Cape Town - Brutal and most often gang-related killings continue unabated in Cape Town.
The city has already had its most murderous week this year when at least 25 people were murdered in the second week of February. Judging by this trend, an average of eight people are killed every week in Cape Town.
Police minister Bheki Cele visited Khayelitsha and Manenberg on Thursday. Both areas have been experiencing shootings that resulted in the deaths of over 12 people. During his visit to Manenberg.
Cele got to experience what the community has been experiencing when gunshots rang out and a 24-year-old man was wounded not far from where he was.
The City of Cape Town has for the past few years increased its own safety resources, primarily through the LEAP programme (Law Enforcement Advancement Programme). “We can see the value these resources are having based on the improvements seen in the recent crime statistics,” the City said.
The City added that the buck stops with the SAPS and that things like loadshedding hinder economic development. “Visible policing is critical and SAPS need to improve their presence on the ground and be given more resources by the national government. The City acts in support of SAPS, and while increased resourcing remains a priority for this administration, it is imperative that the SAPS too invest in more resources to assist violence-wracked communities.”
“I don't believe the COCT understands the issue,” said social activist Lorenzo Davids. “My advice to them is to stop the negative interventions - stop fighting crime in the way you are doing by building more walls, fences and turning townships into militarized zones.”
He called for the creation of sustainable long term, varied and inclusive economic opportunities. “Do this over the next five years and see the crime rate drop. This current Mayor's term of office will be judged by whether he secured as much financial and economic investment for townships as he did for the Atlantic Seaboard and the CBD. If crime grows it will be because the city failed”
Although the City says their officers are properly trained, Davids disagrees. “Putting a bunch of poorly trained LEAP officers in townships is the worst mistake. They have no knowledge of the economy of gangs. The 13-year-old standing on the corner with new takkies and sunglasses is a business trainee in the gang economy.” “A LEAP officer does not have the skills to engage that 13-year-old. The City will have to engage the gangs to break this killing spree. It's the only way.”
He said that visits from officials like the minister of police are nothing but a futile display of power. Davids believes expressing condolences to families is essentially an admission of guilt that the system of protecting communities that the State is responsible for has failed.
“The problem is that the gang influence is so pervasive that many police persons who live in townships either fear for their lives because gangs might target them so they essentially become ineffective in the fight against crime or they have been recruited by gangs and so have become corrupt. Again, for police, this is also about economics and safety.”
He questioned why other ministers like the Ministers of Trade and Industry, Economic Development, Small Business Development and Social Development are not pitching up at these same tragedies to talk about the economic development of the community in order to secure revenue generation opportunities for the community.
“These communities are not crime hot spots, they are poverty hotspots.”
Another activist, Kagiso Themba said the violence in the township is as long as the land dispossession. He also agreed with Davids that the form of violence ss inequality, unemployment and poverty. “The failure by both the provincial government and local government to shape budgets in a manner to attempt this historical legacy perpetuate violence. Our people are competing for limited resources.”
Themba said the government must dedicate more resources in the township, create job intensive programs that will absorb people cushion them against falling prey to gangs lords, “failure which we must anticipate more violent crimes and death of waging gangs as they fight over territory.
Weekend Argus