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| Justice Malala |
People thought they would see no more peaceful protesters
shot by police, but the force is turning violent again.
In July 2009 South Africa's then new police commissioner,
Bheki Cele, told a newspaper he wanted the law to be changed to allow police to
"shoot to kill" suspects without worrying about "what happens
after that".
Two months later a young woman, Olga Kekana, was going out
with three friends in a Pretoria township when she was shot through the head.
The car she was travelling in was "mistaken" by police for one driven
by car hijackers.
Survivors said the police had given no warning. Eight policemen opened fire. The car Kekana was in had 13 bullet holes. The police fled the scene and did not help the injured.
When news broke on Thursday morning that Hilton Botha, the
lead detective in the prosecution of Oscar Pistorius, was facing attempted
murder charges after firing at a minibus taxi carrying seven passengers in
2009, many began once again to wonder about the state of the South African
police.
So soon after the horrific shooting of 34 striking mine
workers at Lonmin's Marikana mine last August by police, the Botha charges draw
attention to this question: is democratic South Africa's police service turning
into a violent force akin to its apartheid predecessors?
When Nelson Mandela became president in 1994, the police
were a paramilitary force. In a symbolic change, they were renamed the Police
Services and began a process of demilitarisation.
However, in 2009, when Jacob Zuma was elected president,
ministers started speaking of a return to "tough policing" and called
for police to "shoot to kill". That year the re-militarisation of the
police began.
The results are evident everywhere. Andries Tatane, a
mathematics teacher and community activist, was attacked at a peaceful protest
march in 2011 by 12 policemen who beat him with batons, kicked him and shot
rubber bullets into his chest at close range. He died.
Evidence is mounting that many of the Marikana dead were
shot while fleeing, and that at least 14 of them were shot and killed 300
metres from where the initial massacre took place. Police have already admitted
at the continuing Farlam Commission that they planted weapons near the dead
miners.
"The safety of the public is not negotiable. Don't be
sorry about what happened," the current police commissioner, Riah Phiyega,
told police afterwards. She said this as 28 members of a notorious police unit
were appearing in court on more than 70 charges, including murder.
The Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria has reported
that the number of people shot dead by police doubled in the four years to
2010. Deaths in police custody or resulting from police action numbered 860 in
2009-2010, disturbingly higher than the period 2003-2008, when they averaged
695 a year.
The police, of course, claim they are the victims, pointing
to killings of police. This has been the narrative put forward to defend their
dubiously "tough" stance against citizens.
Yet figures for police murders have dropped since 1994, when
265 officers were killed. The figure declined to 178 in 2000. Only 92 police
officers were killed in the 12 months to March 2012. However, the government
continues to paint a picture of a police service under siege, with Cele saying
in 2011: "A policeman should not die with his gun in his hand."
Cele was later fired by Zuma, but not for this or other
outrageous statements.
Are incidents of police brutality and trigger-happiness
going to stop any time soon? Not likely. The ANC emerged from various planning
meetings in January 2013 with a warning to protesters such as Andries Tatane.
ANC leader Ngoako Ramathlodi, a deputy minister of prisons, said the government
would use an "iron fist" to deal with the "seas of anarchy"
emerging in South Africa.
On 14 February, Zuma announced a range of "tough"
measures to deal with citizens protesting against poor services.
