Hot on the heels of exhorting police officers to police their colleagues so that the image of the police is not negatively perceived, the Minister of Police, Nathi Mthethwa appeared before the Police Committee of the National Assembly. He flew in to explain police brutality and wrongdoing to the members of Parliament who waited patiently for him to arrive, fashionably late, at the Old Assembly Chamber.
Speaking in the soothing tones of a school nurse attending to a gaggle of children with scraped knees from a minor playground mishap, the Minister delivered himself of an underwhelming performance. For the best part of half an hour, he managed to say absolutely nothing new about the problems facing the police service and the symptoms of dysfunction in its ranks.
As the responsible Minister, it was to be expected that he would seek the moral high ground, roundly condemning the excesses emanating from Marikana to Daveyton; announcing stern remedial measures and generally reassuring the public that the "rotten apples" have not taken over in the police. Instead he mouthed platitudes and skilfully ducked any and all questions that might require him to actually grapple with the issues posed by the deplorable track record of the police in recent times.
The Minister did concede that there is a problem with the command and control of the police. This much has been clear to any objective observer for years. It is a good first step that the Minister has brought himself to the point at which he is able to make the necessary concession. Former police chiefs Jackie Selebi was convicted of corruption, Bheki Cele was dismissed for mismanagement of the grossest kind. Present incumbent Ria Phiyega is currently on the carpet at the Farlam Commission of Inquiry into the Marikana massacre. It requires no genius to divine that the command and control problems in the SAPS go right to the top and have done so for some considerable time.
The ANC policy of cadre deployment in all centres of power in society, including SAPS - which is indubitably a centre of power, did not even warrant a mention in the discussion in the Old Assembly Chamber. Yet, cadre deployment is at the root of the problems, not only in SAPS but elsewhere in the public administration where labour intensive activities (think Home Affairs) are the required functions of the day. The ANC has persisted, despite all its bad experiences, in appointing politicians and non-police personnel into the leadership (jargon: command and control) of SAPS. The Constitution expressly requires a high standard of professional ethics of our police, and of public servants in general. The promotion and maintenance of these qualities is a primary task of government. Appropriate leadership is a sine qua non for the attributes of effectiveness, efficiency and the economical use of resources which are at the core of any successful police operations. These criteria are also constitutionally prescribed in section 195(1) of the Constitution. In the top structures in the police there is widespread cadre deployment with the results that are there for all to see. The fact that cadre deployment in the public administration is illegal and unconstitutional is conveniently ignored. Even by the Parliamentary Committee. When the Public Service Commission is publicly challenged on this, the answer is "prove it". Phiyega refused to admit her cadre status on being appointed, it was unnecessary to ask the question of her last two predecessors.
Cadre deployment's illegality has actually been proved in court in the famous case of Molokoti v Amathole District Municipality in which the Eastern Cape High Court sent a deployed cadre packing and replaced him with the candidate for municipal manager who should have been appointed on merit. The case was not appealed and remains good law. The feral elements in the administration continue to ignore its applicability in human resource management in the public administration with the sort of results we now see in the police. This is lamentable. It is also unacceptable that the use of proper recruitment methods, involving psychological assessment to weed out the socio-paths and psycho-paths before training starts and a functional literacy test to weed out the illiterate, are not in place. These simple measures do not occur to the Minister. Instead he suggested that the public should have a say in who should and should not be accepted as a police recruit. This is both novel and unworkable. It is a tacit admission that the police human resource personnel are not up to the job of recruiting suitable staff themselves and an invitation to all manner of shenanigans on the part of the public. The notion should be dumped unceremoniously.
The reason for the need for functional literacy testing lies in the dysfunction in evidence in the basic education system. Far too many young people are given a matric certificate in circumstances and at a pass rate that leave their functional literacy open to doubt. The private sector has long been wise to this and does not regard a matric certificate as evidence of functional literacy. The SAPS say a driver's licence and a matric certificate are the basic requirements. Those who have these two pieces of paper and are unable to find work elsewhere tend to gravitate toward the police, who employ a relatively large cohort each year, whether they have any interest in police work or not. This the Minister, to his credit, did recognize at question time. Literate constables would at least be able to take down a statement.
The National Development Plan's (NDP's) recommendations to "demilitarise" the SAPS were fudged away by the Minister on the same day that his Chief of Police is quoted as saying "It is difficult for me to say I agree or I don't agree [with the NDP recommendations]. With certain reservations and discussions we will embrace the recommendations". Perhaps she has not been told that the ANC has adopted the NDP as policy; perhaps she thinks her management and control of the SAPS gives her the power to second guess official policy. It ought to be deeply worrying to the ANC that its own resolution adopting the NDP is not whole-heartedly embraced by both the Minister and the Chief of Police. The Constitution contemplates a police service that protects and secures the inhabitants of the country and their property. It does not envisage a police force that perpetuates the unfortunate power relations that existed between police and public under apartheid.
The Minister did make a concession that will have Bob Glenister and the Helen Suzman Foundation cheering in the aisles in their challenge to the constitutionality of the new legislation governing the Hawks unit of SAPS. At question time he solemnly said: "Negative perceptions envelope whatever is there and they matter in issues of crime". The issue of public perception of policing is one of the hottest topics in the pending litigation. The Constitutional Court is already in full agreement with the sentiment expressed by the Minister. The new legislation is however out of kilter with this notion. All good South Africans should thank the Minister for this important concession, however unconsciously it may have been made.
Paul Hoffman SC
27 March 2013.
http://www.ifaisa.org/Nathi_Mthethwa_drops_the_ball.html
Crime is Crime Corruption is Corruption Murder is Murder Rape is Rape Facts are Facts
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
Monday, June 3, 2013
Shadow Minister Of Police Budget Speech 30 May 2013
Police Budget Speech:
Professional police service needed to tackle crime
Dianne Kohler Barnard, Shadow Minister of Police
30 May 2013
Highlights:
•Police brutality has led to SAPS putting aside 32.8% of its massive budget for contingent liabilities - R20,5 billion. Most of this is to pay civilians for having been shot, raped, beaten, robbed, hijacked, raped in cells, illegally detained, run over, wrongfully arrested, or to the families of those tortured or murdered - all of these actions perpetrated by SAPS members;
•Minister Nathi Mthethwa is wasting taxpayers’ money and time by challenging the Western Cape’s Community Safety Act and the establishment of a Commission of Inquiry into the inefficiency of the police and breakdown in relations between the community and police in Khayelitsha;
•Forensic backlogs are on the increase again;
•A Public Service Commission report has revealed that 20% of detectives are without the most basic of training;
•The lack of understanding of the SAPS’ needs by the Minister sees us having 27 000 SAPS members with firearms, but no licences; stations with vehicles but 16 594 cops without driver’s licences and cops too overweight and unfit to catch a cold let alone a criminal.
There can surely be no greater sacrifice than to put one’s life on the line to protect one of our citizens. Each year in the South African Police Service (SAPS) annual report we read the names of those officers who did just that. They died doing a job they love, protecting us. They are real heroes.
And what made them real heroes is that they continued to do their job, possibly the toughest job in the world, in the face of actions by their colleagues that brought this nation great shame.
•The Marikana Massacre;
•Mido Macia dragged off behind a police vehicle then beaten to death;
•Andries Tatane shot to death in front of the nation’s eyes on television;
•Anene Booysen – a gang rape investigation gone bad;
•SAPS colleagues driving off dragging a court interpreter by the neck in North West;
•Guptagate;
•the remilitarisation of the SAPS along with the shoot-to-kill mantra leading some of their colleagues to treat protestors and even non-protestors as ‘The Enemy’.
This is, of course, just a small sample of why the SAPS had to put aside 32.8% of its massive budget for contingent liabilities - R20,5-billion. Most of this is to pay civilians for having been shot, raped, beaten, robbed, hijacked, raped in cells, illegally detained, run over, wrongfully arrested, or to the families of those tortured or murdered - all of these actions perpetrated by SAPS members.
There were almost 5000 complaints against SAPS members this past year. 720 were deaths by SAPS members, 88 cases of domestic violence by SAPS members, 2320 allegations of criminal offences by SAPS members. We’ve seen the filmed footage of a number of these cases, as has the rest of the world, and yet the President refused my request to establish a Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Police Brutality – saying it was unnecessary.
I beg to differ.
It is this brutality, coupled with quite possibly the most inferior training regime in the world, that led to the results revealed in the SA Institute for Race Relations investigation that 1.7 million crimes went unreported to the police in 2011, a massive vote of no confidence in our SAPS.
Particularly horrifying was the claim that three murders a day go unreported. Of the 3.3 million crimes experienced by us in 2011, only 48% of these were reported.
Indeed as a nation we should hang our heads in shame that only one in 10 victims of rape go to the SAPS. This means that if official statistics show 70 000 rapes reported during the annual crime stats release circus this August, that means at many as 700 000 women, children and men were raped.
The vast majority of our SAPS members know this, and yet they still go in to work each day willing to take a bullet for you or me.
The SAPS certainly has the budget to supply our stations with the equipment they need. Of course they should automatically have running water, toilets and electricity – yet there are stations without some, or even all three of those essentials. Instead the management finds what it considers to be other priorities – such as choosing to pay R4,039 billion to consultants.
Among those, for example, R11.7 million was spent on adult education courses for SAPS members, despite a matric being a prerequisite for joining the SAPS. This, 20 years after democracy, doesn’t say much for our education system, does it?
Then there is the fact that we send our officers off to capacitate other countries, if that is indeed what they do there. There are 15 members going to South Sudan with another 53 members today awaiting deployment to Darfur. This Darfur mission was started in 2005 at a cost of R12- million annually. This while we have stations without water and our Public Service Members striking yesterday, today and again next month for the increases they were promised back in 2011. Over R96 million of public funding is going instead to South Sudan and Darfur while SAPS pleads poverty.
Of course there are other reasons for the SAPS to plead poverty, all of them preventable. Usually they may be categorised as bungles, criminality or just utter stupidity. I would put in the latter category the fact that the multi-million rand AVL SAPS car-tracking system contract lapsed because the last disgraced National Police Commissioner Cele only signed the renewal three days after it expired.
The criminality relates to the seven multi-million rand contracts currently being investigated – where hundreds of millions seem to have simply disappeared.
The Special Investigating Unit is still investigating the two ridiculously expensive National Police Days, so we’ll have to wait and see which of the three categories they fall into.
Then there are the generic issues that see SAPS actions boosting crime, which they then have to fight.
In 2010 the Minister of Police stated publically that he really was going to be tough on SAPS members who ‘lost’ their firearms - automatic dismissal.
Thus far, SAPS firearms lost: 13 000. Dismissals: 0.
I did ask whether or not there were serial offenders, officers who “lost” a firearm annually in lieu of a 13th cheque, and they didn’t know.
While general looting of SAPS coffers continues, such as in Crime Intelligence, there has on the other hand been a massive dropping of crime fighting targets. This is the core mandate of our Police, but as the SAPS fails to reach a target so they drop it.
The 7 -14% dropped to 4 – 7 % which dropped to 2%, 1% or in some areas they’ve said they’ll be content to maintain the status quo. This for a R67.9 billion budget
Meanwhile they have quietly erased certain measurements that annually shamed them, such as how many officers don’t have bullet proof vests or firearms. The Rural Safety Strategy has evaporated as has the reporting on murders and attacks of farmers and farm workers. What they don’t like, they prevent us from seeing, rather like the Guptagate Report before the snap debate last week.
The same is happening to our reservists – turned away from SAPS doors since 2008 when a bizarre moratorium on the taking on of this free labour was instituted. This even though on January 15, 2010 this Minister answered my Parliamentary question saying the moratorium had been lifted. It hadn’t. It still hasn’t. So for five years the call to communities to assist in the fight against crime has seen them turned away at the door.
I have no doubt this is an intentional move.
It’s as intentional as the retaining within the SAPS of thousands of convicted criminals who committed a crime and got away with a fine. Rather like here in Parliament. Even if a SAPS member has to pay a R30 000 fine for, for example, grievous bodily harm, beating someone almost to death, they don’t miss a day at work, or have the firearm taken from their hip. One has to ask how seriously we can take SAPS that allows criminals to skulk in their ranks.
This has been one of the dangers of mass recruitment. In 2008 with anyone and everyone being scooped into the Service and the Reservists, we were left with masses of poorly trained, poorly managed officers, sometimes with criminal records, and of course no internal Anti-Corruption Unit.
This was thanks to the disgraced National Police Commissioner (NPC) before the last disgraced NPC, Jackie Selebi, sentenced on 2 July 2010 to 15 years imprisonment the impact on our SAPS was cataclysmic.
The shame he brought on SA was off the Richter scale, yet he never saw the inside of a cell. Since July last year he’s been back living in his mansion, still owing us R17-million.
Meanwhile the criminal case laid by the DA against Bheki Cele as a result of the Public Protector’s report on the scandalous lease deals is so far on the back burner it has gone as cold as a spent cartridge.
It’s all about attitude, and leading from the front and as long as recycled politicians and quasi-politicians are given the job as NPC, there is no one our SAPS members can aspire to be.
For example, despite all the Women and Children First rhetoric we hear annually, SAPS members seem universally incapable of taking Domestic Violence seriously. In 35% of cases they fail to arrest an abuser, and in 17% fail to arrest them even when an arrest warrant has been issued. They simply refuse. They aren’t thrown out of the SAPS either. This while 2 500 women are murdered here each year. Indeed our femicide rate is five times the global average.
Perhaps this is all because those at the highly-paid top have been too focussed on the whole grubby Mdluli saga to see what’s going on in front of their eyes. He’s now been sitting at home on full-pay for a year, while his two colleagues are being charged with theft, fraud and corruption relating to the looting of the Crime Intelligence slush fund.
So we sit with an acting head of Crime Intelligence until this matter is dealt with. However it’s extremely embarrassing for the Police Portfolio Committee to grill the SAPS on this and the rest of the empty posts filled by mere Acting hosts when indeed the very person who sits in as head of our Committee has been in an acting position for a full year.
Consider Honourable van Wyk. There is no one in this room, bar myself perhaps, who knows more about the SAPS and our portfolio committee than she does. She has done an exemplary job in this position, when I felt sure no one could even begin to fill the shoes of Hon Chikunga.
The question is, until such time as this country becomes a mature democracy and appoints opposition members to lead all portfolio committees as is done in so many countries around the world, why on earth have you not appointed her? Stop dithering and get on with it.
This committee has work to do, such as asking why backlogs are on the increase again, despite our having spent billions on the Forensic Laboratories. It doesn’t help that the Health Department labs are totally dysfunctional making it virtually impossible to convict drunk drivers because it takes over a year for them to process a simple vial of blood.
With the DNA legislation finally coming before us on Tuesday, after years languishing before Cabinet, I did find myself wondering if we have the capacity to handle the proposed criminal DNA database.
Another red flag for South Africa is that in three years the rhino population in the Kruger National Park will enter a negative growth phase. Five years later - by 2020 - there will be no rhinos left in there at all.
Wildlife products leave SA for Southeast Asia, and from there to China and Asia, and international research shows that poaching tends to thrive in places where corruption is rife, government enforcement is weak and there are few alternative economic opportunities.
The entire wild population of white rhinoceros could be lost by 2021.
How could we have reached this stage? I believe it's because of three years of vapid Empty Suit leadership. This has sent discipline and professionalism into freefall.
Crime statistics barely dropped last year and it is accepted that the SAPS presenting crime statistics is like allowing matriculants to mark their own exam papers.
There seems to be an inability to understand that a lack of training is the key. A Public Service Commission report has revealed that 20% of detectives are without the most basic of training. We know only 3.3% of SAPS members are trained in sexual offences. Cases are thrown out of court and criminals remain on the streets.
It is this lack of understanding of the SAPS’ needs that sees us having 27 000 SAPS members with firearms, but no licences; stations with vehicles but 16 594 cops without driver’s licences and cops too overweight and unfit to catch a cold let alone a criminal.
The Minister continuously bends over backwards to appease COSATU, as seen with his firing of cleaners and security guards with no planning for the chaos these moves would cause. SAPS offices are now filthy, and crime fighting reservists were asked to act as security guards.
He has failed to bring the crime rate down significantly, sent untrained police officers out to face death and failed to deal with police brutality and corruption.
Meanwhile he wastes taxpayer’s time and money playing politics, such as his fight against the introduction of the Community Safety Bill in the Western Cape, or challenging the right of the WC Government to institute a Commission of Inquiry into the breakdown between the community and police in Khayelitsha.
Now a word to the real police in this chamber. You don’t need the politics and gimmicks that emanate from government.
You’re being leaned on by politicians while policing priorities are dictated by the news-cycle rather than by what works. It’s time to refocus, because you already have the laws and the powers to take back our country street by street. All you have to do is implement what exists.
You are under enormous pressure in the face of organised crime and threats to national security. You must be able to go about your job without worrying about the next edict to come from on-high. You must be given the licence to police. How?
By working with the local people, by developing local strategies, by welcoming your CPF link to the public and by understanding that communities have the right to demand the removal of station heads if they aren’t up to scratch.
Citizens are expected to compare standards between schools in their area, patients between the performance of various local hospitals, and they should also be able to do the same with local police stations.
We must give the public much more information about crime in their streets, with detailed crime map of the crimes in their area. They must know where they are at risk. Enough with the secrecy that is costing us our lives.
Our citizens pay a fortune to you, and to private security, and they must be able to challenge you, and your performance. If you were free to train, equip and perform as I know you can, I believe the need for private security in South Africa would simply cease.
We can go on as we are. We can continue to swallow inexperienced officers put in as leaders and expected to learn on the job; citizens living in fear; known best for our world class criminals and the fact that 47 of us are murdered each day
Or we could turn this page of what is an ineffectual, excuse-ridden management. We could take back all that is good and great of the SAPS, allowing you to promote the best, to be the best you can.
I believe you want to answer to the people you signed up to serve and protect, and I believe you should be allowed to do just that. Today South Africa deserves, and pays for, a highly professionalised and top performing police service. But we don’t yet have one.
You have a veritable Mount Everest to climb, but there is enough that is great and good in the SAPS, and I believe that we will see you back up there with these disgraces behind you, once again a service with members our citizens run to for help, and not run from in fear.
I salute you.
Professional police service needed to tackle crime
Dianne Kohler Barnard, Shadow Minister of Police
30 May 2013
Highlights:
•Police brutality has led to SAPS putting aside 32.8% of its massive budget for contingent liabilities - R20,5 billion. Most of this is to pay civilians for having been shot, raped, beaten, robbed, hijacked, raped in cells, illegally detained, run over, wrongfully arrested, or to the families of those tortured or murdered - all of these actions perpetrated by SAPS members;
•Minister Nathi Mthethwa is wasting taxpayers’ money and time by challenging the Western Cape’s Community Safety Act and the establishment of a Commission of Inquiry into the inefficiency of the police and breakdown in relations between the community and police in Khayelitsha;
•Forensic backlogs are on the increase again;
•A Public Service Commission report has revealed that 20% of detectives are without the most basic of training;
•The lack of understanding of the SAPS’ needs by the Minister sees us having 27 000 SAPS members with firearms, but no licences; stations with vehicles but 16 594 cops without driver’s licences and cops too overweight and unfit to catch a cold let alone a criminal.
There can surely be no greater sacrifice than to put one’s life on the line to protect one of our citizens. Each year in the South African Police Service (SAPS) annual report we read the names of those officers who did just that. They died doing a job they love, protecting us. They are real heroes.
And what made them real heroes is that they continued to do their job, possibly the toughest job in the world, in the face of actions by their colleagues that brought this nation great shame.
•The Marikana Massacre;
•Mido Macia dragged off behind a police vehicle then beaten to death;
•Andries Tatane shot to death in front of the nation’s eyes on television;
•Anene Booysen – a gang rape investigation gone bad;
•SAPS colleagues driving off dragging a court interpreter by the neck in North West;
•Guptagate;
•the remilitarisation of the SAPS along with the shoot-to-kill mantra leading some of their colleagues to treat protestors and even non-protestors as ‘The Enemy’.
This is, of course, just a small sample of why the SAPS had to put aside 32.8% of its massive budget for contingent liabilities - R20,5-billion. Most of this is to pay civilians for having been shot, raped, beaten, robbed, hijacked, raped in cells, illegally detained, run over, wrongfully arrested, or to the families of those tortured or murdered - all of these actions perpetrated by SAPS members.
There were almost 5000 complaints against SAPS members this past year. 720 were deaths by SAPS members, 88 cases of domestic violence by SAPS members, 2320 allegations of criminal offences by SAPS members. We’ve seen the filmed footage of a number of these cases, as has the rest of the world, and yet the President refused my request to establish a Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Police Brutality – saying it was unnecessary.
I beg to differ.
It is this brutality, coupled with quite possibly the most inferior training regime in the world, that led to the results revealed in the SA Institute for Race Relations investigation that 1.7 million crimes went unreported to the police in 2011, a massive vote of no confidence in our SAPS.
Particularly horrifying was the claim that three murders a day go unreported. Of the 3.3 million crimes experienced by us in 2011, only 48% of these were reported.
Indeed as a nation we should hang our heads in shame that only one in 10 victims of rape go to the SAPS. This means that if official statistics show 70 000 rapes reported during the annual crime stats release circus this August, that means at many as 700 000 women, children and men were raped.
The vast majority of our SAPS members know this, and yet they still go in to work each day willing to take a bullet for you or me.
The SAPS certainly has the budget to supply our stations with the equipment they need. Of course they should automatically have running water, toilets and electricity – yet there are stations without some, or even all three of those essentials. Instead the management finds what it considers to be other priorities – such as choosing to pay R4,039 billion to consultants.
Among those, for example, R11.7 million was spent on adult education courses for SAPS members, despite a matric being a prerequisite for joining the SAPS. This, 20 years after democracy, doesn’t say much for our education system, does it?
Then there is the fact that we send our officers off to capacitate other countries, if that is indeed what they do there. There are 15 members going to South Sudan with another 53 members today awaiting deployment to Darfur. This Darfur mission was started in 2005 at a cost of R12- million annually. This while we have stations without water and our Public Service Members striking yesterday, today and again next month for the increases they were promised back in 2011. Over R96 million of public funding is going instead to South Sudan and Darfur while SAPS pleads poverty.
Of course there are other reasons for the SAPS to plead poverty, all of them preventable. Usually they may be categorised as bungles, criminality or just utter stupidity. I would put in the latter category the fact that the multi-million rand AVL SAPS car-tracking system contract lapsed because the last disgraced National Police Commissioner Cele only signed the renewal three days after it expired.
The criminality relates to the seven multi-million rand contracts currently being investigated – where hundreds of millions seem to have simply disappeared.
The Special Investigating Unit is still investigating the two ridiculously expensive National Police Days, so we’ll have to wait and see which of the three categories they fall into.
Then there are the generic issues that see SAPS actions boosting crime, which they then have to fight.
In 2010 the Minister of Police stated publically that he really was going to be tough on SAPS members who ‘lost’ their firearms - automatic dismissal.
Thus far, SAPS firearms lost: 13 000. Dismissals: 0.
I did ask whether or not there were serial offenders, officers who “lost” a firearm annually in lieu of a 13th cheque, and they didn’t know.
While general looting of SAPS coffers continues, such as in Crime Intelligence, there has on the other hand been a massive dropping of crime fighting targets. This is the core mandate of our Police, but as the SAPS fails to reach a target so they drop it.
The 7 -14% dropped to 4 – 7 % which dropped to 2%, 1% or in some areas they’ve said they’ll be content to maintain the status quo. This for a R67.9 billion budget
Meanwhile they have quietly erased certain measurements that annually shamed them, such as how many officers don’t have bullet proof vests or firearms. The Rural Safety Strategy has evaporated as has the reporting on murders and attacks of farmers and farm workers. What they don’t like, they prevent us from seeing, rather like the Guptagate Report before the snap debate last week.
The same is happening to our reservists – turned away from SAPS doors since 2008 when a bizarre moratorium on the taking on of this free labour was instituted. This even though on January 15, 2010 this Minister answered my Parliamentary question saying the moratorium had been lifted. It hadn’t. It still hasn’t. So for five years the call to communities to assist in the fight against crime has seen them turned away at the door.
I have no doubt this is an intentional move.
It’s as intentional as the retaining within the SAPS of thousands of convicted criminals who committed a crime and got away with a fine. Rather like here in Parliament. Even if a SAPS member has to pay a R30 000 fine for, for example, grievous bodily harm, beating someone almost to death, they don’t miss a day at work, or have the firearm taken from their hip. One has to ask how seriously we can take SAPS that allows criminals to skulk in their ranks.
This has been one of the dangers of mass recruitment. In 2008 with anyone and everyone being scooped into the Service and the Reservists, we were left with masses of poorly trained, poorly managed officers, sometimes with criminal records, and of course no internal Anti-Corruption Unit.
This was thanks to the disgraced National Police Commissioner (NPC) before the last disgraced NPC, Jackie Selebi, sentenced on 2 July 2010 to 15 years imprisonment the impact on our SAPS was cataclysmic.
The shame he brought on SA was off the Richter scale, yet he never saw the inside of a cell. Since July last year he’s been back living in his mansion, still owing us R17-million.
Meanwhile the criminal case laid by the DA against Bheki Cele as a result of the Public Protector’s report on the scandalous lease deals is so far on the back burner it has gone as cold as a spent cartridge.
It’s all about attitude, and leading from the front and as long as recycled politicians and quasi-politicians are given the job as NPC, there is no one our SAPS members can aspire to be.
For example, despite all the Women and Children First rhetoric we hear annually, SAPS members seem universally incapable of taking Domestic Violence seriously. In 35% of cases they fail to arrest an abuser, and in 17% fail to arrest them even when an arrest warrant has been issued. They simply refuse. They aren’t thrown out of the SAPS either. This while 2 500 women are murdered here each year. Indeed our femicide rate is five times the global average.
Perhaps this is all because those at the highly-paid top have been too focussed on the whole grubby Mdluli saga to see what’s going on in front of their eyes. He’s now been sitting at home on full-pay for a year, while his two colleagues are being charged with theft, fraud and corruption relating to the looting of the Crime Intelligence slush fund.
So we sit with an acting head of Crime Intelligence until this matter is dealt with. However it’s extremely embarrassing for the Police Portfolio Committee to grill the SAPS on this and the rest of the empty posts filled by mere Acting hosts when indeed the very person who sits in as head of our Committee has been in an acting position for a full year.
Consider Honourable van Wyk. There is no one in this room, bar myself perhaps, who knows more about the SAPS and our portfolio committee than she does. She has done an exemplary job in this position, when I felt sure no one could even begin to fill the shoes of Hon Chikunga.
The question is, until such time as this country becomes a mature democracy and appoints opposition members to lead all portfolio committees as is done in so many countries around the world, why on earth have you not appointed her? Stop dithering and get on with it.
This committee has work to do, such as asking why backlogs are on the increase again, despite our having spent billions on the Forensic Laboratories. It doesn’t help that the Health Department labs are totally dysfunctional making it virtually impossible to convict drunk drivers because it takes over a year for them to process a simple vial of blood.
With the DNA legislation finally coming before us on Tuesday, after years languishing before Cabinet, I did find myself wondering if we have the capacity to handle the proposed criminal DNA database.
Another red flag for South Africa is that in three years the rhino population in the Kruger National Park will enter a negative growth phase. Five years later - by 2020 - there will be no rhinos left in there at all.
Wildlife products leave SA for Southeast Asia, and from there to China and Asia, and international research shows that poaching tends to thrive in places where corruption is rife, government enforcement is weak and there are few alternative economic opportunities.
The entire wild population of white rhinoceros could be lost by 2021.
How could we have reached this stage? I believe it's because of three years of vapid Empty Suit leadership. This has sent discipline and professionalism into freefall.
Crime statistics barely dropped last year and it is accepted that the SAPS presenting crime statistics is like allowing matriculants to mark their own exam papers.
There seems to be an inability to understand that a lack of training is the key. A Public Service Commission report has revealed that 20% of detectives are without the most basic of training. We know only 3.3% of SAPS members are trained in sexual offences. Cases are thrown out of court and criminals remain on the streets.
It is this lack of understanding of the SAPS’ needs that sees us having 27 000 SAPS members with firearms, but no licences; stations with vehicles but 16 594 cops without driver’s licences and cops too overweight and unfit to catch a cold let alone a criminal.
The Minister continuously bends over backwards to appease COSATU, as seen with his firing of cleaners and security guards with no planning for the chaos these moves would cause. SAPS offices are now filthy, and crime fighting reservists were asked to act as security guards.
He has failed to bring the crime rate down significantly, sent untrained police officers out to face death and failed to deal with police brutality and corruption.
Meanwhile he wastes taxpayer’s time and money playing politics, such as his fight against the introduction of the Community Safety Bill in the Western Cape, or challenging the right of the WC Government to institute a Commission of Inquiry into the breakdown between the community and police in Khayelitsha.
Now a word to the real police in this chamber. You don’t need the politics and gimmicks that emanate from government.
You’re being leaned on by politicians while policing priorities are dictated by the news-cycle rather than by what works. It’s time to refocus, because you already have the laws and the powers to take back our country street by street. All you have to do is implement what exists.
You are under enormous pressure in the face of organised crime and threats to national security. You must be able to go about your job without worrying about the next edict to come from on-high. You must be given the licence to police. How?
By working with the local people, by developing local strategies, by welcoming your CPF link to the public and by understanding that communities have the right to demand the removal of station heads if they aren’t up to scratch.
Citizens are expected to compare standards between schools in their area, patients between the performance of various local hospitals, and they should also be able to do the same with local police stations.
We must give the public much more information about crime in their streets, with detailed crime map of the crimes in their area. They must know where they are at risk. Enough with the secrecy that is costing us our lives.
Our citizens pay a fortune to you, and to private security, and they must be able to challenge you, and your performance. If you were free to train, equip and perform as I know you can, I believe the need for private security in South Africa would simply cease.
We can go on as we are. We can continue to swallow inexperienced officers put in as leaders and expected to learn on the job; citizens living in fear; known best for our world class criminals and the fact that 47 of us are murdered each day
Or we could turn this page of what is an ineffectual, excuse-ridden management. We could take back all that is good and great of the SAPS, allowing you to promote the best, to be the best you can.
I believe you want to answer to the people you signed up to serve and protect, and I believe you should be allowed to do just that. Today South Africa deserves, and pays for, a highly professionalised and top performing police service. But we don’t yet have one.
You have a veritable Mount Everest to climb, but there is enough that is great and good in the SAPS, and I believe that we will see you back up there with these disgraces behind you, once again a service with members our citizens run to for help, and not run from in fear.
I salute you.
Sunday, June 2, 2013
Entering Dark Corners Of Baggage Theft - OR Tambo Airport
Johannesburg - A sewerrat, a ghost, uninterested police officials, poorly maintained buildings and lax security for people working at OR Tambo International Airport.
These were just some of the interesting and disturbing situations that Steve Chart encountered while working as a consultant to Airports Company South Africa (Acsa), to advise and assist with the ongoing and problematic issue of baggage pilferage at South Africa’s biggest airport.
In 2007 Steve Chart was appointed as consultant to the Airports Company South Africa (ACSA) with the task of assisting in the reduction of baggage pilferage at OR Tambo International Airport. What Steve soon realised, however, was that in terms of security, the airport wasn’t a vessel with a small leakage problem, but a boat on the absolute verge of sinking. He encountered countless cases of corruption and poor management, and no desire to take responsibility.
This book details the many interesting and at times humorous investigations he undertook at the airport and deals extensively with the baggage handling system, and is a reminder to the public about protecting their luggage, themselves and their fellow travellers.
Steve Chart was born in England and raised in South Africa. Matriculated 1967 and returned to UK in 1968. Joined Metropolitan Police in London in 1970 rising to the rank of Detective Inspector. Resigned in 1897, returned to South Africa and started an independent security consultancy and private investigation company. Specialised in the field of lie detection. Appointed by Airports Company South Africa In May 2007 as a consultant to deal with rampant baggage pilferage at O R Tambo International Airport. Returned to England in May 2011 when contract with ACSA ended. Now retired and living in Wiltshire.
In his book, 89 Bags and Counting: My long haul to OR Tambo International and the Mystery of the Pilfered Baggage, Chart describes in detail his experience of the rampant pilfering, and of his dealings with officials at, and connected to the airport.
In 1986 Chart made a life-changing decision to cut short a promising career as a detective inspector with New Scotland Yard, returning to South Africa in 1987 to start his own business – a security and investigation company.
And in 2007 he was appointed as a consultant to Acsa.
His book, described as an “outrageous story”, is a must-read for anyone who’s travelled into and out of OR Tambo International – or plans to do in the future, and for those who want to know what goes on behind the scenes.
The story details many incidents where Chart witnessed first-hand how crafty and creative thieves can get.
“He puts the iPod, camera and bottle of expensive perfume to one side, together with the very handsome designer-label shoes he has taken from another bag.
“With a deftness developed from opening and closing so many different pieces of luggage, he casually pulls the zip closed before sending the bag on its way to be loaded into the aircraft. It will be hours before the passengers discover the thefts, and by that time he will be long gone,” Chart writes.
But for the author the worst was that Acsa officials were always very slow to react, he says, as incidents tended to “go away” after a while. Police, too, were mostly not interested.
Chart is frank that responsibility, logistics and costs will always be cited as reasons for not implementing a system where airlines secure baggage with a strap, which would immediately indicate interference. He suggests that costs could be added to the price of flight tickets to cover that.
“There is no airport in the world that can guarantee that our bag will not be pilfered, but the likelihood of it happening at OR Tambo is greater… “ Chart writes.
Meanwhile, Acsa spokeswoman Unathi Batyashe-Fillis said last night that the company was not in a position to provide a meaningful response, as they had not read the book.
She was adamant, however, that Acsa was continuing to make strides in reducing theft.
“It is perhaps prudent to add that Steve Chart is one of the people Acsa employed as one of the many initiatives we undertook to work on a collaborative process with airport stakeholders in reducing a real problem in terms of mishandled bags,” she said.
Luggage that is delayed, lost, damaged or pilfered, and recorded as such by an airline, is treated as a mishandled baggage claim.
Batyashe-Fillis said that in partnership with its “stakeholder community”, Acsa continued to intensify efforts to prevent baggage theft across all its airports, in line with international benchmarks.
“In the past five years the company has seen consistent improvement in the infrastructure surrounding and supporting baggage handling.
“Acsa’s OR Tambo International Airport has over the past three years seen a more than a 49 percent reduction in the number of mishandled bags,” she explained, adding however that their stance was that one bag stolen was one too many.
The company had invested R20 million in security infrastructure to create a layered security approach, with the aim of fighting crime in general.
Some of the recent successes can be attributed to redesigning the baggage sorting area entrance to accommodate fully automated screening and reverse screening, she said.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
The Gap In The Guptagate
The major problem with the Gupta scandal is that it didn’t come off as a deal; it came off as some rich toff with political connections using them to get one over on the rest of us.
But if that rich toff actually pays for the VIP experience, that changes things.
The Guptagate scandal has - aside from horribly embarrassing the country - revealed a bit of a gap that our country could possibly exploit.
So far as I have heard the plane landing at the Waterkloof Air Force Base didn’t actually inconvenience the base all that much, and the various elements to the landing sound rather pleasant.
Couldn’t we, as a country, sell this to rich foreigners who want to get married? Sure, we would make them pay for it... But just imagine someone with more money than sense, say the sort of person who would buy a diamond encrusted car, wants to get married.
We could sell them a marriage unlike anything in the rest of the world – with everything from snacks at landing, to the blue light brigades.
The way the Gupta scandal went off sounds like it was rather pleasant on the day – sure, the political fallout hasn’t been, but I am pretty sure the bride and groom had a fun wedding.
If we could turn this from something you buy with the president’s name, and into something you buy with actual rands, well why not?
What we really object to isn’t as much the blatant corruption, as the fact that we aren’t getting in on the action. Bribe one person and its called corruption, bribe an entire nation and its called investment.
Sure it makes a bit of a mockery of our national defences to turn our military bases into ultra-luxury airports for the stupidly rich, but it isn’t like we're a particularly militant nation anyway – war has never really worked out well for us.
This on the other hand could. Just imagine the slogan "Come to sunny South Africa, where your green can buy a 22 carat gold wedding"
SO THE TRUTH WILL NOW GET YOU ARRESTED?
So after a radio discussion about Sunette Bridges https://www.facebook.com/SunetteBridges?fref=ts and some things that have been said on her Facebook Page, we have been warned that if you call black people or the ANC “murderous bastards” you will be arrested!
Well I for one would like to know what I will be arrested for? For telling the truth? For reporting the facts? Well know this – the people or rather animals that are targeting white people and raping and torturing them are murderous scum!! And considering that they are black it is safe to assume that they are members of the ANC!! Do you think for one moment that threatening us with jail time will stop us from spreading the news about what is going on in South Africa? You will not silence us!! You can lock us up, torture us and let your hordes of savage criminals kill us. But know this you will never silence us!! Our spirit can not be broken by the likes of you!
Apparently you will be investigating all her facebook friends as well? Mwahahahahahahahaha – now that really is funny! Have you seen how many facebook friends we have? Your police force cant solve savage farm attacks but you are going to fill the prisons with facebook users? LoL! Go ahead and show the world how anti-white the law is and how inept the police department is.
Killing whites wont get you locked up but speaking your mind on facebook will? Only in South Africa!! Why don’t you try and put an end to the racist murders of farmers and other white folks, hell, try and put an end to all murders, then maybe all these people crying foul on social networks will go away by themselves?
We all know you don’t have time for that, no you to busy trying to intimidate a bunch of people who want to live together without you outside Pretoria? Why do you think they built walls around themselves and don’t want to integrate? Because of all the murderous bastards out there that want to rape and kill them? Leave them be – they are not doing any harm what so ever! I don’t hear you complaining about the walls Mr.Zuma built around his “Nkandla” and I don’t see any white people being invited to live there, God knows there is enough space! It is a safety thing you say? To keep our president safe? So why does he get to be safe from the murderous bastards and the rest of us don’t? Instead of worrying about a bunch of white folks who want to live separate from a society that is drowning in violent crime, why not try something like solving our crime problems? So that people don’t have to feel that their only option is to remove themselves from our society.
Do us all a favor and stop worrying about our facebook pages and start putting an end to the free for all crime spree that has put an end to the so called rainbow nation…
Monday, May 27, 2013
Zuma Has Corrupted The Soul Of SA
The "moral decay" President Jacob Zum complains about is plainly visible in the ANC's echelons of power.
The cruellest of all features of Zuma's presidency is the continuing injustice of the failure of service delivery, the collapse of health institutions and the dire state of many schools. All this cuts to the core of the soul of our country, rupturing the very essence of our being as a nation.
This brazen display of disregard continues, as exemplified in the Gupta family's breach of national security at Waterkloof. Like the silence that repeatedly followed Malema's outrageous public statements, Zuma's deafening silence and failure to publicly condemn the Guptas for overstepping the limits of their relationship with him as head of state speaks louder than words.
The recent comment by Zambia's Vice-President Guy Scott likening President Jacob Zuma to former president FW de Klerk is unfair to De Klerk. At a critical moment in South African politics, De Klerk listened to the voices that called for change. He was not blind to the unpalatable reality that it was time for apartheid to go – whatever pressures prevailed to "force" him, as some might say, to release Nelson Mandela in February 1990, and to use his power to call a referendum in March 1992 to determine white voters' support for political negotiations. De Klerk could have ignored wise counsel and dug in his heels – like his predecessor PW Botha did.
Zuma relentlessly ignores warnings about consequences that are apparent to others. It is like the proverbial writing on the wall – a man entangled in a network of associations from which either he or his family benefits, blind to the potential negative impact that these relationships might have on his office as president of the country.
An opinion article that I wrote for this newspaper during one of Zuma's trials in April 2009 still resonates: "At a time when we need leaders who will be moral role models for the next generation of leaders, one wonders what the future holds when our president's strength of popularity is not matched by the strength of his reputation for moral stature. How will he speak with authority on matters of corruption?"
From the very beginning, Zuma's presidency was destined to corrupt the soul of the country. The dramas that unfolded during his court trials and after his acquittal have been burned into our collective consciousness. Among these, members of the South African Democratic Teachers' Union, who abandoned pupils in the middle of examinations in order to join Zuma's supporters at his trial, scenes of aggressive protest against the young woman who accused Zuma of rape; the extraordinary admission by Zuma inside the courtroom that he had had unprotected sex and took a shower to minimise the risk of HIV infection, and Julius Malema leading the crowds of Zuma's supporters and threatening to "kill for Zuma" if he were not acquitted. These were disturbing images and, in my view, laid the foundation for what Zuma has called the "moral decay" that has gripped our country.
Recently the problem of violence in South African society has been discussed at several forums around the country, on radio, at institutions of higher learning and by civil society. The president also had his own initiative related to this matter, calling on religious leaders to help address this problem. Yet the "moral rot" – to invoke Zuma once again – is visible in plain sight in the ANC's echelons of power. It is exemplified in the multiple extramarital love affairs of some of the most senior members of the ANC (and children born from some of these affairs), gory details of allegations of physical and emotional abuse of a spouse and workers by a Cabinet minister in the ANC government, the rampant corruption scandals involving ANC officials – from the highest level of leadership in government to the very lowest in provincial offices and the country's border gates and the assassination of ANC provincial leaders and/or allegations of ANC leaders hiring hit men to murder their opponents or those threatening to expose corruption. Moral rot at the top can breed lack of trust in government, disillusionment and chaos in society, but wise leaders with moral stature bring stability – to paraphrase a biblical text.
Born frees
The cruellest of all features of Zuma's presidency is the continuing injustice of the failure of service delivery, the collapse of health institutions and the dire state of many schools. All this cuts to the core of the soul of our country, rupturing the very essence of our being as a nation.
It is not surprising that we have now descended to the level of our young raping our old.
These young people who are raping their grandmothers are not the "lost generation" of apartheid; they are the "born frees" of the new South Africa.
They were promised a future that would open up into an horizon of hope and opportunity. Instead, they have become disenchanted, waking up daily to the yawning void of emptiness. Very few of them will escape the fate of intergenerational poverty in their homes and communities. Worse, the conditions under which many of our young people grow up are irreconcilable with the promises of change under the ANC government. Under Zuma, our government seems to be edging inevitably closer to becoming a government of broken promises, corruption and unaccountability. Who can forget the shocking images in this newspaper of the appalling conditions of some of the schools in the Eastern Cape? If children are treated as if their lives do not count, they are likely to grow up with very little or no pride in their identity and a sense of worthlessness. If they grow up feeling that their lives do not count, that they do not matter in the larger scheme of things, how can they be expected to bestow a sense of worth on others?
The life circumstances of marginalised young people in our country are similar to those of their parents and grandparents under apartheid – except that they are worse off than their forebears.
Their parents and grandparents, relegated to second- and even third-class citizenship, "expected" the apartheid government to treat them inhumanely.
In this democracy of ours, however, many young people feel a deep sense of betrayal by a government they trusted. The broken promises of politicians, who seem more concerned about winning elections than about delivering on their promises, is a pain that cuts very deep and explodes many young people's sense of hope. At the same time, as witnesses to the excesses of political elites and their business partners, they see that ours is a democracy that has benefited corrupt officials, the president, his family, and those with close ties to the president.
This culture of patronage – you stroke my back and I stroke yours – has defined the ANC's leadership over the past several years. It was epitomised most dazzlingly in Malema's rapid accumulation of wealth; his shameless use of the coffers of a province as his private bank account. The brazen flaunting of this ill-gotten wealth by Malema when he was still protected by his close ties with Zuma reflects the kind of impunity that permeates the entire system.
Hypocrisy
This brazen display of disregard continues, as exemplified in the Gupta family's breach of national security at Waterkloof. Like the silence that repeatedly followed Malema's outrageous public statements, Zuma's deafening silence and failure to publicly condemn the Guptas for overstepping the limits of their relationship with him as head of state speaks louder than words.
Why doesn't Zuma see the contradiction between this entanglement with the Guptas and his position as head of state?
It seems clear that the president's permission was not sought for the Gupta's plane to land at Waterkloof; however, the hypocrisy of emphatic statements from senior government officials trying to distance the president from the actions of the Guptas was not lost on some observers of this saga.
This collective response from the top brass of the ANC government reminds me of FW de Klerk's attempt to distance himself from Eugene de Kock, the most highly decorated officer under apartheid who was appointed to head the security department's covert operations unit.
The comparison may seem extreme. However, there is an unwritten agreement operating among political elites that when they feel ashamed because behaviour that they sanction in private has become public, the person responsible for the behaviour should not under any circumstances be portrayed as reasonable.
De Klerk, for example, has always suggested that De Kock was one of the bad apples of the apartheid security apparatus. If De Kock is a "bad apple" then we need not look any further; the matter has been explained. On the other hand, the more we humanise him, the more we are forced to conclude that there were factors that led him to do what he did. One must then ask, what were those factors? And that is the fear from which the more guilt-ridden layers of those in power, the politicians and social elites who could have wielded influence, try to shield themselves.
To echo Zambia's Scott, like it or not, in very subtle and not so subtle ways, there are parallels between the way apartheid leaders used power as a system of social control and the strategic ways in which the ANC uses its power.
Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela is senior research professor at the University of the Free State
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
The M23 Head of Youth Mobilization, Mr. Ali Musagara
The M23 Head of Youth Mobilization, Mr. Ali Musagara breaks His silence, and speaks to CongoDRC News about the objective of the M23.
He Had this to say with regard to the possibility of M23 Integrating into FARDC, '' How can we be expected to integrate into an army That does not exist? FARDC is not an army in the proper sense. It is a criminal That group is responsible for the recent violation of 126 women in Minova, 70 and 90 in Katanga in Tongo.
He Had this to say with regard to the possibility of M23 Integrating into FARDC, '' How can we be expected to integrate into an army That does not exist? FARDC is not an army in the proper sense. It is a criminal That group is responsible for the recent violation of 126 women in Minova, 70 and 90 in Katanga in Tongo.
CongoDRC News: Information available on the Internet lays claims 450 That form Ntaganda fighters Who Were in Rwanda Have now joined the M23 of General Makenga. What do you make of thesis claims?
AM: You shoulds Rather put this issue to Thierry Vurcoulon who is the author of this information. Let me explain this to you, falling on clashes on March 1 st to 15 th in Kibumba betweens Bosco Ntaganda's group and M23, M23 captured 150 of Ntaganda's fighters and 300 Voluntarily surrendered Themselves, some of Whom are officers Whose name Were released on the internet. These are the 450 soldiers That Were Being Referred to by M23 Military Spokesman Colonel Vianney Kazarama so it is unfortunate That the Director of the International Crisis Group HAS distorted this information for Reasons best known to him.Recently diplomats visited the train Have you HAD Ntaganda fighters crossed into Rwanda and are still there.
CongoDRC News: Is it true That The M23 is preparing to attack Goma?
AM: We deliberately Withdraw from the city of Goma on December 1 st 2012 and Declared a unilateral ceasefire in Kampala to give peace and dialogue a chance, then why Would we attack Goma today and Especially When our delegation in Kampala is engaged in talks with the DRC Government? Ever since May 6th 2012 All which marks the date on All which M23 was created, we never Planned an attack against the FARDC positions. Instead, the FARDC has-been attacking us and we only defend Ourselves and push back the attackers. Kabila and his allies FDLR, Mayi Mayi Nyatura, MONUSCO and others continued to calmly prepare Their war plane and generate confusion and falsehoods to distract public opinion. We HOWEVER, are well Informed and ready to defend Ourselves.
CongoDRC News: Recently Tshibanda ordered the M23 to lay down Their arms. Will you abide by His order and integrate into FARDC?
AM: Tshibanda Has the right to make His wishes known. HOWEVER, M23 About did not take up arms on an order. M23 Took up arms Because the DRC Government wanted to exterminate us and to bury the March 23, 2009 agreement so Kinshasa That May Not Have to deal with and resolve the deep rooted problems That our country is experiencing. If Mr. Tshibanda wants an exodus from the abstract world to the world of reality, then He Has To Provide answers and solutions to the justifiable Grievances of M23.
It is not a secret That Does not Have the DRC what can be Considered as a proper army and even the United Nations Secretary-General Noted this fact in His report of 27 th February. M23 cannot be expected to integrate into an institution That Does not exist in reality . M23 cannot integrate into a criminal group All which is responsible for the rape of 126 women in Minova, 70 and 90 in Katanga in Tongo.Please read the recent report of UNOCHA FARDC about rapes in Katanga to find out more about the conduite of this so called army.
CongoDRC News: Soon a special brigade Intervention Will Be Deployed to the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, How Will M23 cope?
AM: The famous Brigade! The Brigade All which is silent Congolese Have you resolved to Have Been forced to make the ultimate sacrifice by a diet That Thrives through demagoguery, corruption, exclusion, and terror. For the first time the a has openly Decided to Support a government That Is Characterized by fraud, That a government rigged the elections of November 28, That Is The government has because of the misery of the Congolese and That Does not in any way comply with basic human rights. If the Brigade attacks us, We Shall sponds with vigor. Ourselves we will defend to the last drop of blood.
AM: The famous Brigade! The Brigade All which is silent Congolese Have you resolved to Have Been forced to make the ultimate sacrifice by a diet That Thrives through demagoguery, corruption, exclusion, and terror. For the first time the a has openly Decided to Support a government That Is Characterized by fraud, That a government rigged the elections of November 28, That Is The government has because of the misery of the Congolese and That Does not in any way comply with basic human rights. If the Brigade attacks us, We Shall sponds with vigor. Ourselves we will defend to the last drop of blood.
CongoDRC News: Many reports make claims about the presence of Ugandans and Rwandans in the ranks of M23, what do you have to say about allegations thesis?
AM: It is absolutely false, the Congolese Government Reviews another can not find an excuse to justify failure to maintain maintenance icts a decent army and INSTEAD point fingers at Rwanda and Uganda.HOWEVER, apart from spreading falsehoods Kinshasa HAS never been ble to Provide any evidence of Their presence. Aim to reassure you, if the M23 Had the carrier of Rwanda and Uganda as is Being Alleged by the DRC Government, Perhaps we Would Have Apprehended by Kabila now and HAD him Transferred to the ICC.
CongoDRC News: What messages do you have for the South African people?
AM: I have great respect for the brotherly people of South Africa and Their struggle against exclusion and the fight for the welfare of all Citizens even if Their President (Zuma) out Time of the Old own selfish Interests, is ready to take the risk of Sacrificing the lives of South African military staff in order to rescue a corrupt All which diet Does not guarantee the equality of all Citizens. Nelson Mandela said "A man who deprives another man's freedom is a prisoner of hatred, prejudice and narrow-mindedness" so I appeal to our brothers, the South Africans, not to allow an individual or a group of Individuals to discard the valuesThat Have Their nation and built for All which gains Nelson Mandela Sacrificed His youth.
AM: I have great respect for the brotherly people of South Africa and Their struggle against exclusion and the fight for the welfare of all Citizens even if Their President (Zuma) out Time of the Old own selfish Interests, is ready to take the risk of Sacrificing the lives of South African military staff in order to rescue a corrupt All which diet Does not guarantee the equality of all Citizens. Nelson Mandela said "A man who deprives another man's freedom is a prisoner of hatred, prejudice and narrow-mindedness" so I appeal to our brothers, the South Africans, not to allow an individual or a group of Individuals to discard the valuesThat Have Their nation and built for All which gains Nelson Mandela Sacrificed His youth.
CongoDRC News: What about the fate of the Kampala talks?
AM: After M23 captured the city of Goma, the DRC Government finally Agreed to sit around a table to Discuss with us. Whenever the Government HAS Sought to create a blockage in negotiations, We Have Sought to find a way forward. M23 Declared a cease-fire unilaterally, accepted the changes in agendas and overlooked several violations of rules falling on the negotiations. As of now we Have our Proposals Submitted to the facilitator. We need to resolve our problems through talks not war as our people are tired of wars. Surprising in all this it is the DRC Government and Intervention Brigade That are preparing to make war.
AM: After M23 captured the city of Goma, the DRC Government finally Agreed to sit around a table to Discuss with us. Whenever the Government HAS Sought to create a blockage in negotiations, We Have Sought to find a way forward. M23 Declared a cease-fire unilaterally, accepted the changes in agendas and overlooked several violations of rules falling on the negotiations. As of now we Have our Proposals Submitted to the facilitator. We need to resolve our problems through talks not war as our people are tired of wars. Surprising in all this it is the DRC Government and Intervention Brigade That are preparing to make war.
CongoDRC News: What is your final word to the youth?
AM: Change Will not come from others and Will not happen tomorrow. Will it only come from us and now.We are the change Abebooks web seek.
Translated by Diana S, Katabarwa
Black People Despise Everything That Looks Like Us - Pashu Shuudi,
My guess is that, had the following been written by a white journalist, he would have been sacked from the newspaper. As it is, this letter was penned by a black Namibian citizen, Pashu Shuudi, in the Namibian Sun on Thursday March, 24, 2011.
"ALTHOUGH hard to swallow, us black people despise everything that looks like us. To prove my point, not so long ago fellow blacks who had run away from atrocities in their own African countries were beaten, burned and some even killed by fellow blacks in South Africa .
In Namibia , black supporters of the ruling party Swapo and the opposition parties clashed in 2009 and we still hear of such quarrels or violence just in the name of politics. Through studying history, I have come to learn that we actually disliked one another before colonialism, hence fierce tribal fights during those years. Colonialism united us all in the fight against a common enemy and after colonialism, we saw the rebirth of things we thought were buried a long time ago, like tribalism, regionalism, ethnic favouritism, etc.
Although we do not like others from other tribes, we all love things that we do not produce. We love fine branded clothes from Europe , we love American and German-made cars, we love expensive wines and whiskeys, computers and cellphones, yet no African person makes or brews any of them.
All we own, unfortunately, are thousands of shebeens where we drink ourselves to death, stab each other with knives/bottles, infect each other with the HIV virus, make lots of unwanted babies and then blame others for our miseries. We love all sorts of expensive foreign made items and show them off, yet we look down at our indigenous products that we fail to commercialise.
As blacks, we know very little about investments, whether in stocks, or in properties. All we know is how to invest our money in things that depreciate or evaporate the fastest like clothes, cars, alcohol and, when we are at it, we want the whole world to see us. I know some brothers driving BMWs, yet they sleep on the floors and don’t have beds because nobody will see them anyway.
This is what we love doing and this is the black life, a life of showing off for those who have. A black millionaire entrepreneur living in Ludwigsdorf or Klein Kuppe in Windhoek will drive to the notorious Eveline Street in Katutura where he will show off his expensive car and look down on others.
We sell our natural resources to Europe for processing, and then buy them back in finished products. What makes us so inferior in our thinking that we only pride ourselves when we have something made by others? What compels us to show off things that we don’t manufacture? Is it the poverty that we allow ourselves to be in? Is it our navigated consciousness, our culture, or just a low self-esteem possessing us, or just plain lack of intellect? For how long are we going to be consumers or users of things we do not produce? Do we like the easy way out, such that we only use and consume things made by others?
Do designer clothes, expensive wines or changing our names to sound more European make us more confident in ourselves?
Our leaders scream at us how bad the Europeans are yet they steal our public money and hide it in European banks. We know how Europeans ransacked Africa but we are scandalously quiet when our own leaders loot our countries and run with briefcases under their arms full of our riches to Europe . The Europeans took our riches to Europe but our African leaders are doing this too.
Mubarak of Egypt, Gadaffi of Libya, Mobutu Sese Seko of the (then) Zaire , Mugabe, all had their assets allegedly frozen in Europe . Why do our African leaders, who claim to love us, run to invest ‘their’ money in Europe ? Again when they get sick they are quick to be flown to Europe for treatment, yet our relatives die in hospital queues. Don’t our leaders trust the health systems they have created for us all?
Why are we so subservient, so obedient to corruption when committed by our very own people? Nobody can disagree with me that in this country that we are like pets trained to obey the instructions of their masters. I am sure we look down when we think of our broken lives but what do we see then? I wonder if we realise how we sell our dreams to our leaders for corruption, misery, poverty, unemployment, underdevelopment and all other social evils affecting us.
How long are we going to let our manipulated minds mislead us, from ‘womb to tomb?"
MORE INSIGHT - SOURCE UNKNOWN
How long are we going to blame the whites for our own inability to rise above ourselves and our situation? We denounce the Whites even with hatred, yet we are striving for everything they do and have? Why do we want to be like them yet despise them? Waiting for stuff to be given to us for free, hands held out for alms to cross our palms? And sadly, at the next election, we vote ourselves right back into the same state of affairs!
"ALTHOUGH hard to swallow, us black people despise everything that looks like us. To prove my point, not so long ago fellow blacks who had run away from atrocities in their own African countries were beaten, burned and some even killed by fellow blacks in South Africa .
In Namibia , black supporters of the ruling party Swapo and the opposition parties clashed in 2009 and we still hear of such quarrels or violence just in the name of politics. Through studying history, I have come to learn that we actually disliked one another before colonialism, hence fierce tribal fights during those years. Colonialism united us all in the fight against a common enemy and after colonialism, we saw the rebirth of things we thought were buried a long time ago, like tribalism, regionalism, ethnic favouritism, etc.
Although we do not like others from other tribes, we all love things that we do not produce. We love fine branded clothes from Europe , we love American and German-made cars, we love expensive wines and whiskeys, computers and cellphones, yet no African person makes or brews any of them.
All we own, unfortunately, are thousands of shebeens where we drink ourselves to death, stab each other with knives/bottles, infect each other with the HIV virus, make lots of unwanted babies and then blame others for our miseries. We love all sorts of expensive foreign made items and show them off, yet we look down at our indigenous products that we fail to commercialise.
As blacks, we know very little about investments, whether in stocks, or in properties. All we know is how to invest our money in things that depreciate or evaporate the fastest like clothes, cars, alcohol and, when we are at it, we want the whole world to see us. I know some brothers driving BMWs, yet they sleep on the floors and don’t have beds because nobody will see them anyway.
This is what we love doing and this is the black life, a life of showing off for those who have. A black millionaire entrepreneur living in Ludwigsdorf or Klein Kuppe in Windhoek will drive to the notorious Eveline Street in Katutura where he will show off his expensive car and look down on others.
We sell our natural resources to Europe for processing, and then buy them back in finished products. What makes us so inferior in our thinking that we only pride ourselves when we have something made by others? What compels us to show off things that we don’t manufacture? Is it the poverty that we allow ourselves to be in? Is it our navigated consciousness, our culture, or just a low self-esteem possessing us, or just plain lack of intellect? For how long are we going to be consumers or users of things we do not produce? Do we like the easy way out, such that we only use and consume things made by others?
Do designer clothes, expensive wines or changing our names to sound more European make us more confident in ourselves?
Our leaders scream at us how bad the Europeans are yet they steal our public money and hide it in European banks. We know how Europeans ransacked Africa but we are scandalously quiet when our own leaders loot our countries and run with briefcases under their arms full of our riches to Europe . The Europeans took our riches to Europe but our African leaders are doing this too.
Mubarak of Egypt, Gadaffi of Libya, Mobutu Sese Seko of the (then) Zaire , Mugabe, all had their assets allegedly frozen in Europe . Why do our African leaders, who claim to love us, run to invest ‘their’ money in Europe ? Again when they get sick they are quick to be flown to Europe for treatment, yet our relatives die in hospital queues. Don’t our leaders trust the health systems they have created for us all?
Why are we so subservient, so obedient to corruption when committed by our very own people? Nobody can disagree with me that in this country that we are like pets trained to obey the instructions of their masters. I am sure we look down when we think of our broken lives but what do we see then? I wonder if we realise how we sell our dreams to our leaders for corruption, misery, poverty, unemployment, underdevelopment and all other social evils affecting us.
How long are we going to let our manipulated minds mislead us, from ‘womb to tomb?"
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How long are we going to blame the whites for our own inability to rise above ourselves and our situation? We denounce the Whites even with hatred, yet we are striving for everything they do and have? Why do we want to be like them yet despise them? Waiting for stuff to be given to us for free, hands held out for alms to cross our palms? And sadly, at the next election, we vote ourselves right back into the same state of affairs!
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