Brace for ‘total shutdown’ in Cape Town on Tuesday

The long weekend in Cape Town is set to end with long queues of traffic early on Tuesday as working class activists attempt a “total shutdown” of the city.

Proclaiming that nothing has changed for them since the fall of apartheid‚ the activists aim to close as many of the city’s key roads as possible.

Organiser Henriette Abrahams‚ from Bonteheuwel‚ said between 4.30am and 5am protesters would close roads leading to the N2‚ M5 and M3. The protests are due to end at 10am.

Abrahams insisted the protests would be peaceful. “We just need the government to hear us … all tiers of government‚” she said.

Two weeks ago‚ protesters who blockaded roads in the Cape Flats suburb of Bishop Lavis were greeted by riot police‚ and Abrahams said she expected the same to happen on Tuesday.

“But we are not looking for confrontation. We are looking simply to disrupt‚” she said. “We cannot have life continuing as normal while people are dying on a daily basis.”

A statement from a group called the Western Cape Total Shutdown Communities said working class people continued to live in abject poverty and faced unprecedented levels of unemployment and violence.

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