Late one Friday afternoon in November 2006 a Bush Radio listener brought a battered and terrified Jonas Majila to our studios in Salt River.

The listener brought Majila to the station because he knew of the work Bush Radio does in communities and hoped that we would be able to get Majila’s story heard in Cape Town.

Bush Radio’s Adrian Louw and Brenda Leonard took Majila into the production studio and asked for permission to record what had happened to him, as well as take photographs of his injuries. They spent almost two hours going over his version of the events that had transpired.

The story as it appears on the Bush Radio News blog

Former trainee news editor Nadia Samie was then tasked with following up the matter with the police spokespeople as well as the local refugee forum. This eventually led to a Bush Radio News exclusive article.

A few months later the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD) requested a copy of the photographs taken of Majila to show the extent of his injuries. Adrian Louw was also requested to submit a signed affidavit confirming that he had taken the photographs and that the content had not be altered in any way.

Towards the latter part of 2007, Adrian Louw received his first summons to testify. After several postponements and delays in the trial, Louw finally testified on the 16th October 2009.

The two police officers where found guilty of assault and sentenced yesterday. CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL STORY

With safety and security being one of the biggest worries and priorities with regards to the 2010 FIFA soccer world cup, Cape Town has drawn up an extensive security plan as part of the preparations for the event’s Final Draw! With this, Cape Town solidly reinforces  its previous statement that ‘it is ready’ for the Final Draw for the 2010 world cup.

Almost 1600 police officers will be on duty just before, during, and the days after the Final Draw of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, which is scheduled for 4 December 2009 in Cape Town. During the event the 2010 match schedule will be revealed, a moment which is being anticipated by soccer fans world wide. A rush on football tickets and accommodation for the world cup football is expected straight after the event.

The officers of the South African Police Service (SAPS) will be working closely together with army personnel, private security personnel and intelligence agents, to ensure that the Final Draw will be incident free. The price tag of the security measures: 800.000 euro (8 million rand).

According to André Pruis, who heads World Cup-related operations for the police, some of the 1 587  police agents that will be deployed just before and after the event during which the match schedule of the 2010 FIFA world cup will be revealed, have been drafted in from other parts of South Africa, to help Cape Town’s local police force.

All local SAPS and metro police officers are either on duty or on standby until the curtain comes down. They will be reinforced by members of the defense force, the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), customs, home affairs, disaster management, members of the special task force, and officers from the anti-terrorism unit.

“In the coming days, the officers will become visible in cars, helicopters, on horseback and on foot”, said Pruis. “A number of covert mechanisms are also in place, including plain-clothes patrols and hidden cameras at ground and aerial level. We are taking no chances,” he said in a press release.

When it comes to safety and security, South Africa is taking no risk during the 2010 world cup: 50.000 extra cops are being trained as we speak, every stadium will boast a special police station and police cells, and 54 special 2010 world cup courts are being established to deal with 2010 related crime effectively.

The Final Draw is expected to be a massive party in Cape Town, which will host a music festival on Long Street. Despite the road closures in the area, most residents have said to be looking forward to the event.

I have amused myself to the point of inanity in recent months trying to work out a pattern to BKV’s seemingly random staffing of controllers at my local metro station. Just when I felt I was on the brink of some major discovery, after nearly five months of mental note-taking and complex calculations, they’ve disappeared. And they left without even saying goodbye. For two days now, I’ve had to brave the escalators into the wider world without their customary cheery jó reggelts and köszönöms. I feel like my right arm has been cut off… the one that’s itching to wear one of those armbands.

I’ve heard tell of those who’ve passed through the jegyellenőr gauntlet with the same ticket twenty times or more; or those who’ve travelled for weeks on an expired pass. So I have to wonder what exactly is it that my friends with the armbands think they’re controlling. I’m not the first to wonder why the BKV doesn’t just install ticket machines at metro stations. Or have front-entry buses? And I certainly won’t be the last sap to ask why not? So why not?  

Sledges, skis or saplings?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a great fan of the BKV. I really am. It’s one of the best public transport systems I’ve encountered in my travels. Its detractors should trying living in cities where buses travel in bunches, if they travel at all, or where timetables express hope rather than intent. Perhaps we’re both on the same cycle but I’ve rarely, if ever, had to wait more than five minutes for a bus, tram or metro to come get me. There are clocks to tell me exactly how long I can expect to be kept waiting. The journey planning tool on the website has demystified Budapest for me making even the remotest parts accessible. And the English-language instructions about what I can carry with me are simple and to the point: one sledge, one pair of skis, one wrapped sapling tree or a pram.

Back in the early days when, although a seasoned traveler, I was a BKV novice, I thought that as long as I stayed underground my ticket was valid. I changed lines and didn’t validate a second ticket. I was nabbed at Nyugati, my book of tickets confiscated, and demands made on me for my passport and 5000 ft. I had neither. I asked to go to an ATM to get the money and by the time I got back, the lady with the armband (the one I’m itching to wear) had vanished. I reckoned I owed the universe about 3000 ft (the fine minus the cost of a book of tickets), a debt I duly discharged using the next homeless man I met as my broker. It wasn’t an experience I particularly wanted to repeat. So, after calculating that I’d cover the cost of my pass by Day 17 (I can be a little dim at times), I decided to cross over to the other side of the tracks and go the Havi Budapest-bérlet route. I also corrected that unwitting mistake I made when first recounting this story: my ticket wasn’t inspected…I was controlled!

Off tramway

My pass is like a front-row ticket to a series of vignettes played out in front of me at least once a day. As the controllers board and take a minute to get in costume, the actors take their cues. The martyred monthlies sigh in exasperation as they root through their bags and pockets, annoyed that their respectability is being called into question. Those on the precipice of pensiondom frown slightly, adding those all important extra wrinkles in their attempt to look just a little beyond the magic age of 65. Those who have already passed this mark smile a peculiarly self-congratulatory smile that admonishes ‘you, too, can travel for free when you’ve clocked up as many miles as I have’. The pubescent plugged-ins barely miss a beat as they languidly show their passes. And then there are the dodgers; highly skilled performers of a different kind.

The starers simply stare, be it out the window or into space or at their shoes, hoping the controller won’t be too persistent. The diversionists get on their mobiles and launch into a very important business call from which they cannot possibly be disturbed. The magicians disappear out of one carriage and reappear in another. The expressionists look amazed at the fact that their passes have expired. The innocents smile and simper…and make like tourists. It’s a Mecca for the method actor.

But because I’m concentrating on not behaving in a way which is scandalous or antisocial, and because I don’t get to wear an armband, I’m relegated to sitting quietly with my wrapped sapling tree and enjoying the performance.

This article first published in the Budapest Times 22 November 2009

Appeared on News24.com – 2009-11-22 17:

Johannesburg – Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa must clarify how he plans to fill thousands of vacancies to be created following his decision to terminate R339m worth of labour brokers’ contracts, the DA said on Sunday.

Spokesperson Dianne Kohler-Barnard said in a statement that among the temporary employees used by the South African Police Service were thousands of private security guards used in peripheral security positions, which helped free up the number of officers available for operational duty.

Kohler-Barnard said Mthethwa announced his decision in a reply to a Parliamentary question, but that he had not explained how he reached his decision. She would be writing to him on Monday for an explanation.

Kohler-Barnard presumed that Mthethwa’s decision meant that more police officers would now have to be diverted to these secondary positions, leaving fewer resources available for protecting the public. Security firms She said Mthethwa indicated in his Parliamentary reply that in 2008/2009, his department spent R339m on labour brokers, including private security firms. The previous year, R112m was spent on private security alone, and in 2008/2009, 197 police stations used private security companies to guard and control access.

Kohler-Barnard said the decision meant nearly 200 police stations would now have to divert officers away from core responsibilities towards the peripheral roles filled by placed temporary employees. She said it also meant R339m of salaried positions, probably amounting to about 3 000 posts, needed to be filled in the next financial year for the Saps to continue in its current operational capacity.

“One can only imagine this is an attempt to appease calls from the far left for labour-broking to be banned and constitutes further evidence that unions are anti-poor and are set on preventing those people without jobs, from obtaining them,” Kohler-Barnard said. She said the minister needed to explain on what basis he made his decision as there was no justification for banning labour brokers.

Backs to wall in Blikkiesdorp (Note: Police are trying to enforce an illegal 9pm curfew in Blikkiesdorp)

SOMALIS warned by people in Blikkiesdorp to move out or face the wrath of the community, remain adamant that they want to leave South Africa.

“There has been no physical violence, but (the Somalis) report that they are being threatened and harassed daily,” said Charlene May, the group’s legal representative from the Legal Resources Centre (LRC).
“We were told by the SAPS that the threats were from people who were unhappy about the Somalis receiving houses.”

The Somalis have asked the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to move them as they had no money to pay for their return to Somalia.

“The UNHCR cannot send them back to Somalia as it remains one of the most violent places in the world and does not have a (functioning) central government, which is why many of them fled the country,” May said.

“The only option that we have now is resettlement, a process that can be done only through the UNHCR.

“If they cannot be resettled, then they have to remain in Blikkiesdorp, rebuild financially and move somewhere safer, or make enough money to leave the country on their own account.”

The families were moved from the Blue Waters safe site to the Blikkiesdorp emergency camp in Delft as they and others were identified as a group which would be vulnerable if there were renewed xenophobic attacks.

May said they were told that the facilities would be better than at Blue Waters, but the conditions in Blikkiesdorp were worse.

“There is no electricity, water is from the taps outside and they are being stopped by the residents from using the toilets,” May said.

Conditions at Blue Waters were also difficult, according to May.

Since the site’s closure last November, no services, such as deliveries of food or clothing, had been allowed. Charities delivering food were sometimes stopped at the gate, and many of the tents had blown down.

Gerald Flagg, chairman of the Blikkiesdorp residents’ committee, said that he was working closely with the Somalis.

“They are doing well, there have been no threats or violence from the other residents,” he said.

“The SAPS are patrolling daily and law enforcement takes over at night.”

According to Flagg, police sound their vehicle sirens at 9pm to warn the people of Blikkiesdorp that they should be indoors.

This was a way of averting criminal activity, he said.

May said the LRC was monitoring the situation at Blikkiesdorp and keeping in contact with the UNHCR.

mary-anne.gontsana@inl.co.za

This is the first time I’ve ever seen this search.  All I can say, the most extreme female sociopath I’ve ever known said cats and dogs hated her.  Was this just something unique to her or do dogs and cats have some innate sense of fairplay?  Did they recognize her as a rapacious, reptilian-minded predator?  I don’t know.

Other searches

Pseudologia fantastica in real person: Yep, it’s real alright.  Actually if one is not immediately caught up and swept away by the pseudologue’s “pity play” then they are more obvious than regular sociopaths — their stories are so extreme and fantastical.

How to get a workplace sociopath to leave: Good luck.

How to let go of a sociopath: This will happen when your soul (not your mind) realizes there is no soul in the other person.  If this doesn’t happen, perhaps the other person is not a sociopath or perhaps you are actually fighting a realization that one of your parents is sociopathic ($50 please).

Or in the emotional immediacy of transsociopathica’s words:

A few months after you have recovered you will wonder what you ever saw in these things. They will rapidly seem cold, ugly, empty, pathetic, distorted and almost deformed to you. That’s because this is what they are, always were, and you are finally perceiving them in their real unmasked state. This ‘broken beast’ is all that’s left and the only memory you’ll have of them going into the future. It’s all they deserve, because it is all they are.  http://transsociopathica.blogspot.com/2009/10/farewell-my-sociopath-hello-real-love.html

Sociopath at parties: Due to few inhibitions and no shame they can be real lives of the party.  Read “The Incredible Charlie Carewe” ($94, http://www.amazon.com/incredible-Charlie-Carewe-Mary-Astor/dp/B00005W69S Some are also very, very skillful at party crashing.

Sociopath and blackmailing: Goes together like ham and eggs.  They love crimes without consequence.

Pictures of  Thomas Capano: Hmmm.  This is a repeat search.  He’s the only one of my blog’s possible sociopaths (more than possible in his case) whose picture people seem particularly interested in.  I don’t know why.

I was with a sociopath for 8 years…why? For one thing, since no one is ever informed of this possibility as they are growing up or upon reaching romantic age, it often takes years for someone to realize their situation.  Also, as the sociopath often cons relatives of the non-sociopath, individuals in your position are really on their own.  Addressing this is one of the main missions of my blog.

You have a lot of company.  Ann Landers was married for thirty years to the sociopath, in my opinion of course, Jules Lederer (who she described as the best salesman in the world).  They met while she was shopping for a wedding dress for her upcoming marriage to another person.  Just the kind of challenge that might appeal to a “super” sociopath.  Also, as I recall, her sister, Dear Abby, criticized her after the divorce for not understanding her husband.

Are sociopaths giving to neighbors and friends? I have witnessed such behavior, but it was only used to engender goodwill to set up later depredations.  Like a “pity play” (all sociopaths excel at inducing people to feel sorry for them) it brings people to their side emotionally.  Often, it seems, they want a reservoir of protectors before they commit their antisocial depredations (such as date/friend rape, “dress gray” rape, tricking a teen neighbor into prostitution, outright thievery, “murder by suicide” bullying (this is no exaggeration), blackmail, etc.).  They want the accuser to be met with angry disbelief (anger that such a nice person would be accused).  Not only do they wish to protect themselves through “plausible lies,” they want to place their victims in the position of having to claim “implausible truths.”

Can God change a sociopath? The short answer is no.  That would be akin to changing a stone into a block of wood, or lead to gold.  If the question is actually can sociopaths be lead to see the error of their ways and cease being sociopaths, unfortunately the answer is absolutely not.  Sociopaths have their own nature, they are the way they are born to be.  “Socially acceptable psychopaths” (SAPs) who, by definition are capable as passing in normal society, can choose whether or not to follow society’s norms and laws but they can’t feel them.  Justice and empathy are just empty words, even to them.  This searcher might be interested in the post,  “More structural brain abnormalities seen in psychopaths,” over at Psychopathy 101, http://psychopathy101.wordpress.com/2009/09/28/more-structural-brain-abnormalities-seen-in-psychopaths/.  I think its clear that most sociopaths are born with these brain structures.

Drifter & sociopath:  The drifters and rolling stones of life are in fact often sociopaths, driven by boredom and lack of emotional bonds.  Boredom is simply one of their prime driving forces.  Thus the backwaters, catch basins and outposts of empires or large nations have a much higher sociopathic percentage — for example, California, Australia and New Zealand.

Will my baby be born a sociopath?:  Here’s a heart breaker.  From the little I know, it seems the genetics of sociopathy is very complex.  I’ll try to look into this further.  If this searcher was attracted to a sociopath because one of her parents was sociopathic the odds aren’t good.

Once again, the South African Police Service has released the national crime statistics, according to SAPS. Once again, the question that begs an answer arises:-

“Do the categories define ‘crime’?” Clearly the answer is a resounding ‘NO!’

If there are no other crimes besides these, then it would be an admission that fines issued for every other action were illegally issued. And this would include traffic fines and fines for illegal signage and late submission of tax returns.

The mind boggles.

The SAPS is by no means the be all and end all of Law Enforcement in the land. An equally important component is the Metropolitan Police Service of each Municipality. It is the task and responsibility of these MPS to enforce every Act, Law and by-Law passed to make Municipalities safe and comfortable for all law-abiding citizens, and to refer to the SAPS those crimes it (the SAPS) considers as crimes.

Government has to stress that the stats are based on reported crimes, and qualify that there are crimes that do not make it into the stats because they are not reported, are not prosecuted because officers are not alert or choose to ignore them, are with the ICD, etc.

By definition,

crime |krīm|

noun

an action or omission that constitutes an offense that may be prosecuted by the state and is punishable by law : shoplifting was a serious crime.

• illegal activities : the victims of crime.

• an action or activity that, although not illegal, is considered to be evil, shameful, or wrong : they condemned apartheid as a crime against humanity | it’s a crime to keep a creature like Willy in a tank.

Simply, if there is a penalty prescribed by any Department of Government for any action, then that action is a crime.

Suppose that Stats reveal that, in urban eThekwini, prosecutions for driving with fog lamps on during the period April to March for 2003/2004 to 2008/2009 were a, b, c, d, e and f, and it is patent that the crime is still prevalent and increasing in frequency. In that case it is easy to see that the Durban MPS (DuMPS) needs to deploy more staff to rid us of that crime, even if it means more staff have to be employed – the value of fines issued would more than justify employing staff with the will to deliver.

And if it becomes necessary to employ more staff, the existing officers must be cautioned to pull up their socks and be alert.

Then an attitude of Zero Tolerance against abuse of authority and defeating the ends of policing can be implemented.

What goes through your mind when, as a result of you being courteous, an impatient driver hoots at you?

For weeks now, some road work has created a kink in the left-hand lane between Mona Road and Stanger Street, east-bound on Victoria Embankment. In a world-class city, such a kink would be manned to facilitate a smooth traffic flow. In this city, motorists are left to fend for themselves, and are allowed passage by considerate others.

At 4.55pm, I slowed down to allow three cars to change lanes and was was blasted by the siren of a SAPS car. I was shaken, but not stirred. A look in the rear-view mirror showed that it was a car, BPT331B. My first intention was to report this to someone. But to whom? Then I thought ‘No more Mr Nice-Guy’ – but why should one abusive cop abusing his position deter me from choosing when to perform good deeds? So I chose was this N&S (Name and Shame) act.

When authorities fail to deliver, assume that they can if communities become proactive and, when you do show a willingness to assist, still fail to deliver, then you reserve the right to be proactive when and if you choose.

Exercising that right, I chose not to report that most of the lights in my street did not come on tonight. My past experience also informed my decision:-

At 19:25 on 26 May 2009 I reported, “The street and Park lights in (street name), North Beach, Durban have gone out about an hour ago”. At 19.30 there was an auto-response.

The next day, at 07:25, I received a request,

“Hi.

Please supply us with street pole numbers so that we can log a faulty (sic)

Thanks
Mary Mhlongo
Act Call Centre supervisor
0801313111″

This one of those stories that really piss the hell out of me and not only because it happened in my neighbourhood.It was reported in the Cape Times  that Dutch Student, Adam Hijner, boarded a taxi in Sea Point last month only to be abducted,assaulted and taken to Woodstock where he was threatened at gunpoint while the robbers stole 600 Rand and his cellphone.[Full article HERE]

Despite all of this Hijner stated that : “I LOVE this city, I love the people and I love the opportunities”.

His brutal ordeal is tragic, but this is not what is pissing me off.You see ..Hijner managed to see the number plate of the taxi which he reported to the police.He then entered a taxi last week and spoke to the driver about the incident after which the driver replied that he knew of the gang and that the same guys had “had previously raped a girl, and two months ago they had assaulted and robbed another guy, (before) running him over.”

Its gets worse:

After more than a month he had seen the very same taxi “at least six times” with the attackers inside, operating on the Sea Point route.

WTF? This is some scary sh*t.Not only to people who regularly use these taxis but also because the police havn’t arrested them yet.

UPDATE: Now it appears that an argument has ensued between the Peninsula Taxi Association (PTA) and mayoral committee member JP Smith.The PTA recons that the attackers did not work for them and they were operating illegally while Smith has stated that the PTA were using the idea of an illegal taxi as a “defense against public” complaints.[ Reported by Jason Warner, Cape Times Page 2,Sep 10]

On 19 June, Kwana News reported that 2 weeks earlier speedsters crashed into 2 parked vehicles in Somtseu Road.

One of the vehicles, a cream Merc, remained at the scene till today, Friday 4 September 2009.

It is illegal for vehicles to remain parked in the same spot on a roadway for longer than a week. After a week the police would mark it ‘POLICE AWARE’, normally. Then, after 2 weeks, it would be removed to the municipal pound, normally.

Excuse me, but it is understandable that since Somtseu Road is kind of off-the-beaten-path, no SAPS or Metro Police happened that way since the accident.

If only the cops had partnered with some residents, the said vehicle would not have remained an eyesore for 13 weeks!

Foto de nicholas macgowan segundo licença CC-BY-NC 2.0

A operação “Washa Tsotsi”, uma vasta campanha contra a criminalidade na África do Sul, visando a captura de criminosos violentos, a identificação de indivíduos pertencentes a associações criminosas e o aumento da cooperação entre as comunidades e autoridades locais, permitiu até agora, à polícia sul-africana (SAPS), deter mais de 750 criminosos e apreender centenas de bens avaliados em cerca de 25,5 milhões de randes. A estratégia, montada pelo ministro da Segurança, Nathi Mthethwa, permitiu deter violadores, raptores, homicidas, traficantes de droga, grupos que se dedicavam a assaltos a bancos, lojas, carjacking, mas também detectar laboratórios de droga e oficinas de desmantelamento de carros roubados. A operação, lançada a 01 de Julho, tem sido levada a cabo em toda a extensão do território do país, mas com reforçada presença policial nas províncias de Kwazulu-Natal e Gauteng.

Rui Aguiar

Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape Press Update

The ABM-WC is calling an end to state criminality of criminalizing it’s members by applying old apartheid tactics of arresting, assaulting, and shooting people with rubber bullets when they exercise their right to freedom of expression and the right to protest.

The movement will not be silenced by the state under the leadership of so called ANC government, and will continue to be vocal using any forms of engagement.

The ANC NWC had issues the following press statement, calling on communities not engaging government on mass base activities and as ABM-WC we are calling on to the ANC-NWC not on employing the old regem tactics through using police force to despense people and we are saying they must come down and listen at peoples demands and not be reactional as their head of human settlement Tokyo who owns a 56 million house, while the poor are struggling to get the security of tenure to the land that they have occupied for years, still dumped our site the cities and living under appallling conditions with no access to clean water and toilets.

Update no 1:

More than 15 people were shot at by rubber bullets by reactional SAPS and Metropolice Members at yesterdays protest at Khayelitsha and one of them is under critical condition at Grooteschuur Hospital. He is the only bread winner for his family and he is having 5 children, which four of them are still schooling, and he is between the age of 45 and 50.
Currently we are not aware of any arrests that have been made and we’ll be able to uptade the media regard to arrests during the couse of the day and with futher injuries.

Currently the landsdown road from Steve Biko Drive to Bonga drive is still not working and QQ, RR, and BM residents will make sure that today as early as 08:HRS in the morning they continue with their freedom of expression through mass base activities and if Dan Plato and his disaster management team continues with their attitute of undermining the poor, we will also continue with our protest till he comes down to the poor.

PLEASE NOTE: on the 25th July 2009 Abahlali baseMjondolo Western Cape will be marching to the City of Cape Town in support of macassar village land occupation and against city’s illigal demolitions of peoples structures at macassar village and in demand of peoples material that were confiscated illigal by so called city’s anti land invasion unit.

fore more info please call:

for macassar village please call Theliwe Macekiswana at 083 248 1658

For Khayelitsha Protest please call Mbongeni Mkhalipi at 076 981 6945 for QQ and RR
Mthobeli Qona at 076 875 9533 for QQ, RR and BM
Cebo at 073 5657850 for PJS

For ABM-WC march and further information please call Mzonke Poni ABM-WC chairperson at 073 2562 036

–
ANC NWC MEDIA STATEMENT ON SERVICE DELIVERY PROTESTS

The African National Congress (ANC) National Working Committee (NWC) today (13 July 2009) held its regular meeting at Chief Albert Luthuli House in Johannesburg to deliberate on various challenges facing the organisation.

Noting the various service delivery protests in some parts of the country, the NWC expressed concern at the violent nature of the demonstrations. The burning of buildings and stoning of vehicles have been among the violent tactics employed by the protesters.

We call on our people to stop the violence and engage meaningfully with leaders at all levels to express their concerns.

Issued by:
Brian Sokutu
African National Congress
Chief Albert Luthuli House
54 Sauer Street
Johannesburg 2001

13 July 2009

Enquiries:
Brian Sokutu 071 671 6899

On Tuesday last week, backyarders in Macassar, desperate for homes, built shacks on municipal land on a field adjoining the N2 – and were illegally evicted by Cape Town’s Anti-Land Invasion unit, together with the SAPS and Metro Police.

Their building materials were confiscated and taken off in a truck. In the process, four people, including a two-year old child, were wounded by police rubber bullets, four people – including myself – were taken into custody and three of these charged with public violence.
On Wednesday evening a solution to the situation appeared to have been reached. The Macassar SAPS superintendent, Princess Benjamin, brokered negotiations between representatives of the occupiers and the local Independent Democrats (ID) councillor, John Heuvel.

At 8pm the representatives returned to open land next to the field, to which the homeless occupiers had removed their furniture, where they had slept the previous night, and where they were now sitting around fires.

The representatives announced that the councillor had agreed that the people could occupy a piece of land nearby and that they should build shacks there immediately. The councillor promised that the mayor, Dan Plato, would come at 9am to endorse this. The people rushed to begin, and as they did so, some 10 police cars guarding the field that had been occupied left it.

However, on Thursday morning Plato did not turn up. Instead, Metro Police appeared and supervised the renewed destruction of the structures and more building materials were confiscated. What caused this disgraceful abandonment of an agreement between the people and the ward councillor?

Macassar, a formerly “coloured” area, is now bursting at the seams with overcrowded houses, occupied by both coloured and African families, as well as a few white families. Both coloureds and Africans participated in the occupation.

Macassar is one part of Cape Town’s housing crisis, where there is a backlog of some 400 000 homes, increasing by some 20 000 a year, but with a maximum of 8 000 houses a year being built. Backyarders in Macassar pay exorbitant rents to the house owners of R300 to R500 a month, and that is why they want decent homes of their own.

Before the elections, backyarders in Macassar had approached then mayor Helen Zille several times with letters and SMSes. She eventually said she would get Plato to visit them to hear their grievances. He never came.

After the elections people decided they would have to go it on their own. They identified a piece of vacant land and spent three days cleaning it in preparation for a picnic and sports event on Saturday, May 16, but this was wiped out by the first of the Cape’s winter storms.

So on the night of Monday, May 18 they gathered at 6pm to build, and succeeded through the night in erecting a number of complete shacks; many brought their furniture to put on their intended shack sites.

In spite of the Prevention of Illegal Eviction from, and Unlawful Occupation of, Land Act of 1998, which states that a court order is necessary before people are evicted from any built structures, the shacks were torn down again and this time the materials were confiscated.

The initial response of the community was to try to occupy the adjacent N2, which the police prevented.

People returned to the road next to the field they had occupied and marched up and down, singing and toyi-toying. The police became very restless and tried to block the marches by parking police cars three abreast in the road, but people just marched through without touching the cars.

I was there taking pictures of all this. Someone in plain clothes who later turned out to be a Crime Intelligence Unit photographer started trying to take pictures of me, perhaps because I was the only white person there. I tried to dodge him but he persisted.

An SAPS inspector in plain clothes came and stood right next to me, trying to intimidate me. When I swore back at him he became incensed and grabbed me, soon supported by other police officers.

People were disturbed and started to complain and move in my direction. Very fast, a ring of police was around me, with their shotguns pointing outward. I was told to move quietly towards a police van and as I reached it, the police opened fire. In the hail of rubber bullets four people – including a two-year-old child – were wounded.

Soon three other people were escorted to the police van. None of them was in the slightest way involved.

One had been riding past on a bicycle and dropped to the ground when he heard the fire.

Another fell over as the shots were fired, and happened to touch a policeman.

The third had been pepper-gassed and had handcuffs on, but said he had done nothing.

The following morning they appeared in the Somerset West court and were released with no bail, but charged with “public violence”.

All this, apparently precipitated by the inspector grabbing me unnecessarily, was quite needless.

Now the responsibility for denying these homeless people land on which to build shacks rests with the DA-controlled council.

Plato has recently claimed he intends to increase house-building in Cape Town from 8 000 to between 20 000 and 25 000 a year. This would, he claimed, allow the backlog to be ended in less than 20 years.

How he expects to do this in these times of recession is anybody’s guess. But even if he could manage it, given that the backlog increases by 18 000 to 20 000 a year, on his figures for house-building it would take something like 100 years to end it.

If house-building cannot solve the ever-increasing backlog the pressures will become too great.

If the DA’s “no tolerance of land occupations” is rigidly enforced – as it is trying to do – it will increase the overcrowding of houses – and, most likely, the abuse of women and children, drug abuse and crime – all of which the DA claims to be against.

If housing cannot be provided immediately for all, people must be allowed to find land on which to build shacks, whether that land is municipal, state, provincial or private.

The officials of the Anti-Land Invasion Unit behaved very arrogantly and inflexibly.

Repression is not the answer to the housing crisis, and the unit should be immediately disbanded.

Zille has criticised the ANC’s N2 Gateway housing project for favouring an elite. Instead she promotes the old apartheid site-and-service schemes, yet she wants to repress people building housing for themselves. This is despite the DA ideology of entrepreneurship and the free market.

The ID ward councillor, Heuvel, says he opposes land occupations because people who carry them out “gain the impression they should get the first option for housing”. Of course this is nonsense. People in shacks want houses, but they are prepared to accept waiting lists – provided those waiting lists are fair and transparent.

In fact many involved in the Macassar occupation have been waiting 20 or 30 years for houses. But to ensure fairness and transparency, it is incumbent on the Cape Town council to publish its waiting list, with clear indication of the dates on which people first applied for housing.

In Macassar, as elsewhere in the Western Cape, big mistrust in political parties is developing, despite the recent elections. People believe politicians only want their votes to enjoy the privileges of office, and that they are universally corrupt.

The housing crisis in the Western Cape and nationally continues. It is, in fact, an emergency situation. But no political party has answers to it. None of them is prepared to put the 4 million to 8 million unemployed to work to build mass housing under the aegis of the state. So the rich continue to get housed and the poor suffer overcrowding, as well as police violence and deprivation of property when they try to assert their rights.

Legassick is Emeritus Professor at the University of the Western Cape and a housing activist.

A massive crime prevention operation took place in Jeffreys Bay on Friday night that involved Police from Humansdorp, Traffic officials from the Kouga Municipality, the CPF, Security Companies, the Jeffreys Bay Crime Prevention Unit and the Sector Policemen.

In 2008 I was elected onto the executive of the local Community Police Forum (CPF). The CPF is the only community organization in South Africa that operates under an act of Parliament.  This means the CPF has the powers to accompany the Police when they perform their duties and is mandated to do cell visitations to monitor jail conditions at the local police station amongst other functions.

Here is a story about a night in the life of a Jeffreys Bay policeman.

On Friday night a massive crime prevention operation took place in Jeffreys Bay that involved Police from Humansdorp, Traffic officials from the Kouga Municipality, the CPF, Security Companies, the Jeffreys Bay Crime Prevention Unit and the Sector Policemen. 

A seizure operation on an illegal shebeen (tavern) had been planned and in a well co-ordinated operation about 13 police vans and a flat bed truck moved into the shanty suburb of Ocean View.  The objective was to close down the shebeen, confiscate the liquor and if possible even the fridges, which would all be used as evidence in the prosecution of the owner. 

All those involved in the operation met at the local police station at 8 pm for a final briefing.  Firstly everybody dispersed through the suburbs of the town as a show of force to display that all the arms of Jeffreys Bay Law Enforcement meant business that night. 

After a relatively quiet week crime was on the rise in town. A spike in theft from motor vehicles had been experienced as well as a few cars that had been stolen.  The streets were patrolled looking for known faces as a few habitual criminals were back on the streets after being released from prison. 

The first of a number of arrests for drunk driving also occurred.  Youngsters who were endangering their own and other people’s lives by doing donuts outside the municipal building in the main road and jumping stop streets at high speed soon saw the cells at the police station start to fill up. 

When the raid on the shebeen took place, the Crime Prevention Unit stopped outside the converted house and quickly moved in to clear the illegal tavern of its customers.  While some policemen stayed outside to guard the police vans against possible attack, others moved in to assist with the confiscation of crates and crates of beer and other drinks. 

Once the liquor was dropped off at the police station, the paperwork began.  Itemizing every bottle of beer and the cash was a painstaking affair, to ensure that no mistakes were made that could be challenged in court after all the hard and dangerous work had been completed. 

Then it was backs to the streets to sort out fights that had broken out, attend to requests for help from the public who were being robbed and domestic violence cases that kept being reported throughout the night. Other night clubs and taverns that had been operating past their permissible closing times were visited by the Police and told to obey the law. 

While cruising down Diaz Road at 2 am, an alert policeman spotted a violent and habitual criminal from Thornhill lurking amongst the cars and looking suspicious.  The close co-operation within the Kouga Law Enforcement branches quickly revealed that the man was on bail from a case and that there was another suspect operating with him who was wanted by the Thornhill Police. 

Arrests were made for more traffic offences as well as assaults which had caused the cells to fill up. By 4 am Jeffreys Bay started to slumber off and the dedicated individuals from all the Law Enforcement agencies that are tasked with keeping us safe in our beds at night headed home to catch a few hours of well deserved sleep.

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For more pictures including the ongoing camping by residents, click here.

land occupations in Macassar

On Tuesday 19th backyarders in Macassar, desperate for homes, built shacks on municipal land on a field adjoining the N2 – and were illegally evicted by Cape Town’s DA Helen-Zille-inspired Anti-Land Invasion unit, together with SAPS and Metro Police. Their building materials were confiscated and taken off in a truck. In the process four people (including a 2-year old child) were unnecessarily wounded by police rubber bullets, four people (including myself) were unnecessarily taken into custody and three of these wrongfully charged with public violence.
On Wednesday evening a solution to the situation appeared to have been reached. The Macassar SAPS superintendent, Princess Benjamin, brokered negotiations between representatives of the occupiers and the local ID councillor, John Heuvel. At 8pm the representatives returned to open land next to the field, to which the homeless occupiers had removed their furniture and slept the previous night, and were now sitting around fires. The representatives announced that the councillor had agreed the people could occupy a piece of land nearby and that they should build shacks there immediately. The councilor promised that the mayor, Dan Plato, would come at 9 the following morning to endorse this. The people rushed to begin, and as they did so, some ten police cars guarding the field that had been occupied, left it.

However the next morning (Thursday) Dan Plato did not turn up. Instead Metro Police appeared and supervised the renewed destruction of the structures. More building materials were confiscated. What caused this disgraceful abandonment of an agreement between the people and the ward councilor? According to the Metro Police boss, “a ward councilor cannot allocate land, but only the council. I work for the mayor. That is why I countermanded the agreement.” In other words, the anti-poor policies of the Democratic Alliance is what put a spanner in the works.

Macassar, a formerly ‘coloured’ area, is now bursting at the seams with overcrowded houses, occupied by both coloured and African families (and even a few whites).  Both coloureds and Africans participated in the occupation. Macassar is one part of Cape Town’s housing crisis, where there is a backlog of some 400,000 homes, increasing by some 20,000 a year, but with a maximum of 8, 000 houses a year being built. Backyarders in Macassar pay exorbitant rents to the house-owners of some R300-R500 a months, and that is why they want decent homes of their own.

Before the elections, backyarders in Macassar had approached mayor Helen Zille several times with letters and SMSes. She eventually said she would get Dan Plato to visit them to hear their grievances. He never came. After the elections people decided they would have to go it on their own. They identified a piece of vacant land and spent three days cleaning it in preparation for a picnic and sports event on Saturday 16th, but this was wiped out by the first of the Cape’s winter storms.

So on the night of Monday 18th they gathered at 6pm to build, and succeeded through the night in erecting a number of complete shacks; many others brought their furniture to put on their intended shack sites. The DA-ordered eviction on Tuesday morning was illegal under the Prevention of Illegal Eviction from, and Unlawful Occupation of, Land Act of 1998 (PI), which states that any built structures require a court order before people are evicted from them. People put up the shacks again, but they were torn down again and this time the materials were confiscated.

The initial response of the community was to try to occupy the adjacent N2, which the police prevented. People returned to the road next to the field they had occupied and marched up and down, singing and toyi-toying. The police became very restless and tried to block the marches by parking police cars three abreast in the road but people just marched through without touching the cars.

I was there taking pictures of all this. Someone in plain clothes who it later turned out was a Crime Intelligence Unit photographer started trying to take pictures of me, perhaps because I was the only white there, sticking out like a milk bottle. I tried to dodge him but he persisted. An SAPS inspector in plain clothes came and stood right next to me, trying to intimidate me. When I swore back at him he became incensed and grabbed me, soon supported by other police officers. People were disturbed and started to complain and move in my direction. Very fast a ring of police was around me, with their shotguns pointing outwards. I was told to move quietly towards a police van and as I reached it, the police opened fire. In the hail of rubber bullets four people (including a two-year old child) were wounded.

Soon three other people were escorted to the police van. None of them were in the slightest involved. One had been riding past on a bicycle and dropped to the ground when he heard the fire. Another fell over at the fire, and happened to touch a policeman. The third had been pepper-gassed and had handcuffs on but said he had done nothing. The following morning they appeared in Somerset West Court, were released with no bail, but charged with “public violence”.

All this, apparently precipitated by the inspector grabbing me unnecessarily, was quite needless.

Later I told the inspector I was angry because the police were supporting an illegal eviction under the PIE Act. He replied “yes, you are right, it was illegal. But we are national police and here we were instructed by the (DA) provincial and local government.” Yet last week I was at a meeting in the same field when two people from the Anti-Land-Invasion Unit came and told us the meeting was illegal and tried to call the SAPS to disperse it. An SAPS van turned up, but left after five minutes. The SAPS need not respond to demands from provincial or municipal authorities if they believe those demands are illegal.

Poor people do not have the resources to call lawyers within minutes to place interdicts against police actions. That is the reason that the police get away with illegality.

Conditions of service in the police force are of course very bad. The inspector also told me he had been shot in the neck on duty and would be in a wheelchair in two months because of problems in his vertebrae. “I am afraid to sneeze”, he said. Why on earth them was he compelled to take charge of police in the delicate situation of a land occupation.

Significantly, however, it was the SAPS superintendent who brokered the negotiations (which failed) and it was Metro Police who carried out the evictions on Thursday morning.

Now the responsibility for denying these homeless people land on which to build shacks rests with the DA-controlled council. Plato has recently claimed he intends to increase house-building in Cape Town from 8000 to 20-25,000 a year. This would, he claimed, allow the backlog to be ended in less than 20 years. How he expects to do this in these times of recession is anybody’s guess. But even if he could manage it, given that the backlog increases by 18-20,000 a year, on his figures for house-building it would take something like 100 years to end it!

If house-building cannot solve the ever-increasing backlog the pressures will become too great. If the DA’s “no tolerance of land occupations” were rigidly enforced (as they are trying to do) it will massively increase overcrowding of houses – and hence, most likely, abuse of women and children, drug abuse, and crime (all of which the DA claims to be against). If housing cannot be provided immediately for all, people must be allowed to find land on which to build shacks, whether that land is municipal, state, provincial or even private. The officials of the Anti-Land-Invasion-Unit behave very arrogantly and inflexibly. Repression is no answer to the housing crisis, and the Unit should be immediately disbanded.

Zille has criticized the ANC’s N2 Gateway housing project for favouring an elite. Instead she promotes the old apartheid site-and-service schemes, yet she wants to repress people building housing for themselves! This is despite the DA ideology of entrepreneurship and the free market! What a contradiction!

The ID ward councilor John Heuvel says he opposes land occupations because people who carry them out “gain the impression they should get the first option for housing.” Of course this is nonsense. People in shacks want houses, but they are prepared to accept waiting lists – provided those waiting lists are fair and transparent. In fact many involved in the Macassar occupation have been waiting twenty or thirty years for houses. But to ensure fairness and transparency it is incumbent on the Cape Town council to publish its waiting list, with clear indication of the dates on which people first applied for housing.

In Macassar, as elsewhere in the Western Cape, big mistrust in political parties is developing, despite the recent elections. People believe politicians only want their votes to enjoy the privileges of office, and that they are universally corrupt.

The housing crisis in the Western Cape and nationally continues. It is, in fact, an emergency situation. But no political party has answers to it. None of them is prepared to put the 4-8 million unemployed to work to build mass housing under the aegis of the state. So the rich continue to get housed and the poor suffer overcrowding, as well as police violence and deprivation of property when they try to assert their rights.