By: Natasha Archary
President Cyril Ramaphosa said the July unrest that gripped the country last year was a humiliating event.
Testifying at the SA Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) hearing on the unrest, the president said the economic cost of over R50 billion was just the tip of the iceberg.
The cost to the families of those who lost their lives and were injured will forever plague the country.
“The July 2021 unrest was a humiliating event. The instigators wanted to exploit the vulnerabilities of our people and that manifested in them participating in their own humiliation.”
Ramaphosa said the chaos was used as a smokescreen to carry out acts of economic sabotage with attacks on commercial trucks carrying goods, looting and torching of malls, factories and warehouses and blocking roads and highways.
According to media monitoring and data analysis agencies, instigators led well-orchestrated campaigns on social media to inflame racial tensions, spread fake news and disseminate.
“The identity of these individuals and the motives for their actions are the subject of ongoing investigations and legal proceedings.”
Ramaphosa said the investigations to find the instigators of the July unrest are still ongoing
The report of the July unrest which was released in December, proves that government was ill-prepared to control and stop the violence and looting incidents.
While intelligence reports were received about the possibility of instability, neither the security services nor the government anticipated the nature or extent of the circumstance.
Ramaphosa did not agree that his addresses at the time could have escalated the violence and looting.
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