A trained national police commissioner might make a difference in the ongoing killings by police

A trained national police commissioner might make a difference in the ongoing killings by police

BY BRIAN KAJENGO

The sad reality is that incidents in which police shoot and kill people during service delivery protests and any other protest such as the Marikana incident will not stop anytime soon.

A number of protesters have been shot dead in Mpumalanga during service delivery protests that took place since the year 2009 when police who were armed to teeth shot a protester dead in Mashishing near Lydenburg.

Other victims were killed by police in areas such as the Mpumalanga Eastern Highveld over the years and it seems even the Marikana incident as well as the Daveyton police killing of a Mozambican man who was first dragged behind a police van have not cautioned the police to stop these killings.

As Cope in Mpumalanga we are very worried about these killings, just yesterday reports said Tshepo Babuseng of Taung in the North West Province was shot dead by police during yet another protest.

Once upon a time the president of Cope, Comrade Mosiuoa Lekota called for a national police commissioner to be a trained police officer instead of what we have so far seen with the deployment of the disgraces Jackie Selebi, the Cowboy Beki Cele and now of late, Ria Phiyega.

All these “police commissioners” did not undergo police training in any of the relevant institutions that train our men and women in blue in South Africa.

The national organizer for Cope, Sizile Ndlovu, had this to say about the ongoing killings by police; “The national police commissioner and the minister of police have both been deployed by the ANC. Now people in South Africa and elsewhere in the country will say the people in this country are killed by the government of the ANC, Why is President Jacob Zuma not appointing a national police commissioner who would have undergone the necessary training to become a cop?

“Service delivery protests will still go a long way for as long as our people do not have jobs, services, houses, decent roads and so on,” Ndlovu said.

Cope in Mpumalanga wishes to commend the residents of Thulamahashe Township in Bushbuckridge for raising their plight in a cool manner as compared to other violent protests.

More information on the Thulamahashe issue will follow and will include the protest against a senior ANC leader in the Bushbuckridge area who is accused of manipulating tenders from the Bushbuckridge municipality.