Premier applauds Eastern Cape citizens for standing against calls for unrest in the province

Eastern Cape premier Oscar Mabuyane on Tuesday released a statement commending the people of the province for standing against attempts to incite violence in the province alongside the pro-Zuma protests and looting taking place in Gauteng and Kwazulu-Natal.

The premier acknowledged having seen messages which encouraged people to mobilise to join those campaigns.

“Peace-loving and law-abiding citizens of the Eastern Cape, we have seen messages of a campaign trying to mobilize you to do what is happening in our two sister provinces of Gauteng and KZN.

“We want to assure you that law enforcement agencies are investigating the origins of those messages to arrest the ring leaders of that campaign. We also urge you to report to law enforcement authorities any attempts to fuel violent protests in their communities. 

“We commend the ordinary people of our province for refusing to emulate in our province, the violent conduct of looting businesses and destroying public and private infrastructure that we see in our sister provinces of Gauteng and KZN. We are inspired by the campaigns that are led by ordinary people on social media to discourage each other from participating in acts of criminality, and in our communities to protect their towns from any potential attacks by anarchists.

“We applaud the taxi industry for taking a stand against anarchists as any form of violent protests in towns will affect their business. We urge civic organisations, business sector, labour organisations, religious sector, traditional leaders, youth formations and leaders of political parties to also take a stand and be on the ground to quell any attempts of causing anarchy in all the regions of our province.

“We are in the phase of building the Eastern Cape we want, not of destroying the Eastern Cape we have. Let us all protect the future our children.”

Mabuyane also said that he had requested that national government put soldiers based in our province on high alert for deployment to support police “if the need arises”.

The Premier will be meeting with all organised Taxi formation this morning and has also directed all Mayors to meet local taxi associations as well in an attempt to quell the violence and destruction of both public and private property.   

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