Theewaterskloof |Bredasdorp | Napier
Year 2 • Tuesday 26 June 2012 | Tel. 028 214 1294
Second protest for Bot River JANINE VAN DER RIET Chaos erupted when residents of Bot River once again blocked the access roads to the town – after six spaza shops in the informal settlement of Newfrance were robbed and torn to the ground by protesters early on Monday morning.
An officer of the police’s special task force keeps watch over residents of Newfrance during a protest at Bot River yesterday. PHOTO: JANINE VAN DER RIET
The 1 000-odd protesters split up between the N2, Bot River itself, and the OK Minimart in the town. One group tried at around 07:00 to block the N2 using burning tyres and trees. The police and special police task teams managed to move them down the road. There they blocked the gravel road leading from Bot River to the N2. About 800 people, meanwhile, blocked the road outside the OK Minimark, threatening to burn the shop – and all the while angry protesters walked through the streets of Bot River. At the time of going to print, police were waiting on backup from Cape Town. One police vehicle had been damaged and 12 people had been arrested, Lieutenant Cyril Coetzee, spokesperson
for the Caledon police, said. Bricks were thrown at the glass doors of a house in town. Resident Tim Groenewald was standing only a metre away, with his back to the glass doors, when the glass was hit. He says the impact sounded like an explosion. The protesters screamed at him to join the march, but Groenewald just kept quiet, waiting for them to leave. The protesters were apparently from the informal settlement of Newfrance and a local low-cost housing project. Yesterday’s protest happened almost a month to the day after the first service delivery protest in Bot River this year. Held on Monday 28 May, 800 protesters brought the town to a standstill when they blocked all access roads. The angry residents claimed that poor service delivery from the Theewaterskloof Municipality – untarred roads and a lack of housing, specifically – was the main reason for the protest. Yesterday some protesters said their protest was partly because of poor service delivery – but said they had also targeted spaza shops run by foreigners.
Stiffie Cronjé, spokesperson for the Theewaterskloof Municipality, says an agreement was reached last week by the Bot River Residents’ Association (BRA), the national Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA), and councillors of the Theewaterskloof Municipality. The agreement, which supports further conversation between the municipality and the BRA, was signed by the municipality and a representative of the COGTA – but the BRA has not signed it yet. Cronjé says that on Friday afternoon the municipality received an email requesting a meeting with the BRA on Sunday. But an hour after the first email came in, a second email arrived to say that the BRA had been dissolved. The municipality was not informed of the protest, Cronjé adds. “We are not sure who is responsible for this protest, but TWK has done everything to accommodate residents with their grievances.” ) See page 3 for an account of this journalist’s encounter with the protesters.
Market Day Sat: 7 July | 10 – 2pm
028 214 5100 | www.thecaledon.co.za *Subject to availability. Terms and Conditions Apply.