VIDEO: Zama Zamas tell Bheki Cele to bring soldiers, police are too weak for them

Information reaching Kossyderrickent has it that Zama Zamas tell Bheki Cele to bring soldiers, police are too weak for them.

Gun-wielding Zama-Zamas (illegal miners) have trended on social media after they told Minister of Police Bheki Cele to assign soldiers instead of the police which they deem weak.

Windows are regularly broken and cars damaged by flying bullets as rival gangs attempt to assert control over the Zamamphilo mining settlement, a collection of hundreds of shacks where most of the occupants appear to be foreigners and where the primary activities are illegal mining and illegal gold processing. The settlement is a few meters from Main Reef Road and sits between Riverlea and Industria. It lies atop the buried Transnet fuel pipeline and a major high-pressure water main. This is another major source of concern. If illegal mining activities rupture either pipeline, large numbers of people could be killed or injured.

There have been many gunbattles in and around Zamimphilo and Riverlea for months. Police are usually absent from these battles. Whether they are involved or not, it seems they do not issue public statements about it. The same is true about police actions, if any, against illegal miners countrywide. The failure of the police to inform the public about what is happening and what they are doing about it is unacceptable in a democracy.

This after the Minister of Police, General Bheki Cele assured the community of Riverlea, tormented by Zama-Zama gangs, that police are mobilising all its resources and specialised units to restore law and order in the community.

However, Operation Dudula, which called on the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) to intervene in the scourge against Zama Zamas, populated the video.

“In a video that they posted last night, defiant zama zamas say people must tell Bheki Cele that they want soldiers, not the police as the police are too weak for them.”

Residents reported gangs of men armed with automatic weapons moving through suburban areas and heavy gunfire. They say up to 20 people were shot. One resident says they treated a seriously wounded man and woman on the pavement outside their house while waiting for an ambulance to arrive. Other residents say a man was shot and wounded and taken away by police. Videos being circulated show armed men moving through the suburb and to the sound of continuous automatic gunfire. Other local reports say one gang left the area carrying what appeared to be two bodies wrapped in blankets.

Last week a Riverlea resident was killed in crossfire. It is unclear whether it was crossfire between rival mining gangs or whether it involved the police.

VIDEO HERE