warnings
Marianne Merten
This week’s killings in the Cape Town townships of Nyanga and KTC seemed to have caught provincial police off guard, despite warnings months ago that simmering conflict in the area could break out into open violence.
Now plans by an umbrella body of Western Cape mediation and conflict resolution organisations for a provincial peace summit are being speeded up so it can be held next week.
Discussions are already under way with the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) to set up an independent provincial monitoring body before the June 2 poll. The body will be established by agreement with the IEC along the lines the Network of Independent Monitors used in the 1994 election.
Several months ago monitors had warned Western Cape police management that conflict was brewing in the Nyanga area as different groups such as warlords, the remnants of former self-defence units and bodies linked to taxi associations were considering who to back for the election.
Late last year police confirmed reports that weapons were being stockpiled in Crossroads, KTC and Nyanga. This came after conflict between civics affiliated to competing political parties over a housing development in Phillippi left at least 20 people dead.
Local community safety forums resolved the dispute with assistance from community policing forums, police and city council members.
An anti-crime campaign, ”Operation Chaka”, was launched in August under the then newly appointed Nyanga station commissioner Simon Mpembe. It succeeded in confiscating weapons ranging from rifles, handguns, machetes, knives and guns – keeping crime levels down.
However, early this year Mpembe was seconded to the anti-urban crime fight ”Operation Good Hope” as the government and the police focused resources on stemming the tide of bombings in the peninsula.
Warning signs of a possible renewed outbreak of fighting were ignored after detectives arrested the killers of United Democratic Movement leader Vulindlela Mathiyase at the Joe Slovo informal settlement in January.
Following Mathiyase’s murder, four UDM executive committee members and an African National Congress councillor were killed within three days this week in the wider Nyanga/KTC area.
Some 300 police and soldiers have flooded into Nyanga and KTC. Operation Chaka has been revitalised under the leadership of Commissioner Adam Blaauw.
However, as the security forces acted speedily to calm and stabilise the area, Western Cape politicians were still fighting it out days later. One observer said the ANC and UDM missed a unique opportunity to join forces to defuse the conflict.
Instead, on Wednesday ANC leader Ebrahim Rasool visited the family of murdered city councillor Zwelinzima Hlazo and UDM leader Bantu Holomisa expressed his sympathies at the homes of Zolile Thandela, Bhaba Dyonase, Mcedisi Mpongwana and Ntsikana Ngqwarhu.
Officially each side appealed for calm and urged their supporters not to retaliate, but after everything was said and done the parties were still accusing each other of trying to incite their supporters.
In Parliament the ANC proposed a motion condemning the killing of its city councillor and an appealed to all political parties to ”join the ANC” to fight the elections through the ballot box, not the gun. No mention was made of the killing of the four UDM leaders.
ANC provincial representative Cameron Dugmore said it was important not to view this week’s killings as ”political”. He said there were other dynamics such as a joint UDM/Pan Africanist Congress campaign to mobilise the youth for land invasions in Nyanga. Dugmore added that this was an attempt to undermine the ANC as several councillors had already been targeted.
UDM general secretary Malizole Diko said it was important not to rush into anything despite the loss of four leaders. He has welcomed initiatives to settle the conflict.
Peace organisations said they were not giving up on trying to set up prevention mechanisms. Shaun Tate of the Urban Monitoring and Awareness Group said mediation would also pave the way for ensuring stability ahead of the elections.
”It [the killings] is serious. We cannot underestimate it. It’s an issue which has been brewing for a long time. We have the elections around the corner and the two parties are vying for the same support.”
Tate fears that unless guidelines are drafted in conjunction with the IEC, more killings will occur before the elections.
The Centre for Conflict Resolution’s Eldrid de Klerk said the killings were an opportunity to establish mechanisms to prevent violence.
He said signing of accords or codes of conduct were important symbols, but if future conflicts were to be prevented, it needed more than putting pen to paper. The commitment and participation by all political parties, civics and local government structures were needed to succeed.
”We should ensure that the Nyanga/KTC/Crossroads conflict doesn’t serve as an indication of what’s to come. We need to act now – decisively and collectively,” De Klerk said.
He added that the manner in which the situation in KTC/Nyanga was dealt with could become an example of how to deal with violence in the run-up to the election not just for the Western Cape, but the entire country.