What is being exposed now, however, is just how far the social contract that has held the nation together since the end of apartheid has eroded.
Many aspects of the disorder are peculiar to South Africa. There are also themes with wider resonance. Events in the country demonstrate in a particularly acute fashion a phenomenon we are witnessing in different ways and in degrees of severity across the globe: the old order breaking down, with little to fill the void but sectarian movements or identity politics.
Continue reading...South Africa’s leaders fear fresh wave of violence by Zuma loyalists
Attacks by supporters of jailed former president ‘are bid for pardon or to unseat government’
South African authorities fear a new wave of attacks aimed at undermining the economy, investment and the rule of law as networks loyal to former president Jacob Zuma seek to force his return to power.
Investigators believe the unrest last week, which killed more than 200 and caused massive damage across a swath of the country, was deliberately provoked as part of a broader strategy by political opponents to force president Cyril Ramaphosa to pardon Zuma or even step down.
Continue reading...South Africa: 10,000 troops deployed and reservists called up to quell unrest
Warnings of looming humanitarian crisis as looting and violence hits food, fuel and medicine chains
South Africa says it has put 10,000 soldiers on the streets and is calling up reservists for the first time for decades following days of looting and violence that have threatened food and fuel supplies across the country.
The death toll stands at 117, and more than 3,000 people have been arrested according to official figures, since the former president Jacob Zuma began a 15-month jail term, sparking protests that rapidly turned into a wave of looting of shops, malls and warehouses.
Continue reading...Vigilante groups form in South Africa to tackle looting and violence
Officials warn citizens not to take law into own hands to protect homes and business from protests
Senior officials in South Africa have appealed to ordinary citizens not to take the law into their own hands as vigilante groups form following days of unchecked looting and violent protests across a swath of the country.
Though thousands of soldiers have joined police on the streets, law enforcement agencies still appear unable to stem ongoing attacks by crowds on warehouses, supermarkets, shopping malls, clinics and factories.
Continue reading...South Africa grapples with unrest as looting and violence continue – video
Unrest in South Africa triggered by the jailing of the former president Jacob Zuma has intensified, despite the deployment of thousands of soldiers on to the streets to reinforce struggling police. There has been widespread looting and shopping centres have been set alight. In one tense scene in Durban, a mother dropped her toddler from a burning building to a group of people below, who caught the child. The wave of violence has also hit South Africa’s faltering Covid vaccination rollout, which has been halted amid safety concerns
Continue reading...South Africa: more than 70 dead as unrest linked to Zuma jailing intensifies
Ramaphosa calls violence and protests worst since end of apartheid after 1,300 arrested
Unrest in South Africa triggered by the jailing of the former president Jacob Zuma intensified on Tuesday, despite calls for calm from senior officials and the deployment of thousands of soldiers to the streets to reinforce struggling police.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has described the deadly violence and protests as unprecedented in the 27 years since the end of the apartheid regime. The death toll from nearly a week of unrest has risen to 72, some from gunshot wounds, while 1,300 people have been arrested.
Continue reading...South Africa military deployed to tackle violence over Zuma jailing – video
South Africa has deployed the military in a bid to quell ongoing unrest sparked after former president Jacob Zuma handed himself over to police to serve a 15-month sentence amid corruption allegations. Supporters of Zuma responded by looting shops and setting buildings on fire while others armed themselves to protect property and were seen shooting at the rioters. Ten people are reported to have died in the unrest. South African president Cyril Ramaphosa authorised the military to go in to Johannesburg and in the province of KwaZulu-Natal where the violence has been the worst.
- Troops called in after jailing of Zuma ignites violence and looting
- South Africa violence spreads after jailing of Jacob Zuma
Troops called violence looting jailing Zuma south africa
South Africa’s highest court to rule on Monday on whether former president’s sentence is upheld
South Africa’s army has said it is deploying troops to two provinces, including its economic hub of Johannesburg, to help crush mob violence and looting as unrest sparked by the jailing of ex-president Jacob Zuma entered a fourth day.
“The South African National Defence Force (SANDF) has commenced with pre-deployment processes and procedures in line with a request for assistance,” the military said in a statement.
Continue reading...South Africa violence spreads after jailing of Jacob Zuma
Looting in former president’s home province of KwaZulu-Natal spreads to economic hub of Johannesburg
Shops were looted overnight and a section of the M2 highway was closed in Johannesburg on Sunday as violence following the jailing of the former South African president Jacob Zuma spread to the country’s main economic hub.
Violence had mainly been concentrated in Zuma’s home province of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), where on Wednesday night he began a 15-month sentence for contempt of court.
Continue reading...Jacob Zuma’s arrest is a victory for South Africa’s post-apartheid constitution | Mark Gevisser
Corruption still sadly plays a part in public life here, but we’re making steps in the right direction
On Wednesday night, at 45 minutes to midnight, Jacob Zuma blinked. In what was the most consequential moment for the rule of law in post-apartheid South Africa, the former president handed himself into police.
Zuma was, in fact, three days late. The apex constitutional court ruled last week that he must surrender himself by Sunday on a charge of contempt of court, after repeatedly refusing to appear before a statutory commission looking at allegations of corruption made against him. If he did not voluntarily turn himself in, the police minister was set to arrest him by midnight on Wednesday. For the past week, Zuma and his supporters – gathered outside his rural redoubt near Nkandla in KwaZulu-Natal – threatened resistance and even war against the state if the authorities tried to enter the compound, while his lawyers engaged in futile litigation to try to get him off the hook (a judge dismissed Zuma’s application this morning).
Continue reading...Jacob Zuma could be free in months after handing himself in
South Africa’s justice minister says former president could be paroled after four months of 15-month sentence
South Africa’s former president Jacob Zuma, whose decision to hand himself in to police to serve a 15-month jail term has been greeted as a victory for the troubled country’s efforts to enforce the rule of law, could be free in four months, the justice minister has said.
The minister, Ronald Lamola, told journalists outside the prison where Zuma was being held on Thursday that the former leader would be eligible for parole either because his sentence was less than two years or for medical reasons.
Continue reading...Defiant Jacob Zuma compares South African judges to apartheid rulers
Former president rails against jail sentence as armed supporters mass outside his home
South Africa’s ex-president Jacob Zuma has lashed out at the judges who this week gave him a 15-month jail term for absconding from a corruption inquiry, comparing them to the white minority apartheid rulers he once fought.
Zuma spoke at his home in Nklandla, in a rural part of Kwazulu Natal province, where hundreds of his supporters, some of them armed, were gathered to prevent his arrest.
Continue reading...Jacob Zuma sentenced to 15 months in prison for contempt of court – video
The former president of South Africa Jacob Zuma has been sentenced to 15 months in prison for contempt of court after he failed to appear before a corruption inquiry earlier this year. The inquiry is examining allegations of high-level graft during Zuma’s period in power. Judge Sisi Khampepe said: 'I am left with no option but to commit Mr Zuma to imprisonment, with the hope that doing so sends an unequivocal message … the rule of law and the administration of justice prevails'
Continue reading...Former South African president Jacob Zuma sentenced to 15 months in prison
Zuma found to have been in contempt of court when he defied an order to appear at corruption inquiry
Jacob Zuma, the former president of South Africa, has been sentenced to 15 months in prison for contempt of court after failing to appear before a corruption inquiry earlier this year.
Zuma, 79, who was the president for nearly nine years until 2018, was not present to hear the South African constitutional court deliver its ruling and sentence.
Continue reading...Jacob Zuma trial: South Africa’s ex-president denies corruption charges
Zuma accuses lawyers of working ‘to bolster a narrative’ as trial begins over $2.5bn arms deal
Jacob Zuma, the former president of South Africa, accused prosecutors of seeking to malign a political leader rather than find the truth as he denied charges of corruption at the first major hearing of his trial on Wednesday.
Zuma, 79, faces charges of bribery, fraud, racketeering and money laundering relate to a $2.5bn (£1.98bn) deal to buy European military hardware to upgrade South Africa’s armed forces in 1999 when he was deputy president.
Continue reading...King Goodwill Zwelithini obituary
Leader of the Zulu nation in Kwazulu-Natal who remained a key figure in democratic South Africa
The emergence of South Africa into an era of majority rule in 1994 was accompanied by a constitution that enshrined a wide range of equalities – not just racial equality, but gender equality and recognition of diverse sexual orientations. It was highly modern in its range, but all the same enshrined the position of traditional monarchs. Thus King Goodwill Zwelithini of the Zulu nation, who has died aged 72, was made part of a modern South Africa, while representing an old lineage and old practice.
The recognition in particular of the Zulu king was important in that the four years of negotiation, from Nelson Mandela’s release to the achievement of elections under universal franchise, were marked not just by black/white racial unease, but by Zulu/ANC communal violence in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, on South Africa’s Indian Ocean coast. Pogroms and slaughters by Zulu militants, and the reprisal attacks that followed, marked the unease of a process in which traditionally powerful communities sought not to be marginalised in the new dispensation. Recognition of the Zulu king, and the inclusion at a high level of Jacob Zuma, a Zulu himself, in the ANC cabinet – Thabo Mbeki appointed him deputy president in 1999 – helped to assuage these fears.
Continue reading...South African tycoon accused of bribery killed in car crash
Gavin Watson was at the centre of claims of systematic graft involving leading ANC figures
Opposition politicians in South Africa are calling for a “thorough and transparent” investigation into a car crash that killed a controversial South African businessman accused of bribing dozens of top government officials.
Gavin Watson, 71, died when his Toyota Corolla hit a concrete bridge support in Johannesburg in the early hours of Monday morning as he was travelling alone to the city’s international airport.
Continue reading...Jacob Zuma refuses to testify before major corruption inquiry
Former South African president claims he was treated unfairly during cross-examination
The former South African president Jacob Zuma has refused to testify before a major corruption inquiry, claiming he was being questioned unfairly.
Zuma was scheduled to give evidence throughout the week. But when the court reconvened on Friday morning after a 48-hour adjournment at his request, the 77-year-old’s politician’s lawyer, Muzi Sikhakhane, said he would take no further part in proceedings.
Continue reading...Zuma tells South Africa corruption inquiry he is victim of foreign plot
Former president faces allegations he presided over vast corruption network
South Africa’s former president Jacob Zuma has told a judicial inquiry into corruption allegations that he is the victim of a plot by foreign intelligence agencies to seek his downfall.
Speaking on the first day of five days of testimony, Zuma denied he had presided over an immense system of corruption and patronage that drained billions from the country’s exchequer.
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