CLAIRE KEETON, Johannesburg | Thursday
THE brutality and racism shown by six white policemen in setting attack dogs onto three black men is not an isolated incident, and is a “manifestation of the widespread brutality across the colour bar and ranks,” according to South African police watchdog bodies.
“This is the tip of the iceberg, most of these incidents are probably hidden,” said Karen McKenzie, the director of the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD), which investigates complaints against the police.
She said the ICD was currently investigating four complaints against dog units in three provinces.
From March 1999 to April this year, 764 cases of serious criminal offences by members of the police were reported to the ICD, and 200 cases from April to August this year.
Video footage broadcast on state television this week, shot in 1998, showed dogs on leashes being repeatedly set on the three alleged illegal immigrants in a field outside Johannesburg as the policemen work them into a frenzy with shouted commands.
The film was apparently shot by another policeman to train dog-handlers, but police could not confirm this. The six implicated in the dog attack have been arrested and charged with attempted murder.
Racism is common within the ranks of the South African Police Services (SAPS), the largest police union declared.
“This is not new to us, racist incidents are happening almost every day in the operations of the SAPS [South African Police Service],” said the president of the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (POPCRU), Zizamele Cebekhulu.
But the viciousness of the attack is also a vivid demonstration of the broader problem of police brutality, said Piers Pigou, a researcher into police and violence for the past seven years.
Police officers from Johannesburg’s flying squad were shown kicking and beating two hijackers, one of whom subsequently died, in footage shown by BBC television in April last year. Those implicated escaped with fines.
Pigou said measures since 1994 to prevent police abuse seem to be easily bypassed. “Now it not just these [six] police officers on trial: the whole system is on trial.”
Peter Jordi, an associate professor of law at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, confirmed that assault and torture were still practised by the police.
He said the legal system was often lenient on policemen found guilty of assault, thereby perpetuating brutal conduct. – AFP