33 hours of transport strike

What has the nearly two-day long transport strike achieved except subjecting the people to unmitigated suffering? It has wreaked havoc both on the economy and people in general. The agitating transport workers not only kept buses and trucks off the road across the country, they had the gall to obstruct all motorised vehicles on the road also, including ambulances. So patients had to be taken to hospital using non-motorised vehicles. Students could not go to schools or attend exams, people could not commute to and from work, all because these so-called transport workers decided it was within their rights to bring the country to its knees because they didn't like a court verdict that sentenced a member of their fraternity responsible for killing two of our brightest film makers.

The shipping minister's comment that the transport workers were not on strike but observing work abstention is a cruel and cynical joke on the suffering commuters. The violence perpetrated by the transport workers was anything but abstention from work, and it is something that cannot be condoned under any circumstances. If it was their right to abstain from work why did they resist others through violence to attend theirs?

By calling an unjust strike against a court verdict, the transport workers have not only shown that they have little respect for the law but have also committed a penal offence. Those who attacked transports, damaged property and injured people in various parts of the country, deserve no leniency under the law, neither should those who instigated the strike. The rule of law must be upheld.