The revamp of gun-control legislation that is on the cards could go down in history as one of President Thabo Mbeki’s most important contributions to our troubled country.
The proliferation of and obsession with firearms is one of the greatest obstacles to the creation of a safe, civilised society. If the leaks about the proposed new legislation are to be believed, we are about to see a massive clampdown on the ease with which South Africans can obtain firearms. Bizarre aspects of the current legislation – such as the clause that allows licensees to loan their weapons to anyone they please – would disappear, and gun owners would be subjected to psychoanalytical analysis before being granted a licence.
But while we fully endorse government’s proposal, we believe the new legislation will have to be accompanied by a marked improvement in the criminal justice system if it is to be successful.
It is irksome to admit that the gun lobbyists have a point when they argue that the fear of being confronted by a firearm limits the activity of many members of the criminal class. In many areas of the country, there is a law and order vacuum, the gap having been filled by a surge of support for vigilante activity. All of which will make it difficult for government to convince many of its constituents – and most of its opponents – of the merits of the legislation. There is therefore a distinct danger that the legislation will be viewed by many as another example of government legislating in cloud cuckoo land, passing laws that reflect the spirit of a liberal constitution that are far in advance of the people they are supposed to serve.
There are also more immediate caveats. How will the government enforce the legislation, bearing in mind the woeful state of the police force? The current regulations oblige the police to monitor the enforcement of firearm legislation; the police are the eyes and ears of the Central Firearm Registry, which is itself a notably ineffective institution. So will there be a special, dedicated squad of gun monitors? And will the penalties for the possession of illegal firearms be sufficiently draconian?
These are questions that will be answered and debated when the draft legislation is released. In the meantime, the government is to be congratulated for what could turn out to be one of its boldest legislative moves: tackling head on gun-crazy South Africa.
Congo’s conundrum
Of all the considerable obstacles to making the Democratic Republic of Congo ceasefire agreement work, the most difficult is the thorny issue of the Hutu militias – the interahamwe – which led the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
The interahamwe was the catalyst for two wars in the former Zaire, and will bury the ceasefire plan unless its murderous cadres can finally be disbanded.
It was the Hutu extremists’ grip over the sprawling refugee camps in Zaire and Tanzania which led to the first Rwandan invasion of what is now Congo in 1996. The interahamwe used the camps as cover for perpetuating the murder of Tutsis, with the complicity of the United Nations which fed and watered the killers. In response, Rwanda and Uganda created a “rebel” force as a cover for their invasion of Zaire to deal with the Hutu militias, and plucked Laurent Kabila from obscurity to be its leader.
In one sense, the war was successful far beyond its instigators’ expectations. Mobutu Sese Seko’s army crumbled. The Rwandans, Ugandans and Kabila’s rebels took just six months to overthrow the old despot.
But the strategy failed in its primary objective – to deal a death blow to the interahamwe. While the camps were cleared, and hundreds of thousands of Hutus driven back into Rwanda, a hard core of militia fled deeper into the newly renamed Congo.
Kabila’s sponsors hoped he would deal with the problem, but Congo’s new president was keen to throw off the shackles of his creators. In Kinshasa, the interahamwe problem to the east appeared far away. Kabila wasn’t interested, and Rwanda felt stabbed in the back.
So history repeated itself as Kigali and Kampala invaded once again under the cover of new “rebel” groups, this time to overthrow the man they put in power. Kabila responded by recruiting the interahamwe to fight for him.
No one is quite sure just how many militiamen are still on the loose in Congo. It is probably in the tens of thousands, representing a hard core of killers who have little incentive to disarm voluntarily if it means they face trial for genocide. So who is going to deal with the interahamwe? Surely the multinational peacekeeping force, of which South Africa may be part, is not going to be asked to pursue the militiamen?
But Rwanda has little interest in observing the ceasefire if the problem is not solved. It has six months to finish the job itself in the parts of Congo under its control until the planned pull-out of foreign forces takes place. But much of the interahamwe is camped on Kabila’s side of the line.
Rwanda may have signed the ceasefire but the rebel group it backs – one of three fighting Kabila – declined to put its name to the agreement. It doesn’t take much imagination to see how Kigali might perpetuate the war against the interahamwe while protesting that it is committed to peace.