Appeals for calm, threats of violence, promises of strong action, jeers and complaints from the community, and angry challenges to police to step in characterised a mass meeting between residents and officials in Krugersdorp on the West Rand on Sunday.

The second leg of a ministerial crime combating imbizo continued on Sunday morning with delegates from the police ministry and SAPS management, led by national commissioner Gen Sehlahle Fannie  Masemola, meeting with residents of Kagiso on the West Rand.

“Why are you sitting here nicely in your smart uniforms? Why are you not busy underground getting dirty? We don’t have faith in you. Your guys come out here every day — they escort the zama zamas and take money from them and whatever. I am not afraid of you calling me an instigator, but this is what is happening,” said one angry resident when given a chance to address the crowd.

The aim of the event is for high level officials to address policing needs, in light of illegal mining activities in the area. Conflict and the arrests of over 100 suspected illegal miners in the area have been ongoing the whole week, sparked by the recent gang rape of eight women during a music video shoot in the area by suspected illegal miners.

The West Village Imbizo, as the weekend event was labelled on Twitter, saw Krugersdorp residents calling for military intervention in what they said was “a war on the community by illegal miners with weapons of war”, according to police ministry spokesperson Lirandzu Themba.

Speaking at the event on Saturday, police minister Bheki Cele said Crime Intelligence and the Hawks “must not rest until all the men who raped the eight young women last week in West Village are found”.

He said illicit mining task teams had been set up in the Free State, North West and Gauteng and would be extended to Mpumalanga and Limpopo with enhanced capacity that would see them “eventually evolve into specialised units in the next two years”.

He promised the intervention of the National Intervention Unit and Tactical Response Team, saying they will be deployed to the West Rand to deal with crime in the area until it is stabilised.

But residents on Sunday reacted with anger.

“You are not the first minister to come here. In 2017 Razmatazz — I mean Fikile Mbalula — he was here. But again now you are failing us. So we are going to go and remove those Basothos ourselves. So the best thing you can do is to shoot us,” said one man.

“We have been suffering the whole winter with no electricity. The zama zamas are allowed to live here among us, operating in houses and shacks. We need a mobile police station here,” said another.

“You don’t care about us. You live there in your nice house. And you come here today and we know that all these police cars and security vehicles, they are all here to protect you and keep you safe and comfortable. Nobody cares about us,” shouted another man.

“We have no respect for police here. Nobody would ever dream to be a police [officer]. You need to be sanitised, but instead you will just release your dogs,” shouted one well-dressed young woman.

One after another, residents took the microphone and continued with appeals, complaints, emotional tirades and threats of more civil unrest.

The event is continuing.

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