THURSDAY, 4.00PM:
AN African National Congress town councillor from Richmond in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands was early Thursday shot dead as he left his home. Rodney van der Byl, 54, was shot about eight times in an attack local residents say is linked to Van der Byl’s refusal to resign in support of expelled Midlands ANC leader Sifiso Nkabinde. Nkabinde was thrown out of the ANC in March, after being branded an apartheid-era spy and agent provocateur.
Nine Richmond ANC councillors have since quit in support of Nkabinde, leaving only Van der Byl and Richmond mayor Andrew Ragabaloo as the only ANC councillors.
The ANC has demanded an immediate inquiry into the assassination, and has called on Safety and Security Minister Sydney Mufamadi and police commissioner George Fivaz to investigate policing in the Pietermaritzburg area to root out “the third force”.
“The police must explain what measures they took to police the area and protect Mr van der Byl and the mayor when they clearly became targets of the third force for refusing to resign as ANC councillors. The failure to police the area and to protect these two councillors vindicates the ANC’s assertion that while elements of the third force are found in the security forces all over the country, in greater Pietermaritzburg and the surrounding areas the third force is indeed in control of the police,” an ANC statement said. The party called for 24-hour protection for Ragabaloo and his family, and urged people in the area who had been offered money to assassinate ANC leaders to report this to ANC offices.