Kameraad Mhambi

This week I got a call from my older sister. My little brother’s girlfriend had been in an accident she said.

Somebody drove into the back of her car at a stop street. She’s fine except for slight whiplash I was told but…

When the police arrived at the scene she and the driver of the other car – who looked very inebriated – were arrested for drunk and disorderly driving. Odd.

But there’s more. She was taken to the police station and put in a cell with 5 men, where she spent the night. (I have since established that this is against regulations).

My little brother rushed to the station, but was told she could not be released.

The police officer in charge was trying to elicit a bribe for her release.

My little brothers girlfriend was quite shaken by the event. My older sister was very upset.

I can understand why. This weekend it transpired that South African police gang raped a woman. This has not been proven of course, but I have every reason to believe that the allegations is true. An excerpt from a Beeld report:

The couple’s nightmare apparently began shortly after midnight. Olivier said he and his wife, 29, were at a braai at his parents’ house in Birch Acres on Saturday night, after which they went to a nearby pub for a drink.

Olivier said that on his way home, he drove into a driveway and out again as he made a U-turn. A marked police van suddenly stopped in front of the couple’s Toyota Run-X.

Two men in police uniform climbed out of the van and moved to the driver’s side of their car before yanking the door open, he said. They then allegedly threw him into the back of the van without explanation.

“One of the policemen approached me and asked what I was prepared to give them in exchange for my husband’s release,” said Martie.

She gave him the R400 she had on her.

However, the man asked: “Do you really love your husband? Is there nothing more you can do?” He then allegedly climbed into the driver’s seat of the Toyota and drove toward the Kempton Park police station. The police van followed, she said.

Now its tempting to think that the South African police has sunk to a new level of corruption and abuse of power. Perhaps they have, but it was not such a big fall. Similar allegations were made in respect to the treatment of Zimbabweans refugees last year. And South African prostitutes have also claimed police abused them.

During a raid on the Methodist church in Central Johannesburg over 300 Zimbabweans were arrested:

“A number of documented persons were arrested, along with persons who had either received an appointment to lodge their asylum claims at the Department of Home Affairs, or were in the process of lodging these claims,” he said. “Home Affairs failed to issue any documentation to these persons indicating their immigration status in the country.”

The Johannesburg Refugee Reception Office remains closed, despite several High Court orders mandating its reopening, forcing all asylum seekers to queue for weeks at the nearest office, which is about 40km away in South Africa’s capital, Pretoria.

Further reports from the Legal Resources Center states:

Those arrested were kicked awake, zapped with tazers, sprayed with pepper spray, and verbally abused. The police confiscated all possessions before forcing people into vans and transporting them to the Johannesburg Central Police Station, where they were detained for four days in cramped, dirty conditions with little food.

Police had given assurances that the refugees to court in the prescribed 48 hours but failed to:

…police were briefly denied lawyers access to the accused. Despite police assurances that people who had been arrested would begin appearing in the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court by Thursday, the LRC said only 50 dockets, all for immigration-related offences, had been delivered to the court by midday Friday.

These abuses of the legal processes the South African police went unlamented by middle-class South Africans.

“First they came …” is a popular poem attributed to Pastor Martin Niemöller about the inactivity of German intellectuals following the Nazi rise to power and the purging of their chosen targets, group after group.

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me.

In South Africa one could change this for -

First they came for the Somalis, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Somali;
Then they came for the Zimbabweans, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Zimbabwean;
Then they came for the farmers, and I did not speak out—because I was not a farmer;
Then they came for the lesbians, and I did not speak out—because I was not a lesbian;
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me.

I’m not suggesting the South African police is systematically targeting certain groups. These abuses don’t appear to be part of a bigger plan – although I think they have deep seated roots.

But I am very worried about these new developments none the less – and so should all law abiding citizens be. This will further erode trust in a very weak state.

Former minister Kader Asmal rued the tainted political atmosphere in the country this week.

Asmal told the press club last week that (deputy police minister) Mbalula’s idea of “militarising” the police was “craziness” and smacked of “low-level political decision-making”.

He said he hoped he would not be alive to see Mbalula succeed in becoming the party’s next secretary general, a position the former ANC Youth League president was reportedly lobbying for.

I can now see how it would not be impossible for the country to decend in anarchy. Previously I thought it very unlikely. South Africa is heading down a very dangerous path and we are yet to see signs of the new Zuma government making a significant difference.

Related deployments:

1. How violent is the South African police?
2. Hell hath no fury like an African leader accused of a lack of courage
3. South African society & institutions are holding up so far
4. UK Guardian on South African ‘corrective rape’
5. Making sense of South African corruption