Evidence wa ka Ngobeni
An attempt to broker peace between two notorious Western Cape gangs by taking them to the mountains was sabotaged a week before it could start.
The National Peace Accord Trust had arranged to take the rival gangster groups on a “transformation trail” in the Drakensberg in KwaZulu-Natal last week. The aim was to provide them with a therapeutic experience which would help them to patch up their differences.
The trust has undertaken similar rehabilitation projects with youngsters from former self-defence and self- protection units in Gauteng townships. Members of these rival units experienced trauma and conflict during the apartheid era.
Says the trust’s Gavin Robertson: “The main aim of the journey is to create an opportunity for the traumatic experiences stored in the body to be explored and integrated within a therapeutic environment.
“Many of the participants describe the experience on the journey as a type of rite of passage or initiation process.”
In addition to the psychological healing involved in undertaking a physical adventure, the project draws on various other healing practices.
Participants are encouraged to take part in exercises involving music, art, sculpture, dance and storytelling during their three- day stay in the wilderness.
They are assisted by social workers, trail assistants and volunteers.
The trust says one of the objectives of the “transformation trails” is reconciling rival groups by encouraging them to participate together in arts and singing.
Trail assistants guide them towards changing the words of their war songs as well as attitudes that emerged during their conflicts.
Instead they are encouraged to compose songs that are community development- driven.
After communities in Cape Town plagued by gang rivalry between the Americans and The Firm heard about the success of the trails involving the former Gauteng township units, they asked the trust to extend the project into the Western Cape.
`The trail we organised for gangsters was designed to bring them together and to stop violent clashes between the gangs,” says Robertson.
But shortly before the gangs were due to leave for the mountains, a leader of one of the gangs was arrested and thrown into prison.
“This guy then ordered that his members not go on the programme, and the whole thing collapsed.”
The trust is negotiating with the gang leader to allow his fellow members to take part.
“The other gang is prepared to put down their weapons and participate in the programme, but they won’t because it may make them vulnerable to attacks,” says Robertson.