'The state lost control over Cape Flats'

THE state has lost control over the Cape Flats, the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party claimed on Wednesday. 

In a scathing attack on President Cyril Ramaphosa and the Government of National Unity (GNU), former president Jacob Zuma’s party accused them of abandoning the Cape Flats region. 

In a statement released, the party condemned the escalating killings, alleging the area has been “turned into a slaughterhouse while Ramaphosa and the so-called GNU abandon the people”.

Party spokesperson Nhlamulo Ndlela painted a grim picture of the crisis, saying: “From Mitchell’s Plain to Manenberg, from Lavender Hill to Delft and Khayelitsha, blood soaks the streets daily. Men, women, children, even babies are gunned down in cold blood, in broad daylight, in classrooms, in courtrooms, even outside police stations.” 

He charged that the Cape Flats has been forsaken to violence, with the government watching “from the safety of their ivory towers in Pretoria”.

Ndlela decried the normalisation of mass killings, calling it “the most damning indictment of President Ramaphosa and his administration”, adding that the frequency of deaths has rendered them nearly routine and no longer newsworthy. 

The party criticised the state’s response as passive and indifferent, describing how officials “shrink from responsibility” while gangs continue their reign of terror. 

“The police hide behind the lazy excuse that killings are ‘gang-related,’ but what is glaringly obvious is that innocent lives are being destroyed,” Ndlela said.

The party added: “The state has lost control over the Cape Flats. Drug cartels and warlords rule unchallenged. Parents are terrified to send their children to school.”