COPE supports call for Commision of Inquiry into the Stilfontein tragedy

 NORTH WEST - The Congress of the People (COPE) has decided to rally behind the growing calls for a commission of inquiry into the Stilfontein tragedy, which has led to injuries and loss of life. 

 

"The gruesome and horrific pictures and information surfacing now show a government hellbent on using starvation, dehumanisation, and other forms of violence, which have led to the slow and painful death of desperate people trying to eke out a living in the deepest pits of the earth. 

 

The current government miserably fails to grow an inclusive economy that creates decent jobs. It has failed to restructure the inherited structural colonial economy of mineral extraction and exploitation by using cheap local labour and those sourced from neighbouring countries. The GNU shamelessly perpetuates neocolonialism at "the expense of the majority of people," party spokesperson Pakes Dikgetsi blasted the government.

 

 He added, "The SAPS motto of 'We Serve and Protect' is in tatters. The government’s 'Operation Vala Umgodi' has been exposed as a weapon to protect the interests of big capital, to whom they owe gratitude for installing them into power at the May 2024 polls.

 

"This amounts to nothing less than state-sponsored mass murder. The irresponsible by the Minister, 'We shall smoke them out,' Ntshavheni, the Minister of Police, Senzo Mchunu, and the Minister of DMR, Gwede Mantashe, should have tendered their resignations. Should their moral conscience not compel them to resign voluntarily, COPE will make a demand to the President to immediately sack them if he still has a conscience."

 

Dikgetsi also argued that the Right to Life and other Human Rights in the Constitution must never be sacrificed. "No human being should be subjected to life-threatening inhumane conditions. Since its inception, COPE has steadfastly defended the Constitution," he concluded.