SHUTDOWN: Chaos erupts throughout province as taxi operator protest turns violent
It's over but it cost us millions. The fiery taxi blockades ordered by Eastern Cape’s taxi bosses were called off at 1pm yesterday when Premier Phumulo Masualle promised to negotiate immediately.
But the public and economy took a battering. Roads, business, health services and school exams were disrupted.
A man with a gunshot wound in an ambulance was denied passage to a hospital in Lady Grey.
A Greyhound bus was attacked at a blockade, said Greyhound’s East London supervisor, Antonio Edinberry.
The coach was stopped and stoned at Quzini 9km outside King William’s Town. Thugs ordered 49 passengers and the driver off, robbed some of their handbags and cellphones, and set the lower deck alight.
Oxford Street in East London’s city centre was ghostly, with major fashion chains bringing down their metal covers.
The SAPS attacked blockades, firing rubber bullets and teargas and towing taxis away, while police helicopters circled above.
There were Facebook posts thanking police and traffic officers for keeping traffic moving.
Twenty-two strikers were arrested and will be charged with public violence, arson and malicious damage to property, said police.
Provincial spokesman Colonel Sibongile Soci said there were nine arrests in East London, three in Zwelitsha, five in Bhisho, one in King William’s Town and a suspected bag-snatcher was arrested near a bus stop in Qunzini location.
Mdantsane police spokesman Captain Nkosikho Mzuku Mzuku said three people were arrested in Mdantsane and one in Cambridge.
Four taxis were dragged from blockades and impounded in East London, said Soci.
Acting provincial police commissioner, Major-General Zamuthango Mki, condemned the actions of the taxi owners and drivers, while Soci said they had initimidated the public, denied them the right of movement, destroyed property, attacked the police and behaved violently.
Eastern Cape health MEC Dr Phumza Dyantyi said patients were turned away from short-staffed hospitals.
Doctors were barred from entering Cecilia Makiwane Hospital.
Walk-in patients, whose lives were not in immediate danger, were turned away, said Dyantyi.
“We prioritised our critical condition wards and medicine dispensation,” she said.
“An ambulance carrying a patient with a gunshot wound was initially delayed, but later allowed to pass to Grey Hospital. Even in war-torn countries emergency vehicles are allowed to do their work.”
In Mthatha, police had their hands full with taxi drivers starting fires around town, leaving thousands stranded.
Scores of residents from Mthatha West, Ngangelizwe and Sibangweni were seen walking to town.
Commuters had to hitch-hike from Circus Triangle Mall in Mthatha to Port St Johns.
Vuyile Mgibiseleni, 48, of Ezintakumbeni village in Port St Johns, was shocked when his bus from Mthatha only made it 50km down the R6 when it hit a taxi blockade at the Majola junction.
Passengers were forced out but those travelling light walked 30km home to Port St Johns. Saturday Dispatch was on the scene when drivers paid taxi men cash to get past.
When word came at 1pm that the blockades were over, taxi drivers set tyres alight in Corhana village on the R61, 5km outside Mthatha, causing traffic to back up in both directions, while OR Tambo district municipality fire fighters extinguished the flames.
Mthatha police spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Mzukisi Fatyela said no arrests had been made, and that the strike was not violent.
Violence erupted in Mdantsane from 5am when protesters blocked all major intersections, cutting off Cecilia Makiwane Hospital, the Mdantsane City Mall and the Mdantsane Magistrate’s Court.
Motorists were slapped, shouted at and cursed.
Police officers from Berlin, Cambridge and around Mdantsane were dispatched to clear the N2 between Mdantsane and King William’s Town. They fired rubber bullets at protesters who stoned private vehicles.
At Mdantsane’s main entrance near the Mtsotso cemetery a Daily Dispatch reporter was stoned by angry protesters who chased the Dispatch team.
Police spokesman Captain Nkosikho Mzuku said all court operations were affected and prisoners who were due to appear in court today were turned back to the cells due to the strike action.
The usually busy Highway central business district (CBD) and Mdantsane City Mall yesterday lost business.
General Manager at Mdantsane City Mall, Dean Deary, said only 25 of their 100 shops opened.
Burning roadblocks caused chaos in Duncan Village, Scenery Park and Parkridge.
Palls of smoke hung over the city and there was a heavy police presence on a bridge in Scenery Park. Woolwash Road was blocked by burning tyres.
Vehicles U-turned or found detours through the township.
The main road in Duncan Village near the community centre was shut down.
Tyres burned across Windyridge road in Parkridge and schoolchildren danced and played near the flames. — Bongani Fuzile, Zwanga Mukhuthu, Asanda Nini, Mamela Gowa, Aretha Linden, Barbara Hollands, Simthandile Ford, Zipho-Zenkosi Ncokazi, Siya Boya and Ray Hartle