Cape Town - Major-General Jeremy Vearey, the South African Police Services’ Head of Anti-Gang Strategy in the Western Cape, on Sunday clarified his position on military deployment in xenophobic hotspots following comments he made during a University of Cape Town panel discussion last week.
“I want to stress that I did not denounce the government’s decision to deploy the army in xenophobic hotspots,” said Vearey.
In a panel discussion hosted by the University of Cape Town’s Safety and Violence Initiative on Thursday, Vearey was quoted as saying: “We are loathe to approach this from a militirised point and as police, we would want our intervention to be a last resort.”
“The deployment of the army in other parts of the country worries me,” he had said.
Clarifying his remarks, Vearey said he was merely responding to calls by some members of the public for army deployment because they believed the police had allegedly failed as a first line of response, which he found worrying.
“In these situations the police is always the first line of response and the army merely offers operational support if the situation requires it,” Vearey explained.
“I said that we should therefore be loathe to approach this issue entirely from a militaristic point of view and the fact that some are misrepresenting the deployment of the army in other parts of the country to support the notion that the situation is out of the control of the police is a matter of serious concern.”
Vearey also sought to provide clarity on his position on the attacks on foreign nationals in 2008.
“Some of them were naturalised as South African citizens. They were not only illegal immigrants,” he said.
He added that attacks in 2008 were not, as previously reported, directed largely to those legally here as citizens.
ANA