WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2008-12-13 Time: 06:00:07 Posted By: Jan
By Deon de Lange
Most people would agree that, along with jobs and education, crime continues to present South Africa with its toughest challenge.
Why then have successive presidents, ministers, party bosses and senior civil servants allowed their oversized egos to bedevil the fight against crime in this country?
Former president Thabo Mbeki, President Kgalema Motlanthe, ANC leader Jacob Zuma, suspended National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi, Justice Director-General Menzi Simelane, deposed minister of safety and security Charles Nqakula, bumbling Correctional Services Minister Ngconde Balfour and former justice minister Brigitte Mabandla – to name a few – have each played a role in this farce.
One by one, these people have undermined the fight against crime by allowing their petty squabbles, turf wars, personality clashes and political manoeuvring to overshadow what should have been an all-out drive to push back the rising tide of scum terrorising citizens.
For years we have listened to politicians talking about the need for a concerted and collective effort to sweep the criminals from our streets. What are you doing about crime, they ask.
Complain? How dare you? Shut up and leave the country, Nqakula told parliament not too long ago.
Then he played the race card. Only whites complain about crime, now that they feel the flames lapping at their backsides after decades of disproportionate police protection, he suggested. This may be so, but tell that to the residents of Nyanga, SA’s murder capital for three years running.
While Nqakula was restructuring the police for the fourth time in a decade, effectively closing down specialist units like the anti-hijacking and vehicle theft units, the Child Protection Unit and the drug squads, his political masters in the ANC were plotting the downfall of the Scorpions.
If ever there was an example of egos and factional interests trumping the fight against crime, then the drive to kill off the Scorpions must be it. Quite simply, the Scorpions are the victims of their own success. The list of senior politicians and civil servants who, at one time or another, have been investigated by this unit is very, very long – and includes the man most likely to be our next head of state.
Initially, ANC leaders didn’t even bother to hide the fact that this had nothing to do with strengthening the fight against crime – that little fib came much later.
ANC national executive committee member Nathi Mthethwa, who has since been rewarded for leading the charge against the Scorpions by being appointed minister of safety and security, slammed members of the elite unit as “adversaries of the democratic order”.
It is also a shocking indictment of our political leaders that, over the past decade, three major inquiries and commissions have been established, not to investigate crime itself, but to probe ego clashes and factional quarrelling between various law enforcement agencies and officials.
The Hefer Commission came about after two senior politicians – both of whom had reason to fear the National Prosecuting Authority – accused former prosecutions boss Bulelani Ngcuka of being an apartheid-era spy. After much public fuss – and expense – they retracted the claim.
The Khampepe Commission was established when turf wars and personality clashes between senior law enforcement officials threatened to dump the entire criminal justice system into chaos. This secret and dirty war among politicians and their civil service acolytes, essentially over who should run the Scorpions, highlighted to a shocking extent the degree to which the fight against crime had been subordinated to the power games of the governing elite.
In the end – and again at great cost – the commission basically told the politicians and government officials they should learn to play nicely. Set up a ministerial co-ordinating committee and sort out your own problems, they were told. But the bickering continued and the criminals cheered.
Most recently, the Ginwala Inquiry has provided another glimpse into the vindictive cesspit that is the South African political and administrative landscape. Again, this inquiry was not set up to deal with the pressing issue of crime, but to determine Vusi Pikoli’s fitness to hold office. Incidentally, the inquiry found him to be a person of “unimpeachable integrity”. Nonsense. Off with his head, says the president.
The inquiry revealed that Simelane spent much of his tax-funded time running a vendetta against Pikoli.
With Simelane gleefully steering the government’s ill-advised juggernaut against Pikoli, the inquiry delved into a litany of acrimonious letters and e-mails between ministers and officials and bitter standoffs over search warrants and politically “insensitive” prosecuting procedures.
Commenting on the government’s case, Ginwala said the following: “Some of the matters are… so remote that the inference is that the DG [Simelane] must have intended to throw a wide net to try to make something stick on Pikoli”. She also noted that some of the complaints against Pikoli were spurious and “may have been motivated by personal issues”. The more things change…
But while the egos clashed, much of the criminal justice system has been left leaderless – on autopilot. Over the past 24 months, at least five security structures – the SAPS, the NPA, the Independent Complaints Directorate, Correctional Services and the Scorpions – have at some point had to cope without a permanently appointed boss.
Zuma has, meanwhile, begun talking tough about crime as he tap-dances his way to an election – and a possible “political solution” to his own legal morass.
Pre-election promises about laws that bite and about getting tough on criminals are as old, stale and useless as the rust buckets our under-resourced police men and women use to patrol our neighbourhoods.
We already have laws that bite. They should simply be enforced. Crimes should be properly investigated and mercilessly prosecuted. Our cops are tough on criminals – almost 800 people died last year as a result of police action or in police custody. Then again, more than 1 400 escaped from police custody. Go figure.
And when a recent drunk-driving case against ANC stalwart and (presumably) reformed fraudster Tony Yengeni was deliberately bungled by the police, not a word of condemnation was heard from our political rulers.
So, as we head into the festive season – a time when criminals rape, pillage and plunder with abandon – it is perhaps pertinent to remind our political leaders that there is an election around the corner.
They should not be too surprised if citizens respond to their pompous posturing and bloated egos in the way they use their pencils in the voting booth.