July riots: Ramaphosa to testify at SA Human Rights Commission hearing

President Cyril Ramaphosa is expected to take the stand at the South African Human Rights Commission’s (SAHRC) hearings into the July riots, on Friday, 1 April 2022.

The first leg of the hearings were in KwaZulu-Natal last year, with survivors, business owners and law enforcement officials giving their account of the unrest and answering key questions from the panel. The second leg got underway in February 2022 and heard from several prominent figures, including Minister Ayanda Dlodlo.

Much of Ramaphosa’s testimony will likely centre on government’s overall response to the violence which occurred that fateful week.

“The Commission has indicated that the President will appear before the Hearings Panel and will give testimony with regard to his responsibility as the Head of State,” the Presidency said in a statement.

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WHAT EXACTLY WILL RAMAPHOSA’S TESTIMONY ENTAIL?

President Cyril Ramaphosa and his Cabinet has been blamed for failing to timeously respond during the July unrest. A bone of contention has been the actual cause of the riots – government has failed to agree.

While Ramaphosa himself has previously said the unrest was a planned coup or insurrection, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, who was Defence Minister at the time, contradicted him. When Mapisa-Nqakula appeared before a parliamentary Joint Standing Committee on Defence just days after the violence ended, she said it was her view that the military was instead seeing signs of a “counter-revolution creeping in, in the form of criminality and thuggery”.

Parts of KZN and Gauteng were the scene of chaos as thousands took part in looting sprees, during which malls, shopping centres and other business establishments were targeted. They started out as demonstrations demanding former president Jacob Zuma’s release from prison in KZN, but soon morphed into civil unrest, spreading to Gauteng. More than 330 people were killed during the clashes

While the official word from government is the violence was a failed insurrection, others reckon it was pure criminality and that the country’s economically excluded merely saw an opportunity to help themselves.

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