"Satawu leaders under attack"

The lives of leaders of the SA Transport Workers Union was under threat, the union said on Thursday.

 

 

"There ... is a hitlist that includes the names of four Satawu provincial secretaries, the general secretary [Zenzo Mahlangu], deputy general secretary and our current president," said spokesman Vincent Masoga.

 

Police had been notified about the hitlist, he said.

 

Masoga said there had been "systematic" and violent attacks on the union's leadership since last year.

 

"In the past three weeks three of our most active and hard-working shosptewards based at Prasa have been attacked in their homes with petrol bombs thrown into their houses."

 

Masoga said general secretary Zenzo Mahlangu's house was attacked by a gang of "heavily armed thugs" who mistakenly went to a neighbour's house first and there demanded to see a "Satawu man."

 

"Fortunately, Mahlangu was not home when they finally got to his house. Police have established that the gangs had been acting on instruction with an intention to harm and possibly assassinate him [Mahlangu]."

 

Most workers in the rail sector faced intimidation and train services were generally "destabilised" by some of the perpetrators, he said.

 

- Sapa