Residents of
Wesselton in Mpumalanga went on the warpath recently, torching two
cars to protest alleged police violence and the occupation of the
area by the Tactical Response Team (TRT).
“On
Wednesday 05 December the people took to the street and torched two
cars because they were angry with the Tactical Response Team. A few
hundred, mostly young people, were protesting and poured petrol on
both cars and set them alight,” Msukaligwa Concerned Committee
(MMC) deputy chairperson, Dumisani Mahaye, reported to Daily
Maverick.
Mahaye said a
woman was shot with a rubber bullet on the cheek. “The TRT wanted
to arrest her grandson, and the woman wanted to know why, when she
was shot in the face,” Mahaye said. He added that the Tactical
Response Team had been a fixture in the township for well over a
month now.
According to
Mahaye the police division, known in the townships as the “amaberet”,
were deployed on and off in the Mpumalanga township during 2012, but
moved in permanently during November; local residents heard they will
be present in the area until mid-January 2013.
“We
don’t know why they are here, but our concern is how they behave in
the community. Usually people hang out in the parks and every time
when the TRT get people, they search them, they beat them, they pour
liquor on them. These police sometimes they want all of the people to
lie face down on the floor – like to sleep on the floor – and the
police walk all over those people,” Mahaye said, before
describing his experience with the Tactical Response Team first hand.
“I
was beaten by these police while I was in a club. The first time was
on a Friday, when they came in and told the DJ to switch the music
off. Then a man wearing a brown overall in the TRT screamed: ‘Face
the wall. Face your future’. That is when the beatings started. If
people weren’t quick enough, or they didn’t face the wall, they
were in trouble. If the wall is full, people have to fall down and
lie on the ground face-down,” the township activist told Daily
Maverick about an attack which took place at a local night club
called Dube Tonight in September 2012.
“When
they first got here I tried to talk to the TRT. I said: ‘Look, I
don’t mind you searching me but…’,” Mahaye’s voice trailed
off. He relayed how the TRT started to beat him even before he could
get the words out of his mouth. “On Sunday they were back, but I
knew how they work now. Some guy screamed and told the DJ to switch
the volume off, and then the usual routine followed,” he said.
“The
TRT will slap you. They will kick you. They will punch you with the
fist in the stomach. If they do not walk on the tables they walk on
people’s bodies on the floor. And you don’t look at them. You
don’t ask questions. You don’t say anything. If you look at them
or ask questions they will brutalise you,” Mahaye told Daily
Maverick during a telephonic interview from Wesselton.
Mahaye
further alleged that anyone who asked these police any questions
about what was happening would be beaten up. “If you ask any
questions the TRT will beat you up and they will say to you: “You
are not in the position of authority here. We are the ones with guns
here. Just do as you are told’,” the activist added.
Mahaye said
he was an eyewitness to another incident at a small shopping complex
called Thembise in the township. “There are ten shops and a
butchery and a bottle store, so the people, they hang out and braai
their meat. They open the boot of their car, play music and braai.
When the TRT got there they told everyone to face the wall or the
floor. They made everyone do push-ups. After that the beatings
started,” he said.
“Ever
since these police arrived there are ongoing complaints. It is
happening almost every day now that people are traumatised; they have
firearms pointed at them; people are hit, and our residents are
getting very, very angry,” said Mahaye, who stressed that he
condemned the torching of a security company vehicle and a Transnet
vehicle on Wednesday 05 December 2012 when residents went on the
rampage.
“The
problem is that the people are now getting so angry that they want to
fight the TRT. They want to kill these police or to burn them,
because we are making reports but nobody is listening to us,”
Mahaye said.
The
Wesselton activist said affected residents had gone to the SAPS
police station in Ermelo to lodge complaints against the Tactical
Response Team, only to be told that the local police weren’t able
to help. “If someone wants to open a case they are told to go to
the Ipid (the Independent
Police Investigative Directorate) offices in Nelspruit. The police
here say they don’t have the power to help us. Now the community
think that this is a way of trying to get the cases squashed,” said
Mahaye.
The Wesselton
resident said that Nelspruit was located some 212 kilometres away
from Ermelo, and that taxi fare to and from the city meant that
locals would need R400 for a return trip. Mahaye said that people
didn’t have the money to make the journey.
Mpumalanga
police spokesperson, Colonel Leonard Hlathi, said violent incidents
the TRT were alleged to have been involved in had to be reported to,
and investigated by, Ipid before he could comment. “One cannot just
give a comment without any investigations being done. We have all the
resources in place for people who need to make such a report, and
such an incidence will be investigated by Ipid. I can’t make any
comments until such time as these incidents are reported to Ipid, so
these complaints can be levelled against the police,” Hlathi said.
When Hlathi
was advised by Daily Maverick that Wesselton residents were being
instructed by local police to travel some 212 kilometres to Nelspruit
to report the incidences of violence to Ipid, he was outraged. “Ipid
has done marketing, even on radio, to say that you don’t have to go
to them physically to report a case or uncalled for conduct. People
can just phone them or get the number from Ipid,” the colonel said.
“There
is no reason for the local police to hide this information because
Ipid is a legitimate body. There is no way the police can hide this
information and I think that you can quote me to say that no police
person has the right to hide the availability or existence of Ipid,
let alone a number, to anyone who wants to lodge a complaint. The
police can’t do that. They can’t do that,” Hlathi said.
Wesselton
was set ablaze during service delivery protests in February
2011 which
set the stage for violent confrontations between residents and the
SAPS. Mayahe and some 100 other residents were arrested and charged
with public violence after municipal property to the value of
R350,000 was damaged.
After
the protests, Mahaye and other activists were picked up by the police
and allegedly tortured, with the aim of implicating senior provincial
politicians who opposed Premier
David Mabuza.
Mahaye stated that during the brutality he
was repeatedly smothered in plastic, had his head dumped in water,
and tortured in ways that would make him stop breathing. Later
video evidence of
the SAPS abusing a local resident would come to light, and back up
the activist’s claims of torture.
David
Bruce, a researcher at the Centre for the Study of Violence and
Reconciliation, recently asserted that police action in Wesselton
created a template for what was to follow at Marikana in August
2012. “In both operations, it is alleged that those who were
involved in the protests were arrested, with a large number of them
being tortured. After the Wesselton operation, this led to 25 charges
of assault being lodged with the Independent Complaints Directorate
(ICD). In Marikana, this led to 94 cases of assault being lodged with
the ICD’s successor, the Independent Police Investigative
Directorate,” wrote Bruce in Business
Day.
“In
both cases, it is alleged that individuals among the police torturers
focused on a specific objective. In Wesselton, it was to get
confessions that political opponents of Mabuza had instigated the
protests. In Marikana, the alleged objective of these torturers was
to obtain ‘confessions’ that former ANC Youth League leader
Julius Malema had instigated the protests,” he added.
Bruce penned
that a SAPS force which had turned into “political instruments
whose task is to uphold the interests of the ruling elite” within
the ANC were deployed in both Ermelo and Marikana. “The ANC’s
efforts towards politically re-orientating the SAPS have not been
comprehensive but have been targeted at specific components, most
notably the Crime Intelligence and Operational Response Services
divisions.”
Bruce added
that the SAPS could no longer be trusted to play a nonpartisan role
in politics and stated that “a culture of political deception,
manipulation and intimidation that extends to the use of
assassination as a political instrument” would be in force in SA.
Bruce’s picture of the future is one where the police stand back
when members of the ruling party are violent, but actively target
dissidents.
Back in
Wesselton, Mahaye heard that the police wanted to pick him up in
connection with the latest protests. “The police hit people in the
street to try to try get confessions about the protest. They want
someone to confess and to point out another person, and then they go
and find that person and beat them up too so as to get more
confessions,” Mahaye said during the phone interview.
Twenty
Wesselton residents were arrested after these latest riots, amongst
them four youths between the ages of 14
and 16.
“Someone
phoned me to say that I am on the list of the people that must be
arrested, and that the police say that I am the instigator for the
riots last week. But no. I am not. This time I am not involved, but
still they think I am the one,” Mahaye said.
The activist
no longer sleeps at his home and lives in fear because of the trauma
of his alleged torture experience. He says he fears that if he
is apprehended by the police again, he will be brutalised.
For
many in troubled townships, a nonpartisan police force that
terrorises communities and targets activists and opposition
politicians is no portent of the future: it is the awful present
tense they’re forced to live with.
Read more:
- The Road to Marikana: Abuses of Force During Public Order Policing Operations by David Bruce at SACSIS
