MWEB Forums: The same old tune

In a way one can almost breathe a sigh of relief that the way the ANC conducts its' business just goes to prove that no race has a monopoly on stupidity, arrogance, cruelty and general evil. When one stops feeling relief is when we reaslise that these people are ruling our lives and our country.

Apartied? ANC? What is the real difference when you get right down to it?

The following is from the Business Day

HAVING been in the US for two weeks, I come back completely out of touch with what has been happening in SA.

Clueless about what to write in my next column, I peruse past newspapers and feel sickened to see the continuing Zuma-Mbeki melodrama, the slightly more intriguing spy saga, the Imvume and UN food scandals taking on international proportions, and Scopa (standing committee on public accounts) yet again snatched from the official opposition.

Corruption in municipalities abounds and protests around delivery continue amid reports of gross underspending. In Western Cape, the SAPS takes sides between Rasool and Skwatsha, and assaults and shoots at peaceful protesters. Like Pieter-Dirk Uys, I remain grateful to the politicians for writing my script.

Let me remind you of a few incidents that struck me as related and which point to an increasingly heavy-handed police service that defies the very essence of Batho Pele. Police fire rubber bullets and tear gas at the poorest of the poor as they protest about typhoid deaths and raw sewage flowing across their streets and through their homes — while fat-cat African National Congress (ANC) councillors cream it off the top. What is frightening is not so much what we have come to, but where we are headed.

Our police, military and secret services, no more or less arrogant than their apartheid-era counterparts, are increasingly brutalising the vulnerable in our society — seemingly with impunity and with full approval from the top.

For example: “Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula has settled a R1,3m damages action by a restaurant owner, his assistant and two customers after police and paramilitary officials assaulted them in full view of members of the public in 2002.” This from the Cape Times, September 9.

The case against the minister was brought by the owner of the Mandola Restaurant in Observatory, Johan Dyssel, his assistant and two customers. They allege, without demur from Nqakula, that members of the police and paramilitary personnel arrived at the restaurant, without a warrant of arrest, broke down the door, assaulted four people by hitting them with fists, rifle butts and truncheons, swore at them and kicked them as they lay on the floor, damaged the restaurant and detained Dyssel and his assistant for two days. During their illegal incarceration the restaurant was looted — possibly by the very people who had deprived them of their rights. While paying out the R1,13m — not his money but yours and mine — Nqakula bizarrely, but in true apartheid tradition, alleged the arrests were lawful and, in the true apartheid-era ethos, there has been no indication of any action taken against the thugs responsible.

The military seems just as keen in this regard. In August, 72-year-old Simonstown pensioner Felix Baddely was awarded R60000 — your money and mine — after Adm George Mphaphi had him arrested by military police and confined to a police cell for a night without food or blankets. Baddely’s “crime” was to knock on the door of his neighbour, the admiral, at 9.30am, and ask him if he could stop his dogs from keeping the neighbourhood awake through repeated nights by their barking. Mphaphi was rewarded with a promotion to Pretoria where he now struts his stuff as head of external affairs for the defence department.

On February 13, the decades-old South African Museum of Military History was raided by a combined force of SAPS and military police. The curators, Susanne Blendulf and Richard Henry, were accused of having, among the more than 40000 exhibits on display, “suspicious, stolen, military vehicles”. Though they were unarmed and offered no resistance, our crack squad of commandos felt it necessary to lead them away in handcuffs. The museum director, John Keene, was at home recovering from an eye operation. He too was arrested, incarcerated and refused medical treatment even though it was explained to the goons on duty that this could result in his losing an eye.

They were only released after the public prosecutor refused to prosecute them.

Keene was rushed to hospital for an emergency eye operation and a subsequent operation was also required. Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota praised the quick and efficient actions of the police.

The perceptions of an increasingly concerned international community were summed up by Helmoet Romer-Heitman, local representative for Jane’s Defence Weekly. He described the arrest and incarceration of the three curators as “medieval”.

Transformation — the ANC’s buzzword — is nothing but hogwash.

Kadalie is a human rights activist based in Cape Town.

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Let your head lead the way - let your heart advise