A Story Lungelo Sibiya wrote for the Sunday Times Commemoration of the July unrest 2021
Zama*, 21, was at home with her mother, a friend, and her niece and nephew in Nhlalakahle outside Greytown, KwaZulu-Natal, when she heard about the looting.
“On Friday 9 July 2021 there was a car going around Nhlalakahle township announcing that we should wake up on Monday morning, on the 12th, and go to Greytown and loot so that Jacob Zuma would be re- leased,” said the student.
Zuma had been taken to prison in Estcourt just before midnight on Wednesday July 7.
Less than two days later in Greytown, which is about 70km from Zuma’s Nkandla homestead, Zama watched as two men she didn’t recognise, wearing ANC T-shirts, drove around her neighbourhood in a white van. On a loud hailer, she says, they were “begging” residents to loot the town to help force Zuma’s release.
Zama’s mother and the friend she was with at the time, confirm her story.
“It seemed like many people around this street are Zuma supporters because many of them during this announcement went out shouting that they were going to be there be- cause they wanted Jacob Zuma out of prison,” she said.
That Monday morning, she heard a noise in the street and saw tyres burning in the road.
“When I went out to see, I saw a bunch of people telling people who were going to work to go back to their homes and did not allow them to pass,” Zama said.
As she stood outside her home, she could see people coming towards her, running with TV sets and built-in cupboards.
“As much as I wanted to go, I was scared because police were shooting and there was smoke everywhere,” she said.
Soon, however, the police who were driving vans with Pietermaritzburg written on them left and her neighbours told her she could simply walk into a shop in town, loot whatever she liked and then leave.
“I then went to town and began with the closest shop which was Pep.”
There, she says, she took about R2,000 of
items including T-shirts and school uniforms for her niece and nephew which she then hid in a nearby building.
After that she went to the Checkout grocery store and “took a big trolley and put in groceries worth almost R2,000” for her household and that of her aunt.
“Then the police started shooting everywhere and we ran away to the same building where we had hidden the looted clothes,” she said.
“It was a very dangerous situation because other people were getting hurt, injured and some died, including a friend of mine from school who was looting a bottle store and a crate of beer fell on his head.”
In the days and weeks to come, life be- came more difficult for Nhlalakahle residents as many shops closed.
“My motivation for looting was not because I wanted Zuma out of jail, I do not care about political affairs and did not care whether Zuma was in or out of jail,” she said. “I do regret it though because most of the things we looted did not even last.”
Nosipho*, 25, who earns R2,500 a month working at a nearby chicken farm, says she saw posts on Facebook warning that Greytown was going to be looted that Monday.
At 9 o’clock that morning, her employer released staff for the day fearing the looters would come for the farm.
On her way back to the room she rents in Nhlalakahle, she saw a commotion in town and she and her friend watched what was going on before deciding to join in. By then, many shops had been looted.
“I managed to get into Pep and took
clothes, boots and hair extensions and we wanted to go get more things, but the police started shooting,” she said. They ran away and returned when the shooting stopped.
“Other police officers came and said we can loot but not burn the shops.”
A few moments later, Nosipho spotted a furniture store being looted and went to find herself a fridge larger than the bar fridge she owns.
“We then hired a van to come fetch the fridge and our furniture since others also had their things,” she said.
Nosipho hid her looted items in an empty house. But the next day, police and soldiers conducting door-to-door searches for stolen goods, found them.
“After the looting I witnessed that food was no longer easy to get as prices instantly
went up and many shops were closed,” Nosipho said.
“I am a mother of two boys aged 8 and 5 and unfortunately I could not get anything for them during the looting.
“I sold the things that I looted because I needed the money and I made about R1,000.”
Nonhlanhla*, 42, a cleaner at a local primary school, was in her rented home when the noise started at 7am that Monday.
“My neighbour said, ‘You’re still sitting here, and things are happening out there! Let’s go!”
The two started at a furniture shop where Nonhlanhla ran off with a small cupboard after police opened fire.
“I waited for the situation to ease and then went out again. This time a bottle store was being looted and I went in,” Nonhlanhla said, adding that she left with two bottles of wine and a six-pack of ciders.
But the next day, the police came to her door.
“I was on my way to hide the bottles of wine when the police let themselves in and caught me red-handed,” she said. “They asked me to stay where I was and asked me where I got the bottles of wine. I told them that I got them outside my house maybe someone had dropped them, and I took it thinking it’s poison for grass.”
She told the police she couldn’t read, and they believed her. One policeman told her to hide the alcohol because other officers would not be as kind.
Later, another group of police officers came calling. When she didn’t open her door, they forced their way in, searched the house and found nothing. But because she hesitated to open, they wanted to take her away.
“As they were about to put me in the po- lice van, they told me to go back to the house and they forgave me,” Nonhlanhla said.
She regrets looting because she didn’t get much of great value, and the alcohol is finished now. She still has the cupboard though.
“I regret contributing to something that had a bad impact on the economy,” she said.
LZ
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