March and March protesters brave rain in Durban, highlight killings

Dozens of March and March members braved the rain in Durban to add their voice to growing national discontent following a series of killings in Ekurhuleni .

Founder Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma criticised the government for its inability to keep South African women safe, yet were willing to protect foreigners in the country.

“Firstly, when we said, ‘let the borders be closed’, they said March and March is xenophobic ... We said they must close the borders, and they said we are Afrophobic. Didn’t they say that?

“We said they had to protect the people of South Africa. But they released R600m to protect immigrants. Now we say to our government: where is that money you released to protect immigrants? Why don’t you release it to protect our people?”

Ngobese-Zuma said just because police were unable to lift [the attacker’s] fingerprints from the bodies of the women found in Gauteng did not mean the suspect was a foreign national.

“We are not sure if it [the suspect] is a foreign national. I want to make that clear. I don’t want to create a perception that we are here to protest against a foreign national in connection with the deaths.

“I am saying we are here because our government failed our people and took care of immigrants. If these were immigrants who were dying today, they would have taken action. Our government has shown several times that if you are a South African, you are not a priority in the country. What is important is how the immigrants view the government. See how they treat immigrants better than us.”

“What is happening is deliberate. They first kill them and dump them there. Where they are dumping them, they are doing it deliberately so that it can be seen that they are dumping them in one area. Yes, they are sending a message in doing that.”

She criticised police minister Firoz Cachalia , saying his appearance did not inspire fear among criminals. “When he appears on television, there is no criminal who can fear him. No one who can look at our police minister and say, ‘I am scared to do crime’. In fact, I think he inspires them to continue.

“We need people like [Lt-Gen Nhlanhla] Mkhwanazi . A person, when you look him, you know fear and respect, not just someone you see and say you will give R20 for a cold drink.”

Ngobese-Zuma said had the government closed its borders to foreigners - whom she has repeatedly claimed number in the millions - it would not have the current inadequate ratio of police to the population.

“Even though we don’t know who the suspect is, the fact is that the police in South Africa are a hundred-and-something-thousand in a population of millions and millions. They cannot even service our people, but they end up spending time even protecting refugees sleeping on Moore Road.”

She said police were kept busy checking on businesses owned by Pakistanis, Somalians and Ethiopians.

“If these people were not here, our police would be working. But we don’t have a government, our government doesn’t have a backbone. They are rushing to stop Jacinta and March and March instead of doing their job.