Culpable: Mthokozisi Ntumba was not a student, nor was he protesting. He was leaving a clinic when police shot him. He had three children
Wednesday.
It’s day 349 of the Covid-19 national lockdown. It’s also day one of the latest round of stage 2 loadshedding called by Eksdom, which may, we are told, end on Friday.
It’s pitch dark over my part of the boiling swamp called Durban. The lights went out, like clockwork, at exactly 8pm. Eskom may not be able to provide consistent electricity supply, but they are hyperefficient when it comes to cutting the power according to the schedule.
Eskom’s latest power outage means there’s little chance of catching Atletico Madrid’s league fixture against Athletic Bilbao. A win would take Diego Simeone’s mob six points clear of Barcelona and eight ahead of Madrid, with 12 games to go, so it’s a pretty important match.
Eskom boss Andre de Ruyter is clearly not a fan of the Los Colchoneros, or he would have kept the lights on, at least until the final whistle.
De Ruyter also appears to be not too not impressed with being accused of being a racist.
Maybe that’s the real reason for the latest round of power cuts, and not some broken power stations, as we are being told. Maybe De Ruyter took the hump over being called a white supremacist by Eskom staff and the “radical economic transformation” forces on Twitter and woke up, all red-faced and angry, on Wednesday. Drove to Megawatt Park thinking, “Fok julle, nou wys ek julle.” Hit the control room, cut the lights and went home with the keys to watch Gareth Cliff reruns until Friday, when he may or may not give us a relatively uninterrupted supply of electricity, depending on his mood.
Perhaps.
Despite the absence of power, it’s far from silent in the dark.
The angry voices of the students at the residence two blocks away have suddenly been brought closer by the lack of any competing sound.
Their singing started at about 6pm, in response to news of the police killing a bystander, Mthokozisi Ntumba, while dispersing students protesting over financial exclusions at Wits University earlier in the day. The singing was faint at first, distant, drowned out by the sounds of traffic, TVs, normal domestic life. Not intrusive, just a background, a faint noise on the periphery.
As soon as the power went out, the singing became louder — and angrier — closer and increasingly strident, as if these young people, incensed by the taking of another life, by their exclusion from having a future based on education, had been forced out of their rooms and into the darkness in the street. Their only protection, each other and their voices, after being stripped of yet another layer of dignity.
I fell asleep before the power came back on, so I’m not sure if the students headed back to their rooms voluntarily, when it did, or if the cops ended up chasing them off the streets, like their colleagues in Braamfontein.
Hopefully they were allowed to disperse without anybody getting hurt.
Calling in the police to prevent protests from turning violent, to protect lives and property, is understandable. Necessary.
So is the use of force. But only if there is no alternative and after nonlethal means — water cannons, tear gas, baton charges — have been attempted and failed, if the lives of the police and other people are in danger.
Opening fire on unarmed students without warning, with no prior negotiation or attempt to get them to move by non-violent means, for blocking Empire Road in Johannesburg, can’t be justified.
Neither can shooting an innocent bystander with rubber bullets —three times — that killed him.
The police broke their own rules with the violence they unleashed on the young people in the streets of Braamfontein on Wednesday.
They also broke the law.
Mthokozisi Ntumba didn’t lose his life, as if it was his wallet or cellphone. It was as if being killed by the cops was his own doing, his own fault.
His life was taken from him.
Stolen.
Mthokozisi Ntumba was killed.
Shot three times by the police while minding his own business, leaving a clinic.
Not allegedly.
Not in a crossfire.
Not in an exchange of fire between the police and not by some unknown individual.
The only people firing bullets — rubber or otherwise — in the streets of Braamfontein on Wednesday were the cops.
They didn’t need to kill Mthokozisi Ntumba.
They didn’t need to kill Andries Tatane.
Or Mvuyisi Pato and the other miners at Marikana.
But they did.
Nobody has been held to account for killing Andries Tatane and Mvuyisi Pato.
Who will answer for killing Mthokozisi Ntumba?