OWN CORRESPONDENT, Olifantshoek | Friday
A POLICEMAN has been arrested after shooting eight supporters of the African National Congress (ANC) during a political protest in Olifantshoek in northwestern South Africa.
The policeman opened fire on some 200 protestors with an automatic rifle after they hurled stones at him, a police colleague and a member of the South African Defence Force, Superintendent Rita Crafford said.
“The police tried teargas and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd but when that did not work one of them opened fire,” she said, adding that the officers had felt under threat.
A woman was wounded in the stomach, a teenager in the chest and the other protestors in their legs and arms, she said.
The woman was in a serious condition after emergency surgery in Kimberley, some 240km southeast of Olifantshoek, medical sources said.
At least four more injured protestors, all in their teens or early twenties, were also in hospital.
The protesters, who were unhappy with the way the town council is being run, had barricaded the road between Olifantshoek and the town of Kathu with burning tyres, branches and rocks, leaving 30 trucks stranded for several hours, witnesses said.
The policeman, whose name is being withheld, was due to appear in court.
He was sharply criticised by provincial safety minister Connie Seoposengwe, who told reporters his actions had been unprovoked and could not be tolerated in post-apartheid South Africa.
“There can be no justification in police shooting at peaceful protestors with live ammunition without first firing warning shots,” she said.
“We cannot allow a situation where police officers treat people like they did in the past.”
ANC politicians who rushed to the scene also accused the police of firing at the crowd without provocation.
“They shot first and then the stone-throwing started. They fired into a crowd with young people and children. They were not armed,” said Papi Tau, a provincial secretary of the ANC.
According to the South African news agency SAPA, the protest was the culmination of tension between the ANC and a local residents’ association which is aligned with the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA).
Protesters claimed that the DA-controlled council carried out community upliftment programmes only in areas where their supporters lived, and that ANC councillors had been unfairly dismissed. – AFP