POLICE Minister Bheki Cele has classified the July unrest attacks as targeted and focused.
"There are areas that are more protected than others like your airports. The first batch of soldiers that came was at King Shaka International Airport.
“By then there was no N3, everybody knows that that road is the busiest not only for you and me to travel but for the economics of the country, that was blocked," he said.
Cele was giving testimony at the SA Human Rights Commission hearings into the violence that gripped parts of KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng last year.
He said there was a big distraction planned on the N3 much earlier and that the "N2 was becoming a target which is not usually a targeted road".
The minister also said even though the burning and looting was an immediate distraction, they had a lasting impact.
"I remember I went to get bread in Durban north. I have never seen such a long queue in my life, even the Sassa queue is not that long," he said.
He added: "Those were the people coming to get food coming from the areas that were burnt. The element was to get hungry, get them angry and then agitate them when they're angry."
He clarified that the appetite of completely undermining the elected structure was evident in the manner in which the unrest was co-ordinated.
From the intelligence report, former state security minister Ayanda Dlodlo asked the SSA’s top brass to consider an overview into what could possibly transpire following the ruling of the Constitutional Court on former president Jacob Zuma.
The report also stated that on two occasions, the SSA issued a line of reports warning about the potential unrest.
Meanwhile, advocate Karabo van Heerden had quizzed Cele on whether police officers had appropriate training to handle technology that could track social media activity.
Cele maintained that he couldn't guarantee that the police officers would have been properly trained to utilise the equipment.
"Usually the producers and sellers train our people in that particular usage," he said.
kamgelo.moichela@inl.co.za
Political Bureau