Innocent citizens continue to be massacred.

2014 began on a sour note. Many citizens across the length and breadth of South Africa continue to be killed at will by trigger happy police officers. This has a direct bearing on the present administration that took over from former President Thabo Mbeki. First it was the killings of the hawkers in Johannesburg, and then followed by those who democratically marched against poor service delivery at Mothutlung in Brits, North West Province.

This directly relates to what President Zuma said in Soweto in 2009 during an election campaign when he declared that police will change from being "a service" to "a force". He actually was going against the grain of the constitution and undoing what former President Mbeki did.

Residents at Relela, under Tzaneen Local Municipality, went into the streets to exercise their democratic rights. Police officers, who are trigger happy, under illegal command, shot and killed those involved in the march. Politicians at all levels of leadership must take full responsibility on what happened. One was shot to death on Saturday, 25 Jan 2014, and two others on Tuesday, 28 January 2014. The constitution provides for basic rights to life and the state machinery is violating the same rights is supposed to protect.

We are back to the bad old days of apartheid in which security forces killed people at will. Politicians, including the state President, are mum as if nothing has happened. We are calling on the residents to use the power of the cross (X) to remove this administration to restore our constitutional democracy that is busy being eroded.

Statement issued by Cde Patrick Sikhutshi, Limpopo Provincial Chairperson and Leader of the Opposition, Limpopo Provincial Legislature, January 29 2014

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