Andy Duffy
The man who led the militant group People Against Gangsterism and Drugs (Pagad) through 18 months of brutal conflict with Cape Flats gangsters has broken ranks with the organisation.
Aslam Toefy, who quit as Pagad’s national co-ordinator last month, says it is time to stop marching on drug dealers’ houses and to start attacking the causes of drug abuse and gangsterism.
Pagad succeeded in raising the profile of the Cape Flats drugs scourge, he says. But the group has become a “perfect alibi” for anyone, including gangsters and drug dealers, to engage in criminal actions such as fire-bombings and murder.
The Pagad leadership has little control over attacks carried out in its name. It is not even clear whether the strikes on alleged drug dealers and gangsters have won or lost the organisation support.
“I stood on a cliff and looked down and I didn’t like what I saw. I was there on the edge with Pagad,” Toefy says. “It was never Pagad policy to attack anyone. It was policy to spur the police to act. Pagad became a springboard for everyone. Pagad was a perfect alibi. It was far bigger and more violent than it should have been.”
Toefy quit after what Pagad insiders have dubbed long-running strife within the organisation. He is believed to have lost out in a bitter power struggle with other leaders linked to the radical Muslim group Qibla. Toefy was linked to the Muslim Judicial Council, which has criticised Pagad for its violent strategy. There have even been unconfirmed reports that Toefy, long accustomed to death threats from gangsters, was facing them from within Pagad.
Until that power struggle, Toefy was the public face of Pagad, as its increasingly bloody war with Cape Flats druglords intensified – a war that has claimed several lives on the Cape Flats this year and wounded dozens more.
His Pagad exploits include targeting Cape journalists for their coverage of the organisation, threatening the Olympic Bid Company after it talked to gangsters, joining a march on the Israeli embassy as part of “Muslims Against Global Oppression” and holding a press conference from a police cell. He also eluded police for months over charges relating to the violent Pagad demonstration at Cape Town airport last Christmas.
“Our main task is to fight gangs and stop drug trafficking,” he told the press, daring the police to try to stop him. Toefy says Pagad’s aggressive strategy, which he personally drove, was “necessary … the manner in which we approached the problem prompted the action we’ve seen from the police.
`It was grandmothers and mothers who put their lives on the line. They proved to the police that the gangsters are not invincible. But the strategy needed to change, to look at closer co-operation with the police and focus more on the wider drug problem.
“I would certainly hope that Pagad would look at this new direction and move on,” Toefy adds. “It is necessary to engage the police far earlier. They have the expertise. All we have to do is give them the information.”
Toefy dismisses talk of death threats, and of a power struggle or ideological differences within Pagad’s leadership. He says he wanted to leave “to broaden his horizons”.
He is planning to launch a community-based programme, focused on prevention and rehabilitation, and job creation.
“We can catch more bees with honey than vinegar,” he says. He says his relations with Pagad remain good, though there has been no contact since he resigned.
Toefy adds that he had been “demonised” for his involvement in Pagad. “The more human and gentler person in me needs to come out,” he says.