PICS: Operation Fiela in Ottery, Lotus River

Published May 23, 2015

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Cape Town - While the Mother City slept, Operation Fiela – the joint effort by the South African Police Service (SAPS), South African National Defence Force (SANDF), and Metro Police – saw security forces moving stealthily towards the Cape Flats’s Lotus River and Ottery.

At 4am, the raids began.

“It was such a shock… They came in after they saw something being thrown out of the window,” said an Ottery resident who asked not to be named.

“They” were the police and that “something” ended up being live ammunition.

“They raided the house. They came in and searched everything… the beds, the cupboards, the washing machine, my bags, and even me,” he said.

“One of the police officers thought I threw the ammunition out and asked what gang I belonged to but I explained to him I work.”

Fiela members then found the suspect who had thrown the bullets out of the window when he heard a raid was happening, arresting the other occupant of the same house and taking him to the Grassy Park police station.

What did it feel like? Being likened to a gang member, the very person who terrorises you and your loved ones’ lives? Who turns your neighbourhood into a battle field? Was he angry with the security forces?

“No, I am not angry. I was shocked but I know why they are doing this and it is much safer when they are here, especially in the mornings and the afternoons when the gangs just grab people,” said the resident.

He so appreciated the security forces’s presence he said was toying with the idea of become a police officer.

“Yes, I would love to protect my community… That is something I would really like to do.”

Although the other residents ANA spoke to did not necessarily want to don a police badge, there appeared to be a consensus in the Ottery community – the police were wanted. The police were needed.

“Our children can’t matriculate because when they get to Grade 12, that’s when the gangsters target them,” said a female resident, dressed in her pink winter gown and sipping on her morning coffee.

“They don’t want our children to have an education.”

The woman in the pink gown echoed the sentiments of many others. Having your neighbourhood cordoned off and policed was not ideal, but then, an ideal situation was too far-fetched a dream when you were worrying when the next flare up of age-old violence between resident gangs the Mongrels and Euro Katte would happen.

“Our children already know how to roll on the floor when gunshots are fired,” said another female resident standing on her staircase overlooking a search operation by Fiela members.

“This is very good but they must not only target people who look poor,” she said, leaning frightfully close to the rickety staircase railing left behind by the apartheid era architects.

“Also, once will not be enough.”

Once was, however, seemingly enough for those flagged by Fiela as potential suspects.

A house targeted for being the home of an alleged drug lord in Ottery saw one of the occupants visibly irritated with team Fiela’s presence.

The male occupant stared as police went through every corner of his home, scratching through garbage bins.

Another searched home saw the matriarch of the household pacing as police went through her and her husband’s personal belongings.

“They are wasting their time,” she, the wife of a Lotus River taxi boss, said as she lit up a cigarette and looked on as police searched her bedroom.

Her children in the next room gave the police officers one look, turned their backs on those in blue, and went back to bed.

“They won’t find anything,” the woman said.

But find they did.

Within the first hour of the operation in Lotus River and Ottery, Operation Fiela saw five arrests being made. A sixth one had been added by the time 9am rolled around.

Police spokesperson Constable Noloyiso Rwexana said the arrests included a 17-year-old girl who was arrested for possession of tik, one man arrested for an outstanding warrant and four men, aged between 20 and 26, who were arrested for possession of Mandrax tablets and tik.

Police also documented the gang tattoos of certain residents and confiscated an illegal firearm and ammunition.

Early on a late autumn morning in Cape Town, in the shadow of Table Mountain and under the blanket of Operation Fiela, the cold blue steel of the security forces had brought a comforting warmth to residents of parts of the Mother City.

ANA

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