"Jacinta Will Be Held Responsible" — Acting Police Minister Cachalia Vows Charges Over Xenophobic Deaths

Makumbirofa Farms · Advocacy & Human Rights29 June 2026 · Johannesburg, South Africa

Breaking Report — Xenophobic Violence Accountability

South Africa’s Acting Police Minister Firoz Cachalia has declared that Jacinta Ngobese Zuma will be held criminally accountable for the deaths and violence she incited — a watershed moment for justice and national dignity.

By Collen Makumbirofa  |  Makumbirofa Farms  |  www.makumbirofafarms.co.za

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Acting Police Minister Firoz Cachalia addresses the media. He has vowed law enforcement will not stand idle while lives are placed at risk. — Kaya News / eNCA

South Africa is at a crossroads. For too long, those who openly incite violence against foreign nationals have walked free — emboldened by a culture of impunity that has made blood flow in our streets while the world watches. Now, Acting Police Minister Firoz Cachalia has drawn a line in the sand, and it is a line written in the language of justice.

Cachalia has made an unambiguous declaration: Jacinta Ngobese Zuma will be charged for her role in inciting the xenophobic violence that has already claimed the lives of dozens of foreign nationals. These are not political abstractions. These are real people — Malawians, Mozambicans, Zimbabweans, Pakistanis, Somalians — who came to South Africa seeking safety and a better life, and were instead met with hatred orchestrated by those who should know better.

“Jacinta will be held responsible for the consequences of her actions, and the police will not stand idle while lives are placed at risk.”— Acting Police Minister Firoz Cachalia

Those words carry the full weight of a state finally stirring to life. The minister did not mince words. He added that “acts of violence, intimidation, and criminality will not be entertained.” This is not the language of compromise. This is the language of a government choosing, at last, to stand on the right side of history.

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A Nation’s Dignity Hangs in the Balance

For South Africa to reclaim its moral standing — regionally and internationally — it must demonstrate that those who cause murders are not above the law. Right now, the world is watching a country where perpetrators of crimes against humanity walk the streets freely, where mob violence is publicly orchestrated and broadcast, and where the rule of law has been treated as optional. That cannot continue.

If this government can hold accountable those who directly caused violence and death, it will do more than punish wrongdoers. It will restore South Africa’s dignity. It will send a message to every nation on this continent — and beyond — that South Africa is not a failed state. That it is a republic governed by law, not by the loudest mob.

The Pattern of Impunity Must End

Perpetrators of crime in South Africa are emboldened precisely because consequences have been absent. Robbing, looting, killing, and publicly inciting violence — these acts are committed by people who believe, with good reason drawn from past experience, that nothing will happen to them. That is not a law enforcement failure alone. It is a failure of political will. Every time a crime organiser goes uncharged, every time a violence inciter faces no consequence, the signal sent is devastating: crime pays, and hatred is permitted.

The Acting Minister’s commitment must be matched with action. Charges must be filed. Prosecutions must follow. Convictions must be secured. Anything less is another broken promise to the dead.

South Africa must rally behind Minister Cachalia. Not because any one minister is a messiah, but because what he is saying is correct — and it is rare. People who committed crimes against humanity must be punished harshly. All human life is sacred. There is no hierarchy of humanity that makes a foreign national’s life worth less than anyone else’s. God did not create second-class people.

Every life lost to xenophobic violence is a name, a family, a story ended by hatred. Justice demands that those who lit that fire be made to answer for every flame.— Collen Makumbirofa, Makumbirofa Farms

Punishment Must Be Severe — And Deterrence Must Be Real

South Africa must punish those who have made its streets rivers of innocent blood. The current penalties have clearly not deterred the savagery we are witnessing. When a person can publicly call for the killing of foreigners and face no legal consequence, the criminal class learns that the state is toothless. When mobs can loot and burn and murder and return home to sleep soundly, the social contract has collapsed.

The call for harsher sentencing — including serious national debate about the death penalty — is not a call for vengeance. It is a call for deterrence. It is a recognition that if South Africa is to have peace and prosperity, evil-doers must be restrained by the force of law. A nation that cannot protect the vulnerable has forfeited its claim to civilisation.

What Justice Looks Like

Justice for xenophobic violence means: Jacinta Ngobese Zuma charged, prosecuted, and convicted. It means every march organiser who coordinated violence answers in court. It means every killer who acted on their instructions faces the full weight of the law. It means South Africa becomes a country where foreign nationals — human beings with rights — can live without fear. That is not too much to ask. That is the minimum a civilised state owes every person within its borders.

“Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”

— Psalm 82:4

South Africa has a chance to choose justice over impunity, to choose dignity over mob rule, and to choose its future over its darkest impulses. The Acting Minister has spoken. Now the courts, the prosecutors, and the full machinery of the state must answer that call. The eyes of the nation — and of every displaced foreign national sheltering in fear tonight — are watching.

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Source reference: “Jacinta Will Face Justice” — Acting Minister Firoz Cachalia has made it clear that Jacinta will be held fully accountable for the deaths and violence she incited, as law enforcement agencies intensify their crackdown on those responsible for orchestrating unrest. — Opera News Official  |  #FirozCachalia