Vuwani protest driven by fear of not being heard, says study
Residents of the Limpopo town were not asked to move to Malamulele, 'they were told to go'
A combination of fearing not being heard by the government and concerns about the economic viability of municipal demarcation fuelled the protests that resulted in 20 schools being razed to the ground in the Limpopo village of Vuwani, a new study by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) shows. There was no evidence that the proposed new municipality that would incorporate Vuwani and Malamulele would be financially viable, HSRC researcher Professor Modimowabarwa Kanyane said at the release of the results of the study on Tuesday. “Prior to May 2016, Vuwani was hardly synonymous with destruction of infrastructure and protests. It was a village unknown,” he said. “The reason people have been burning and fighting is because they were fighting for their rights. They weren’t asked to move to Malamulele, they were told to go.” In 2017, Vuwani residents said they wanted the village to be reincorporated into Makhado. Economic activity in Vuwani, which has a population of about 2,800, is ...
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