IFP president emeritus Mangosuthu Buthelezi on Sunday
battled to quell tensions in Johannesburg as he spoke out against xenophobic
violence.
Sections of the crowd at the gathering in Jeppestown walked
out as he addressed them.
"We are committing suicide." Chief Mangosuthu
Buthelezi said when he addressed the crowd demanding the expulsion of foreign
nationals in a gathering held at Belgravia, eastern Johannesburg.
Buthelezi begged the crowd, to calm down as the xenophobic
attacks had already set South Africa into a path to isolation. "I'm not
here to judge but to mediate," Buthelezi, the former leader of the IFP who
stepped down just last month, said.
During his entire speech, a portion of the crowd kept
shouting at him as he pleaded with them to end the violence. The group later
walked out while Buthelezi was speaking.
Hammering sticks on the fence, the crowd walked around the
park where Buthelezi was speaking and even fired gunshots in the air. After
walking around the park, the group returned back to the venue and began
shouting that police minister Bheki Cele address them.
Cele was not at the venue despite being the one who
announced the gathering earlier in the week. Hostel headmen (izinduna) tried
several times to call the angry crowd to order but their efforts yielded no
desired results.
The crowd kept singing "Mugabe is dead, foreigners
must go back home".
#JoburgCBD Three stores on fire. Video as received pic.twitter.com/aguu9CeHqn— Yusuf Abramjee (@Abramjee) September 8, 2019
0 comments:
Post a Comment