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‘We've had enough'
| Date: |
15 June 2008 07:00 |
| Producer: |
Susan Purèn
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| Presenter: |
Bongani Bingwa
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| Show: | Carte Blanche |
Thirty-two years ago, Soweto erupted in flames. On the 16th of June 1976, the children of the township staged a peaceful march along the dusty streets. They were calling for change to a school system that forced them to be taught in Afrikaans. The rally turned into a bloody event when the police opened fire. By the end of the day 23 people were dead and more than 1 000 wounded. Today the cry for freedom still echoes. Now the issue is crime.
Man: "Enough is enough!"
Crowd: "Enough is enough!"
This week around five thousand people gathered at the union buildings to make their voices heard. It may have been a far cry from the million organisers had hoped to muster, but the message was clear. Actor and comedian Desmond Dube, who organised the march, did not mince his words.
Desmond Dube (Million Man March organiser): "This is our country. We love this country. This is our beautiful country. I would never live anywhere else. But we need to take responsibility, we need to take charge. We need to remove those who don't recognise the cries of the people."
South Africans are fed up with crime, and growing increasingly angry with government. Most of the messages were aimed at the president, and he was nowhere to be seen. President Thabo Mbeki wasn't the only absent leader; neither safety and security minister Charles Nqakula, nor Tim Williams, the acting commissioner of police, made an appearance. The minister was apparently dealing with pressing issues in other parts of Africa, even though crime is said to have become the single biggest threat to our national security.
Helen Zille (Leader: DA): "I want to be here because crime is the number one issue facing everyone in South Africa, and we have to beat it together."
Bantu Holomisa (Leader: UDM): "We have not been getting leadership in this country when it comes to fighting crime as far as the government is concerned. All they have always been worried about are statistics and denying."
Some of the buses that brought protesters from across the country bore the names of their murdered loved ones: among them 12-year-old Emily Williams who was shot dead by house robbers.
Toni Williams (Mother of Emily Williams): "She was beautiful, she was clever, talented, creative, and I actually think more admired and respected than she knew. And it all just seems to have ended so suddenly. That's what's really hard."
Bongani Bingwa (Carte Blanche presenter): "It was 7:00 in the morning on the 12th February this year and Toni Williams was on lift duty. It was a normal school day and the first child she had to pick up in leafy Fairlands was just across the road."
When no one answered the bell, Toni, realised something was wrong. She phoned Armed Response who reacted within minutes.
Toni: "And then they over-shot the car. And the next thing, they just ran out the house and opened fire, and that window just shattered, and it was just instant."
She rushed her dying daughter to hospital though Johannesburg's peak-hour traffic. Also in the car was Emily's sister, Sophie.
Toni: "It was the worst, worst journey of our lives. And I just remember keeping my hand on the horn and I had the hazard lights on, and everyone was screaming and I don't even remember phoning, or€¦ whatever. And Sophie was in the back there saying, No mom, you've got to pray, you've got to pray, you've got to pray. Emily's gonna be fine!' And how we got up Bayers Naudè, I don't know. The angels must have carried that car, because we just got there, and then we turned into CR Swart and that's where the paramedic vehicle said, Pull in here'."
Roger Williams (Father of Emily Williams): "I think that phone call from Toni was the most horrific thing - the screaming, and I couldn't really understand what was going on to start with but I just picked€¦ Well I didn't pick anything up, I just ran out the building, got to my car with the phone and just drove as fast as I could to get here, and phoned along the way. And I phoned the police. And eventually you know - it was about 7:30 - I actually spoke to one of the paramedics who answered Toni's phone and she said, No, your daughter's dead'. Ja. And then I got to the garage where they were and I wanted to see Emily and I had to bully my way through actually to see Emily, and then I had some quiet time with her. And then, you know, then I cried with her in my arms. But then I think after that you go into kind of€¦I don't know€¦stunned sort of mode€¦ you just€¦"
Toni: "It's like it's surreal!"
Roger: "Ja, you think, It's not happening, it can't be happening.'"
School children from the surrounding area marched after Emily's death. Other schools spontaneously joined in, and so did members of the public. But nothing would ever bring Emily back to her grieving family.
Toni: "And it was just in a split second with no warning. It's just the thing€¦ it's like, you're not given a second chance: it's the finality of it."
Finality also hit home for at least 27 other people who were murdered in South Africa on the same day as Emily: the 12th of February. One of them was nine-year-old Manunu Mhlongo, last seen when she and her cousin, Nkanyiso, went to buy sweets at a shop near their home, in Nchunga. Only Nkanyiso returned, many hours later.
Samkelisiwe Mhlongo (Mother of Manunu Mhlongo): "We asked him where Manunu was. He said, She's dead: they killed her and put her under a bed.'"
Bongani: "After little Manunu went missing, her family and the whole community got involved in searching for her. Everyone was on the lookout. And then, after two days, the call came. Her body had been found."
Samkelisiwe: "Her right eye was not there€¦ and her tongue and private parts. Her back had a hole in it. I don't know. Her heart was also missing."
In 2006 and 2007, 1 152 children were murdered in South Africa: 12 percent more than in previous years.
Bongani: "The police say they are doing the very best they can, but often there are cases where nothing seems to be happening. Dockets disappear, the investigations are weak, no arrests are made and victims receive little or no feedback about their cases."
Bongani: "What do the police say?"
Samkelisiwe: "They haven't said anything."
Bongani: "Do you suspect anybody?"
Samkelisiwe: "There was a family that was suspected, but I don't know anything about it because the matter was left to the police."
Lennit Max (Advocate): "We don't have the skilled and experienced people within government anymore to make sure that perpetrators are being brought to book."
Advocate Lennit Max is the former police commissioner of the Western Cape.
Lennit: "We need detectives - experienced detectives - to investigate cases properly, but I'm afraid that we don't have that capacity anymore within the South African police force as it is. Affirmative action policies and other related issues have caused people to leave the South African Police Service. So there has been a huge brain drain."
The inadequacies have left the public irate, and even bitter, with emotions running high. Recently things almost got out of hand when five youths appeared in court in connection with a brutal attack on a father and daughter in KwaZulu-Natal. In March Tim Foord and his 21-year-old daughter, Jessica, were enjoying a day in the country, but they weren't the only people strolling around.
Jessica Foord: "Well we'd greeted the guys on the way past and we had loaded the dogs out the car again. We were playing with the dogs, throwing sticks€¦ the dogs were swimming, I was videoing them on my cellphone."
Bongani: "The next moment, that same group of youths that greeted earlier rushed upon them. In this most tranquil of settings, the unthinkable was about to happen."
Jessica: "And then I just remember turning around and seeing a gun barrel in my face."
Tim Foord: "They had a knife at my throat and they were saying No kill, no kill', Money, money!' and then they walked us up to where we are now, where the bakkie was parked, and they asked me how to start the car, and how to drive it, and where reverse is, and this sort of thing."
Bongani: "So they didn't even know how to drive?"
Tim: "No, they didn't even know how to drive. And then they pointed to the bush and they said, Go, go, go'. So I thought, Well this if fine, because now they're telling us to go to the bush, they're going to take the bakkie, and then it'll be fine. And then they pointed down to the donga and they said, No, you go down there!', and I thought, No, this is it... this is where it gets serious now.' You know?"
Jessica: "And then they tied my dad to the tree. They tied his hands to his legs to the tree. And then they took me to one side."
Tim: "I just saw one chap lowering his pants and I just turned away and I said, This just isn't happening.'"
Jessica: "And then they proceeded to rape me. There were five of them altogether, but only four of them raped me."
Once the criminals had gone, Tim and Jessica managed to free themselves and alerted the police, but the police investigation seemed half-hearted.
Bongani: "It took over four hours for police to arrive here and when they did, instead of cordoning off the area, instead of looking for clues or evidence, officers from the two police stations in the area began to argue about whose jurisdiction this dam falls under.
Tim: "I got the impression he didn't want to get his shoes dirty, to go down to the river at the bottom of the donga to see where the scene actually happened."
Lennit: "We are currently facing a crisis. And a crisis is a moment of truth. And you can either make it a moment of magic, or you can make it a moment of misery. And I believe at this point in time that if government and the community don't stand together to tackle this evil, then our future will be destroyed."
The family eventually hired private investigators who arrested the rapists, while the community collected money for Jessica's medical expenses. Octo Mphanza and Tash Lightening raised R10 000, even though they had never met Jessica.
Octo Mphanza: "What really motivated me is that as a young black South African, I felt that people look at me personally, and I took it personally because we're not all like that, you know?"
Bongani: "How do you feel about crime in South Africa?"
Tash Lightening: "I think it's out of control. I think it's just getting really really bad every day."
Octo: "Ah we're sick of it man, it's terrible. And I think no one's doing anything about it."
Jessica decided keeping quiet about her ordeal would benefit no one.
Jessica: "I said to a lot of people who unfortunately will have to go through this, or have been through it, They don't take you, they take your body. It's just your body. They don't take your mind, they don't take your personality, they don't take you.'"
Former assistant commissioner Dr Johan Burger retired from the police in 2004. He says crime is a manifestation of conditions that exist in society.
Dr Johan Burger (Institute for Security Studies): "Now the criminal justice system and the police operate in the area where crime happens - where it manifests. But the problem is that in the area where it is caused, where it originates, such as in the socio-economic conditions, very little is done. The biggest weakness in the way that we address crime in this country is that almost all the focus is on the manifestation side of crime and very little on the causation side of crime."
Bongani: "Are you saying that crime is basically here to stay?"
Dr Burger: "I think so. If I look at the situation and the fact that these conditions are not addressed, then I can say with a lot of confidence that crime is here to stay, unfortunately."
Not a day goes by without depressing newspaper head-lines of yet another brutal crime. And so often it is young people's lives that are cut short by violence. Actor Brett Goldin was shot, execution style. Marissa Naidoo was kidnapped and then killed. Lauren de Groen was shot in an armed robbery and Themashen Arungusamy was executed in a high-jacking. Their parents meet from time to time to share their grief.
Bongani: "I've just been sitting and having tea with some members of what is known as the Worst club in the world'. They are mothers and fathers who have one thing in common: they have all lost a child due to violent crime."
Vasie Ponen's 19-year-old son, Themashen Arungusamy, and his friend Romeo Padiachy never returned from a night out.
Vasie Ponen (Mother of Themashen Ponen): "At about 1:45 in the morning, the police were there, at my place, to tell us that they had found our car. But I asked the police, But where are the two boys? Because the two boys went in the car!' And they said, No there isn't anybody in the car' and that they had found the car abandoned."
It was clear that the car had been hijacked, but police only launched a search for the boys 24 hours after.
Vasie: "They found Romeo - Romeo's body - he was shot and he was stabbed."
The alleged hijackers were arrested the next day, but there was no sign of Tamashen.
Bongani: "Themashen's body was found in the open veld by school children. It was eight days after his disappearance. His watch was still in his takkies, and his ID book in his pocket."
Vasie: "The worst part is that we didn't get to see him for the last time, because it was a sealed coffin. And I didn't come to closure."
Vasie is enraged because the case has been in and out of court for the past two years.
Vasie: "Criminals have a lot of rights in this country. They get to see their families, they get drugs smuggled in, they get their favourite food, and whatever. Can our kids ask us for those things? They can't. They're gone."
Lauren de Groen wanted to follow a singing career, but her dreams were cut short when she was killed in an armed robbery at a jewellery shop where she worked.
Gaby de Groen (Mother of Lauren de Groen): "She screamed, and they got a fright and they actually shot her, in the neck. And that's how she died. She was brain-dead and at the hospital she died."
The case was never solved.
Gaby: "They said she's 2 000 on the list. So a detective came, and took a couple of details, and that was it!"
Gaby suffered a double blow when her son died of an alleged drug over-dose.
Gaby: "I'm not even sure whether he was poisoned, or... nobody knew€¦ I still haven't got the autopsy."
Three years ago this case shocked the country. Ten-year-old Marissa's body was found in a suitcase in a block of flats on the East Rand. The case has yet to go to court. Lingse Naidoo still breaks down when he talks about his daughter.
Lingse Naidoo (Father of Marissa Naidoo): "And then I always told her that she would be the beauty queen of South Africa, and this is the outcome of her. She has been murdered. There is no justice that has been done up to this stage."
Actor Brett Goldin and his friend Richard Bloom, were executed by gangsters in Cape Town in 2006. His mother, Denise, reaches out to other parents whose children are also victims of crime.
Denise Goldin (Mother of Brett Goldin): "I had many demons to face after he was murdered, and I was advised to face them head on, which is what I did. I found great spiritual fulfilment in going out to speak to other moms who've lost their children. And that's how Worst club in the world' came about. And there was actually a sense of relief to know there were people there who truly did know what you were feeling and thinking."
Denise is involved with the Little Rock Foundation. It was established to look after the interests of this 9-year-old girl in the Boland. She was raped, sodomised, and thrown into a fire by a so-called family friend' in the veld near the town where she still lives today.
Mother of Little Rock': "Her first words were: Mommy, mommy, uncle Abie hurt me and set me alight. He threw me in the fire.' Those were her words. There was no red in her eyes, only white. Her eyes were white. And that shocked me the most of everything that shocked me. And her face - half the side of her face was burned, you could see. She had a hell of a fight to get out of that fire."
She is called Little Rock' because of her strength but still has a long way to go to full recovery. Security expert Johan Burger says government needs a proper crime strategy.
Dr Burger: "Government themselves, in their own white papers, have acknowledged the fact that crime and the causes of crime, not just crime - crime and it's causes - are currently the biggest threat to our national security. Now if you have something that you identify as a threat to your national security, you need to have a national strategy in place. Secondly, to enable them to get that body of knowledge together, they will have to appoint a number of experts in all of these disciplines to properly analyse the situation and come up with proposals on how this should be addressed. Even more importantly than the strategy, you need to have an authoritative body under the direction of the president himself, or the deputy president, or at least a special minister, let's call it a prime minister, which should be legislated for, that will have the authority to direct other ministers and other governments to perform their responsibilities in terms of this integrated strategy. So this - all of this - can be done, and it should be done urgently, if we are serious about dealing with our crime."
We decided to find out just how serious government is in dealing with crime. But acting national police commissioner Tim Williams declined our request for an interview. From safety and security minister Charles Nqakula, we got this response:
Journalist: "Are we getting our interview with the minister?"
Hangwani Mulaudzi (Spokesperson: Charles Nqakula): "No€¦ no."
Journalist: "Why?"
Hangwani: "He€¦ he has arrangements... for the whole week."
And this was the response from the presidential spokesperson.
Mukoni Ratshitanga (Spokesperson: Thabo Mbeki): "We will not be able to grant the interview."
Journalist: "Can I get a reason from you?"
Mukoni: "It's simply because we don't have the time for this."
IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER:While every attempt has been made to ensure this transcript or summary is accurate, Carte Blanche or its agents cannot be held liable for any claims arising out of inaccuracies caused by human error or electronic fault. This transcript was typed from a transcription recording unit and not from an original script, so due to the possibility of mishearing and the difficulty, in some cases, of identifying individual speakers, errors cannot be ruled out.
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