MONDAY, 3.30PM:
WESTERN Cape police today expressed the fear that the ongoing war between Cape Flats gangsters and People Against Gangesterism and Drugs vigilantes could lead to a majow bloodbath.
Since Pagad vigilantes murdered druglord Rashaad Staggie in a gruesome lynching last August, a campaign of tit-for-tat attacks has developed between vigilantes and alleged gangsters. Director Leonard Knipe, provincial commander of serious and violent crime investigations, said today that serious retaliation by other group could result in “civil war”. Knipe called on law-abiding Pagad members to expose “criminals and terrorists” in their midst: “I appeal to the overwhelming decent people inside Pagad to distance themselves from the criminals within the organisation and to expose these murderers and terrorists and to inform on them.”
Since Staggie’s murder, police have arrested 85 Pagad members and 350 gangsters, but Knipe admitted police are making little headway. In the first three months of this year, police have recorded 121 attacks in the low-level war between gangsters and vigilantes, of which 25 were attributed to pagad and 96 to gangtsers. In 28 of the attacks, home-made bombs were used.
Knipe also warned that religion was being brought into the dispute, which could lead to an explosive cocktail of emotions. He claimed that there is talk of establishing a Christian anti-crime group to counter the Islam-oriented Pagad. “This is a very dangerous argument and can only lead to more violence.”