OWN CORRESPONDENTS, Cape Town | Monday
THE government is stepping up its efforts to stamp out the wave of terror gripping Cape Town, announcing plans to fast-track tough new anti-terrorism legislation and sending security reinforcements into the bomb-wracked city.
Spurred into action by the drive-by shooting on Thursday of a city magistrate and a car bomb explosion outside a suburban bistro on Friday night – the eighth such attack this year – the government is pouring police detectives and intelligence agents from around the country into Cape Town in a bid to stop the wave of bombings and assassinations.
Police have already made a significant breakthrough by identifying the latest two urban terror attacks in the city as the work of the same group. The same stolen car – a white Citi Golf – was used in the assassination of Wynberg magistrate Pietie Theron and the car bomb attack outside Obz Cafe in Observatory.
Justice ministry official Paul Setsetse was quoted in the Natal Mercury as saying there was “a sense of urgency” about passing the new legislation, which will give the police more powers to deal with urban terrorism, including the power to ban terrorist organisations and detain suspects for longer than the 48 hours at present allowed by law.
Safety and Security Minister Steve Tshwete and Justice Minister Penuell Maduna have wasted no time in blaming Pagad for the terror, despite the group’s repeated denials.
Maduna said Pagad had begun an “ideological war” against the state, while Tshwete said the police were dealing with an “underground network of fanatics. I am absolutely convinced it is Pagad.”
The draft law would allow the government to ban membership of an organisation deemed to have carried out or to be planning terrorist acts. It would also allow police to detain terrorism suspects for longer than the 48 hours allowed by the Criminal Procedure Act, to stop and search people and vehicles and to detain and interrogate those suspected of withholding information about terrorist acts, beyond the 48 hours allowed in ordinary criminal investigations.