Cape Town - Taxi-industry-related murders constitute most targeted killing incidents in South Africa, followed by organised crime and politically motivated assassinations.
This is according to a Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) report by analyst Rumbidzai Matamba titled, The Business Of Killing, Assassinations In South Africa released this week.
The report assessed and analysed targeted killings by paid hitmen in South Africa. The report explains that beyond the lethal human harm, assassinations have a profound impact on the state, fuelling intraparty tension, corroding the criminal justice system through the assassination of whistle-blowers, for instance, and undermining democracy in general.
In 2022, the GI-TOC recorded 141 assassinations in the country, an average of more than two a week, which is estimated to be an under-estimate given limited data.
The report referenced among others, the murder of Muzi Manyathi, an ANC deputy branch chairperson in Mpumalanga, who was shot dead at a petrol station just days after he had spoken publicly about being threatened by a gunman.
So far this year, a number of targeted killings have made headlines, including in February, when popular rapper Kiernan Forbes/AKA, was shot in the head by a hitman outside a Durban restaurant.
In March, prominent insolvency lawyer Cloete Murray and his son, Thomas, known for working on cases involving the powerful and the corrupt, were shot by hitmen on the N1 highway near Johannesburg.
“Violence has become a monetizable criminal market in its own right, one that facilitates other criminal markets within the country’s organised crime ecosystem, such as illicit drugs, extortion, organised corruption, organised robbery, illegal mining and others.
This violence is evidenced by the high murder rate in the country, which has increased over the last 10 years by 62% from 15 554 deaths in 2011/12 to 25 181 in 2021/22.”
The report found that greater access to firearms has increased violence and has led to a commercialization of violence-for-hire. “Taxi-industry-related killings constitute most of the cases recorded in the database, at 46% of cases over the 22-year period. These are followed by organised crime and politically motivated cases, at 26% and 21%, respectively.
“Overall, cases related to political motives show a steady increase over time, and cases related to organised crime have also steadily increased,” the report read.
In the taxi industry, disputes over highly lucrative routes remain the leading motive for targeted killings, with the highest number of hits recorded in KZN, the Eastern Cape and the Western Cape.
“The recorded organised crime cases have remained consistent over the period under review. Our database recorded only one less case in 2022 (29 cases) than in 2021 (30 cases). However, there have been notable shifts in trajectories in various provinces.
For example, a higher number of cases were recorded in KZN in 2021 than in the Western Cape, whereas the opposite was true in previous years and in 2022.”
Victims in this category include drug dealers, gang leaders and law enforcement officials investigating organised crime cases, including prosecutors, police officers and detectives.
“In addition to turf wars, motives include internal gang disputes over power, revenge killings or suspicions of colluding with law enforcement.
“The notorious Hard Livings gang, based in Cape Town, has also reportedly been involved in turf wars in Durban. Our analysis has also established that there has been an increase in organised crime cases in the Western Cape, from only one contract killing recorded in 2021 – down from 12 cases in 2020 – to 11 cases recorded in 2022,” the report stated.
The number of politically connected hits carried out in South Africa has risen steadily since 2020, going up from 24 recorded in 2020 to 30 cases in 2021 and 40 in 2022, the second highest number of incidents ever recorded in the database.
“In the sphere of politics, positions for local municipal office are highly contested for economic and personal reasons, and targeted killings have increasingly become a common phenomenon of the South African political economy.”
Recommendations include the need for disaggregated data to accurately quantify the problem of targeted killings in South Africa and subsequently develop strategies or policies to address this phenomenon.
The report also calls for a concerted effort by law enforcement to stem the recruitment pool of hitmen, firearms control and a need for more robust intelligence gathering.
Political analyst, Professor Sipho Seepe said the fact that people could be assassinated on political grounds suggested that the country’s democracy was not intact.
“It should have reached a situation where we can disagree without being enemies... where we can disagree robustly with each other but still understand we do this because we share a different perspective on how our society must be structured. An expression of intolerance is still there.
“Inequality also contributes to desperation. Poverty is juxtaposed against obscene wealth. When you get gross inequality you get that separation where people are asking ‘why shouldn't I be like them?’ This is a matter that must be taken seriously,” he said.
Crime activist Hanif Loonat added that government was not taking the public seriously when it came to tackling crime. “It's easier to get away as a criminal than a lawful person. Criminals get away with murder, while the victims continue to suffer.
Our people are being oppressed by crime,” he said.
Spokesperson for Police Minister Bheki Cele, Lirandzu Themba said: "Murders are investigated by the police, and investigations guide the level at which they are being probed and at times escalated to the DPCI or national task teams set up, when the need arises. One case in point is the KZN Political task team that was established in 2018 responsible for investigations into politically related killings as well as taxi violence related targeted murders. The team continues to make arrests of those who plot and those who pull the triggers.
Cape Times