Pretoria – Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru) president Zizamele Cebekhulu told protesting police officers on Friday that Police Minister Nathi Nhleko has no plan to curb the trend of police killings.
“We are saying to all of you, you must defend yourselves. You cannot go down but the criminals must go down. In the falling of the criminals, the minister must fall. He must go now,” Cebekhulu said during the protest outside the SA Police Service headquarters in Pretoria central.
“We are calling on the minister himself (to act), but we do not have hope that there is anything you can do. We cannot sit down with you. The only thing that you do is to talk from the boardroom and nothing else. You have got no plan. Nobody has been prosecuted for killing the police.”
He said the rights of criminals in South Africa were held above those of victims of crime.
“We cannot have criminals who have more rights than victims in South Africa. You arrest someone who rapes, the perpetrator appears in court with a state lawyer on his side, yet the victim has no one on her side but a police officer,” said Cebekhulu.
He said South Africa had been taken over by foreigners who peddle drugs, even near the national police headquarters.
“We need a tight control of border gates of South Africa. Put the police and army at the borders and start to control the borders. Our country can’t be a free for all. This street (Pretorius Street), and other streets, have been occupied by drug lords yet the head office of SAPS is in the same street. We can’t say we are the law abiding police yet our country is being taken over by those who feel nothing about us and our children,” said Cebekhulu.
“Those people who come from wherever they come from don’t know and respect our law. You tell us to respect the law and to respect human rights.”
Cebekhulu said infighting within the police ranks was derailing the fight against crime.
“There is too many bosses here. This is one department that has too many bosses. These bosses are fighting among each other, yet we are dying on the ground. Every time you find a police (officer) taking another police (officer) to court. All these things, we don’t need. Our job is to fight crime,” he said.
“We are saying to the minister, you don’t have a plan. If you do not have a plan, leave us in peace.”
Cebekhulu said police management must employ administrative staff and deploy all police officers to fight crime.
“We are saying to Minister Nhleko please do for us the good thing. The police service is too much for you. May you go and look for a job somewhere else. We need a serious man who will be with us in the field. An example of a person who has been with us in the field is Bheki Cele. I have not seen a minister attend a single funeral of these (slain) police officers.”
After receiving a memorandum from the protesters, acting national police chief, Lieutenant-General Johannes Phahlane said “the issues will be taken care of”.
“It is critical to engage collectively. This cannot be a problem that is being dealt with in silos. We need to share what is in the so-called strategies. We need a programme of action that can take us somewhere, a long way in ensuring that we cannot be dealing with the loss of members as we are doing now. We cannot afford to be burying members every weekend,” said Phahlane.
We are a small number in the community. Losing them (police) at the rate we are doing now doing now means at some point we will not be having police to protect our people.”
After the protest, journalists asked Cebekhule to explain his remarks regarding foreigners. He responded: “The problem in South Africa is that you don’t want to meet reality with reality. I never said we hate foreigners. We said that there must be control on the borders of South Africa. Drugs are not manufactured in South Africa”.
Regarding the Cele remarks, Cebekhulu said the former police chief may have to return as a minister.
“The sentiment is that Bheki Cele cannot come to the police force without him being asked to do that. We are still going to sit down and look all those things. If we may ask him to come, we will ask him to come as a minister – not a commissioner in the SA Police Service.”
African News Agency
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