Police have issued a robbery and plunder warning to businesses in Cape Town ahead of what the Congress of South African Students (Cosas) says will be a massive march through the city centre on Tuesday.
In an e-mail to police colleagues, the head of crime prevention for the city’s west metropolis, Senior Superintendent Basil Vellai has asked that shopkeepers and vendors be warned to ”put the necessary security in place” or shut shop when the marchers go past.
”These students previously robbed, damaged, plundered in the city centre,” Vellai says in the e-mail.
However, Cosas Western Cape chairperson Siya Sintwa said the march, in which he expects 100 000 pupils to participate, will be orderly.
”We want them in their uniforms, disciplined as ever,” he said.
The march, ”the biggest Cape Town has ever heard of”, is to call for improved safety measures for violence-plagued schools on the Cape Flats.
He said the marchers will hand over a memorandum to community safety minister Leonard Ramatlakane and his education counterpart, Cameron Dugmore, at the provincial legislature.
Sintwa said he heard about Vellai’s e-mail message.
”They are saying we are criminals. That is the impression they are giving,” he said. ”After this march, we are going to take further steps. That’s an insult and offending the organisation.”
He said the city council issued a permit for the march on condition Cosas be held accountable for any damage caused by marchers.
”But we can manage to pay if there’s any damage because we’re going to sue the South African Police Service,” he said.
Last week, members of the South African Municipal Workers’ Union, also marching under permit, threw rocks and bottles at police and dumped mounds of rubbish in the city centre.
Permits are issued by the council after a ”golden triangle” meeting involving the South African Police Service, the city police, traffic officials and the city’s disaster-management services.
Police spokesperson Captain Andre Traut said he does not know whether police objected at that meeting to the issue of a permit.
He said march organisers gave an assurance that it will be peaceful, but police are advising businesses along the route to close ”just as a safety precaution”.
There will be a strong police presence, including local police, members of the public order area crime combating unit, and city and traffic police. Other resources will be called in if necessary. — Sapa