Evidence wa ka Ngobeni
a second look
The hanging of Mariette Bosch by the Botswana government last week lays sections of our media and society open to damaging accusations of double standards, if not outright prejudice.
The South African media has dedicated enormous resources to covering the Bosch trial. Bosch was convicted of the gruesome murder of Ria Wolmarans, whom she shot twice in the head on the night of June 26 1996.
The prosecution and the judge who presided in the case found evidence against Bosch and sentenced her to death. Her hanging last week attracted wide media coverage in South Africa.
The media condemned the Botswana government for the way in which Bosch was executed and painted a grim picture of her ordeal before she was hanged. It was said that the way in which the Botswana government executed Bosch was immoral and shameless in that it failed to show decency and transparency.
It was also suggested that it was better being hanged in the United States than in Botswana. Widespread South African support for the death penalty appeared suddenly to vanish in the matter of Bosch’s execution. Passionate exponents of the death penalty were among those who condemned Botswana’s actions.
Why is it, though, that when black people are also facing death sentences in a foreign country the media do not show the kind of commitment it showed in the Bosch saga. It is well known that other South Africans, especially black people, are also tormented in foreign jails and some are facing death sentences there. Yet very little, or nothing, is being said or written about them.
Their ordeals appear to be downplayed or ignored by the media. Take the case of Bongani Mkhwanazi, a 22-year-old from Durban. Mkhwanazi is facing the death penalty in Swaziland for the murder of a teacher in 1998. He does not have anything like the support given to Bosch.
His only hope is a campaign launched by the South African Human Rights Commission (HRC). Unlike Bosch, it has apparently been assumed that Mkhwanazi is guilty as charged.
Back in South Africa it is clear that those who support the death penalty in this country have chosen to remain silent following the execution of Bosch. One would have thought that exponents of the death penalty would have celebrated and welcomed the Botswana government’s decision to hang a convicted murderer.
However, it appears that these people, who have repeatedly declared that South Africa’s rampant crime is a direct result of the scrapping of the gallows in 1990, are decidedly selective in their support for capital punishment. They appear to support the death penalty only when it suits them.
Opposition parties such as the New National Party claim that their call for the death penalty is simply an amplification of the cry from the streets for the reintroduction of capital punishment.
These calls for the death penalty are usually loudest just before elections or when a gruesome murder is committed. In the Bosch case, which also involves a gruesome murder, those objecting to her hanging have formulated their arguments around the way her life was destroyed.
Why should the fact that this was an instance in which a white woman was convicted of murder by a black government influence the views held by strong exponents of the death sentence? Why is it that Bosch’s whiteness and the Botswana government’s blackness has suddenly rendered vocal public support for the death penalty minimal if not non-existent?
The problem is that the very same people who believe that the death penalty should be the ultimate punishment for those who sin against society are part of the campaign against Botswana’s actions.
The explanation given by the Botswana government for executing Bosch, without giving her family a chance to say goodbye, is that the case had attracted too much controversy and that they wanted to avoid further dispute. This explanation is, of course, unsatisfactory. But so, too, are the double standards in this case apparent among supporters of the death penalty.
If the exponents of the death penalty are embarrassed to back the Botswana government, too bad. Their “cause” of bringing back the death penalty will not be advanced by concealing their support for decisions, such as the one taken by the Botswana government and others in some parts of the world. On the contrary, it will damage their reputation and reveal their one-sided game.
They should not hide in the wake of the Bosch saga if they want to be taken seriously. A number of opposition parties in South Africa are on record proclaiming their support for the death penalty. Ahead of the 1999 general elections, these parties used promises of bringing back the death penalty as part of their election campaign.
It was a strategic move to win “majority” opinion. But they would have us believe it was also a question of principle for them. It is important that they now voice their position clearly, or forever hold their peace on the issue.