Vuwani in chaos (again)

The situation in Vuwani has been chaotic and tense over the last few days, with a total shutdown in full force. The shutdown, which brought all services to a complete halt in town and surrounding affected villages, ensured that there was no thoroughfare. Streets were barricaded with burning tyres, big rocks, tree stumps and other objects.

The shutdown started on Thursday evening (3 March 2016) and was scheduled to end on Sunday evening (6 March 2016). It was meant to ensure that IEC personnel could not work in the area before the demarcation board had reversed its decision to include the area of Vuwani in a new municipality. The new municipality is planned to include Malamulele.

Though the protesters managed to stop the voter registration in the area, the violent protests were not without casualties. A standoff between the police and residents started from the first day of the shutdown, and several vehicles were damaged when residents pelted stones at motorists. By Sunday, 15 people had been arrested for public violence and the protests had to be prolonged to ensure that those arrested were released. They appeared in the Malamulele Magistrate's Court and were given bail, with minors being left under the supervision of their own parents.

The protest was then lifted. Residents' spokesperson Alex Ndou said the shutdown was a roaring success, with affected communities coming out in full support. “We are very excited that our expectations were realised and voter registration did not take place in our areas. We cannot allow them to operate here before we are satisfied with the municipal demarcation."

He added that the community members were prepared "for whatever happens. We are very hurt to find that the police arrested people, some of whom were children, who were not even participating in the protests and we know that this was meant to provoke our people." Ndou vowed that the community would continue to show their displeasure about their being merged into the new municipality.

Several stakeholders are still asking who holds the answer to the problem in Vuwani. Since the start of the protests last year, a number of prominent people and leaders from the government, among them ministers, MECs and even King Toni Mphephu, have visited the area in attempt to diffuse the situation, but in vain. The residents' hopes were raised when Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa visited them towards the end of last year, but their hopes are fading fast as no solution seems to be forthcoming.

"They have all failed us and were not able to solve the problem here, and the only person we hope can deal with this problem is the president. It is his government that started this and he must be able to solve it before it gets out of hand," said Ndou.

On the flipside of the coin, Limpopo Mirror was contacted earlier this week by a community leader in several Venda-speaking villages, expressing dissatisfaction about what is happening in Vuwani and the actions of the Pro Makhado Dermacation Task Team. "We are at least eight villages under Vuwani who are not supporting Pro Makhado," he said. According to him, the residents of Davhana, Sundani, Nngwekhulu, Malongani, Mabidi, Gabeni, Tshirululuni and Bofulamato are happy with the planned new municipality.

He said that during the shutdown, everything went smoothly in their villages and he said that the protesters must not generalise that everyone was against the planned demarcation. According to him, the residents of the villages were afraid of intimidation by people with other sentiments regarding the demarcation.

During his visit to the area over the weekend, Ramaphosa said he believed that Vuwani's problems could be solved before the elections. Limpopo police spokesperson Col Ronel Otto said the situation was back to normal, but added that four police vehicles were damaged during patrols in the area when stoned by community members.

She said all the windows of the three bakkies and a minibus had been smashed. "There were no injuries reported and we have arrested a total of 15 people for public violence," she said.

Date:14 March 2016

By: Elmon Tshikhudo

Elmon Tshikhudo started off as a photographer. He developed an interest in writing and started submitting articles to local as well as national publications. He became part of the Limpopo Mirror family in 2005 and was a permanent part of the news team until 2019.

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