The killing of a 19-year-old boy in Phoenix, Durban, two weeks ago by city council security guards has again cast a spotlight on the measures state authorities use against impoverished communities in protest.
Marcel King was shot dead on Thursday June 24 by a member of a security company hired by the Durban council to disconnect electricity that had apparently been illegally reconnected in the impoverished Durban suburb.
”My mother was involved in a confrontation with a security guard who had just hit her because she had tried to climb on to the back of his van,” said Jonathan King, Marcel’s older brother. ”Marcel tried to pull her away but the guard cocked his gun and began firing. That’s when I saw my brother falling to the ground. I don’t know if the guard panicked or what, but he just continued firing.”
Michael Sutcliffe, the Durban city manager, said that he could not disclose the name of the security company until the ballistics results were completed. The results will confirm who fired the fatal shot.
The council uses five private security companies, Sutcliffe said. ”On that day there were two [security companies] in Phoenix. Until we have the ballistics I don’t want to get involved in apportioning guilt.
”However, I view this as a very serious matter because there is no excuse ever for killing someone unless your life is really in danger.”
Michael Lead, spokesperson for the South African Police Service in KwaZulu-Natal, said 10 firearms have been confiscated for ballistics testing. ”The results could take up to a month but we are busy with an investigation.”
This incident is one of many recent clashes between state security, social movement activists and community members in suburbs in Gauteng, the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.
Marchers and protests are a regular feature of political life and are governed by a series of regulations governing gatherings. Most occur without incidence. But several have gotten ugly recently. On election day this year three Landless People’s Movement activists were arrested and were detained and allegedly tortured.
On Freedom Day in April police fired on a group of Anti-Privatisation Forum members protesting outside the Constitutional Court in Johannesburg against electricity cut-offs.
Steven Friedman of the Centre for Policy Studies said: ”There is strong evidence that there are unanswered allegations of political oppression,” but we have to be careful not to lump this together with the actions of security companies acting against communities undertaking illegal acts.
”If no justice is going to be done, we will do justice ourselves,” said Jonathan King. ”We are hard people. We believe in liberation but we have been let down by the government once again. I will stand for my brother until I am shot dead.”