Marianne Merten and Chiara Carter
Police and politicians anticipate that the audacious bomb blast which hit Cape Town on Thursday will provide impetus to calls to provide police with additional powers to combat urban terrorism in the Western Cape.
The blast has made a mockery of Operation Good Hope which was launched this week – the latest in a string of national police initiatives to curb the conflict which killed more than 225 people last year.
The pipe bomb was concealed in a rubbish bin and occurred at the nerve centre of Cape Town – metres from the Caledon Square police station, the magistrate’s and regional courts and offices of the departments of correctional services, home affairs and labour – and a few blocks away from Parliament. At the time of going to press, at least five people were injured – including an elderly Muslim woman, who was in a critical condition.
“It’s callous, it’s brain-dead,” said a man who was standing only metres away from the site of the blast. “People could have been killed. If the people who did this have a problem with the government, they should rather talk to them.”
Police National Commissioner George Fivaz and Minister of Safety and Security Sydney Mufamadi immediately arranged to fly to Cape Town. Mufamadi said he first wanted to visit the scene before making any comment.
However, police officials and politicians alike speculated that the blast might provide impetus for the police to be given emergency powers – a move which was considered by the government last year for both the Western Cape and strife-torn Richmond in KwaZulu-Natal. These powers could include extending police rights to search as well as to cordon off areas.
But the Democratic Party said that unless the police beefed up their intelligence capacity, additional powers would not help to root out the terrorists.
DP representative for safety and security Douglas Gibson hit out at Mufamadi, asking what he had done to improve the situation since Deputy President Thabo Mbeki announced that the minister of safety and security would personally head Western Cape police operations.
Gibson said dozens of pipe-bomb attacks had occurred and the police still had no information.
“We should start firing the people responsible for police intelligence,” Gibson said.
African National Congress leader in the Western Cape, Ebrahim Rasool, said the blast was a direct challenge to Operation Good Hope.
“There was no way that the bombers would be allowed to deter police and ordinary citizens from ending the violence,” Rasool said.
Despite attempts to keep a lid on what’s cooking in Operation Good Hope, word of internal fighting among senior police officers and poor preparation has emerged.
Although Fivaz has said that the operation was kicked off because conflict across the Western Cape is a national security concern which central government has to deal with, his promises that Western Cape police would be pivotal are now being questioned.
The highest-ranking black officer in the Western Cape, Assistant Commissioner Ganief Daniels, has been put in charge of the operation, but even his plans were dashed when he was not allowed to select his own team of detectives and intelligence officers to drive the campaign.
Shortly after his appointment Daniels announced that he planned to select officers with a proven track record, and to give black detectives in the province a platform to prove themselves. But these ambitions were quickly quashed as national officers moved in to control the setting up of Operation Good Hope.
The power play is being seen in the light of the infighting within the Western Cape police force, predominantly between black officers with an Umkhonto weSizwe background and white apartheid-era officers.
Many believe Daniels, who has a track record of tackling crime using lateral thinking, was picked in case the operation goes wrong. A senior police officer put it bluntly: “He has been set up.”
Under the Operation Good Hope structure, Daniels has operational command but has to report to a committee dominated by national police brass. They include national operations manager Andre Pruis, Commissioner Manie Schoeman and Deputy National Commissioner Mike Bester. This committee reports directly to Fivaz in Pretoria.
Pruis’s representative, Martin Aylward, was at pains this week to point out that the province had identified its problems and made the request for help.
He said the focus of Operation Good Hope is strictly on ridding the Western Cape of urban terrorists. “It [urban terrorism] is a problem. We should consider it as such, irrespective of national security issues. Our job is to provide a safe and secure environment. The situation got out of control. We must do something about it.”
The media has been told “not to expect a running commentary” on the operation. Acting provincial police representative Wicus Holtzhausen said during the previous anti-crime campaign, Operation Recoil, criminals were often alerted to operations.
“We would for once like to work the way it suits the police. During Operation Recoil we worked to suit the media. Now, if we feel there is something we can let the media know, we will let them know,” Holtzhausen said.
Although around 90% of the police personnel, most of them from outside the province, have made themselves at home in Cape Town, it has become apparent that there are not even enough vehicles available to get them out on the beat.
Commentators and groups which have been involved in trying to find solutions to the ongoing conflict between anti-drug vigilantes and gangsters have raised eyebrows at the speed with which the operation was announced.
Operation Good Hope followed a promise by Mbeki earlier this month that the government would not tolerate anti- crime vigilantes taking the law into their own hands.
Western Province Council of Churches member and representative for the Western Cape Anti-Crime Forum, Keith Benjamin, said on the Saturday Mbeki made a speech and on Monday Operation Good Hope was announced. “When was this plan hatched? Surely it couldn’t be hatched just the day before it was announced in the media. So the first question is for us is `What exactly is the agenda? Is this an election ploy?'”