The difference between our laws and policies and the realities on the ground has reached crisis proportions
THE COMMISSION of inquiry into the Marikana massacre
is revealing the extent of the crisis in our policing. We have learnt that
there was widescale torture after the massacre and that weapons were planted
near the bodies of the slain miners.
When a massacre is followed by torture and the
fabrication of evidence, and when all of this appears to have happened to
defend the National Union of Mineworkers against a popular revolt against its authority
it seems fair to argue that the era of democratic policing is nearing an end.
Marikana was not the first time the police have
acted in a manner that is both unlawful and aimed at defending the ruling party
rather than the rule of law. We all remember the televised murder of Andries Tatane
in a protest in Ficksburg in 2011. But David Bruce, a former political prisoner
and now a researcher, has shown that, in fact, 11 protesters were killed by the
police last year.
The first police killing of a protestor happened
here in Durban, at the former University of Durban-Westville, in 2000 when a
student, Michael Makhabane, was killed by the riot squad. Since then the number
of protestors killed by the police has gradually escalated over the years.
Disturbingly, the police have frequently been less than honest about these
deaths. When Monica Ngcobo, a popularwaiter at Splashes restaurant at the Durban
waterfront, was killed by the police in Umlazi in 2005 they claimed she had
been shot in the stomach with a rubber bullet while throwing a stone. It later
turned out that she had been shot in the back with live ammunition.
But although our policing problem can be traced
back to the murder of Makhabane in 2000 it was the militarisation of the police
in early 2012, as well as the promotion of a “shoot to kill” language by senior
officials that pushed our police over the edge.
Here in Durban the case of the Cato Manor unit
that has been accused of murdering criminal suspects and then planting guns on them
has made international headlines. The story came out after this unit pursued an
investigation into corruption in the police via links to a discredited
“businessman”. It has been suggested that people under investigation for gross
corruption took the story to the media in revenge. This fact, along with the legitimate
concern among citizens about shocking levels of violent
crime, has led to considerable public support
for the unit.
However, granting the police the right to
execute criminals is not the solution to our crime problem. For one thing
studies around the world show that police violence just leads to more violence
in return.
But normalising a right to kill on the part of
the police is also very dangerous in a country in which the politicisation of
the police, and political assassinations, are already rampant. If it becomes
acceptable for the police to execute criminals it is just a matter of time
before activists are executed too.
The Social Justice Coalition in Cape Town has
been strenuously criticised in some quarters for its elitist mode of operation
and its hostility to popular organisations.
Mob justice
But it has done an excellent job in raising the
issue of the crisis of policing in
Khayelitisha. Corruption has run rampant in the police in Khayelitsha; cases
are seldom investigated and as a result the community has lost all confidence
in the police. This has led to the community taking matters into its own hands and
there have been more than 70 mob killings as people try to deal with crime on
their own.
People’s anger and desperation are perfectly
understandable. After all, if the police won’t help them to deal with crime
what choices do they really have? But a society that has to police itself with
mob justice is a society that has failed in its most basic tasks.
Our constitution precludes the death penalty and
yet both the police and some sectors of the population are openly killing
people. The difference between our laws and policies and the realities on the
ground has reached crisis proportions. Urgent action needs to be taken to fix
our police. This action must include serious action to root out corruption, a
massive improvement in police training and a serious attempt to reverse the politicization
of the police. Of course, the disastrous militarization of the police must be
immediately reversed, too. It is simply unthinkable for a democracy to have a
militarised police force.
