Tensions boiling over: Residents protesting against the rise of crime in Diepsloot, Soweto, on Wednesday. Police Minister Bheki Cele attended, as did vigilante movement Operation Dudula, which has grown momentum over the past year. (Guillem Sartorio/AFP)
The vigilante group Operation Dudula has put the police and state security on high alert as its support continues to grow.
Just last week, ANC spokesperson Pule Mabe told the Mail & Guardian that people who embraced movements such as Operation Dudula were affirming the party’s views.
“These people [undocumented foreign nationals] come here to sell drugs, seat [sic] here illegally, undermine our sovereignty, create illegal business,” he said.
Dudula, Mabe said, was a “progressive and constructive” community forum.
ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa, was however, in disagreement, saying he was concerned about the rise of Operation Dudula and its illegal actions.
“We cannot support a vigilante-type of move against a group of people — and particularly targeting them as foreign nationals. When we are doing that … just to divide our people on the African continent,” Ramaphosa said.
However, state security is now on high alert.
Deputy State Security Minister Zizi Kodwa said intelligence was monitoring the group as part of its constitutional mandate. Kodwa said that state security had classified Operation Dudula as a vigilante group, adding that it must be condemned and disrupted by law enforcement.
“We are monitoring the activities of Dudula, working with our law enforcement agencies in terms of information with our client, the police, because we think that [the] manifestation of that group is exploiting the conditions of our people … the majority [of which] are unemployed young people.
“Not everyone is undocumented and illegal, but they will not know that, because they are a vigilante group. Anybody they see who comes from across Limpopo to them its illegal. Actually there are many other document[ed] and legal foreign national who have created serious crimes,” he said.
The police last week informed parliament that they had launched at least 17 cases against Operation Dudula with seven court cases and 10 investigations. Of these, 15 Operation Dudula operatives are facing court action with eight of these in Alexandra, four in Diepkloof and three in Norwood. Most of these cases could result in two years of direct imprisonment.
While addressing the parliamentary portfolio committee on police, national police commissioner General Sehlahle Masemola said activities by Operation Dudula were likely to heighten tensions and cause instability in the SADC region.
Police have initiated an early-warning crime intelligence system for the group, which is captured in its threat matrix in the national operation command centre and transmitted to its provincial operations.
Masemola said all incidents are reported hourly for senior management to monitor.
The operational command centre structures are found at the station, district, provincial and national levels to ensure proper co-ordination, dissemination of information and intelligence, he said, adding that there was oversight at the national joint operational and intelligence structure level, which accounts to the ministerial clusters.
A total of 52 early warnings relating to Operation Dudula were received and acted on from January until March, police said.
However, according to Institute for Security Studies (ISS) researcher Godfrey Mulaudzi, the Dudula leaders have found expression because of the gaps in law enforcement.
“Operation Dudula’s activity and methodology should be condemned; that is not how civilians should activate their active citizenship. We need to condemn their activities as xenophobia. It’s very easy to manipulate [a] community that is complaining about poverty and unemployment; that is what Dudula is playing [at], by mobilising people around these issues, so the fire is already started, they just need a matchstick — and that needs to be condemned. All these are reflections of a failure of state institutions that are not doing what is supposed to be done. Police have been caught napping,” he said.
According to Mulaudzi, the ISS violence monitor, which tracks incidents of public protests and violence, has seen a spike recently as communities across the country are taking to the streets, with their pressing concern being the high levels of crime.
“If you have this situation, you are likely to have a state of anarchy — that is, the absence of order — and that is what we are having now because communities feel it is pointless for them to go to the police to act, whereas we know who is doing this in our communities … Unfortunately it is because of inefficiency [on] the part of the police and we need to lay that squarely [at] their feet,” he added.
This comes just days after Mabe said: “We must hasten to warn those that want to use the word xenophobia to affirm wrongful conduct: you can’t have foreign nationals going and capturing [a suburb like] Yeoville, some without legitimate documents, and when they are approached they want to cry xenophobia. Pan-African [sic] xenophobia must never be used to affirm an entrenched illegality.”
This week the vigilante group was in Diepsloot. The growing tensions between police and communities were bubbling over when Police Minister Bheki Cele visited the community on Wednesday. The community had begun protesting days before the minister’s visit, complaining about rising crime, police being outnumbered and the lack of enforcement of immigration laws.
During his visit, Cele was taken to a major hotspot in the informal settlement, where the community claimed that at least five people had been killed over the weekend. As Cele was walking through passages constructed by communities with the stench of the sewage permeating the air, behind him was Operation Dudula leader Nhlanhla “Lux” Mohlauli marching with community members armed with sticks.
Mohlauli was raised onto a makeshift podium at the top of a temporary toilet while towering over his followers and the police. Speaking through a loudhailer in Setswana, Mohlauli told the hundreds of people that South Africans were tired of being number two citizens in their own country.
Meanwhile, Cele’s entourage of police in at least 17 vehicles ushered him away in a slick BMW convoy.
Just hours after Cele was whisked away from Diepsloot after promising that police would double their efforts in the community, one man was killed by a mob who allegedly broke into his home demanding that he produce a passport.
At least 23 alleged illegal immigrants were arrested the same night by police.
Last week, Cele, together with high-ranking police officers, conceded that law enforcement was facing a mammoth challenge it would soon be unable to contain.
Masemola, who delivered the presentation to parliament, said additional concerns need to be noted regarding the continued mobilisation by Operation Dudula or similar groups, which also extort protection fees.
Police said the potential risks that the expansion of the group could cause, include the “anticipation of simultaneous or co-ordinated action similar to those of July 2021”.
“Action against them by law enforcement is being used to garner more support. In the unlikely event of a concerted mobilisation, SAPS [South African Police Service] will potentially not have the resources to contain the situation to operate on multiple fronts.”
Kodwa said it was important to address some of the underlying features to justify why groups like Dudula existed.
He said that the issue of border management had become important for the government to address because the vulnerability of South Africa’s borders was being exploited by criminal syndicates that facilitate the movement of uncontrolled illegal persons and goods.
“Unfortunately, this does perpetuate some issues that have national-security related threats such as organised crime, social instability that you are beginning to see, whether in the form of Dudula [or other groups].
“To ensure and guarantee territorial integrity, border management must be tightened. We need to know who is in the country. The question facing the South African government is, [for] those who are in the country, what to do about it? The establishment of border management agencies will go a long way to address some of the shortcomings,” he added.
Collaborators and enablers
According to police intelligence, Operation Dudula gained prominence in June 2021 when it organised an operation in Diepkloof, Soweto, advocating for the removal of foreign nationals in the country, the closing of foreign-owned shops and the removal of drug peddlers. Some of the groups collaborating with Operation Dudula identified by police include the Umkhonto weSizwe Military Veterans’ Association (MKMVA), #PutSouthAfricaFirst, the African Transformation Movement, the All Truck Drivers Forum, the Sisonke Peoples Forum and the South African National Cargo Transport Drivers Association.
Operation Dudula has gained momentum in Gauteng and launched chapters in Limpopo, Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal. In 2015, KwaZulu-Natal was the hotbed for xenophobic attacks after the late Zulu King Zwelithini said “foreigners must pack their bags and go home” during a moral regeneration event in Pongola.
Last year, members of the MKMVA in eThekwini shut down foreign-owned shops in Durban. The combustible environment owing to the rise of unemployment and crime has given rise to Operation Dudula. Despite the movement’s alleged apprehension of working with political parties, Action SA and the the Patriotic Alliance have long bought into the message of ridding South Africa’s streets of undocumented foreigners.
When he was Johannesburg mayor, Action SA leader Herman Mashaba advanced the need to remove undocumented migrants from the city centre, largely by focusing on hijacked buildings, where he said criminality was rife. Mashaba told the M&G he was “proud” of Operation Dudula, whose work was ensuring the future of South Africa.
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