‘This is where Armageddon will start’

It was like a scene from the apartheid era’s liquor and pass raids. Government officials swooped down on Hillbrow in Johannesburg, sending many a grown man running into the night, as street vendors hastily packed up their wares and fled the scene.

Those too slow to get away were nabbed by the soldiers, their modest merchandise — boiled eggs, chips, sweets — scattered and kicked aside. Some were dragged back as they tried to flee. Street corners that had been hives of activity minutes before were suddenly deserted.

This was Hillbrow two weeks ago. It is an area seen as one of South Africa’s hottest dens of sleaze, where police and criminals face off daily. As one policeman put it: ‘This is where Armageddon will start.”

And this is Operation Kick-Off, a joint initiative by the police, immigrations officials, the army and the Johannesburg Metro Police Department. They intend to save Hillbrow from itself.

Metro Police spokesperson Wayne Miennaar told the Mail & Guardian the raid was part of a massive new effort to rid the area of criminals and illegal foreigners.

That night, the authorities were armed with at least three Morpho Touch devices. These are gadgets not unlike the swipe-card machine used in shops. Each is able to store and recall up to 30 000 fingerprints of wanted criminals and to check, on the spot, the fingerprints of anyone arrested on suspicion of having committed a crime.

Hillbrow inhabitants are of the view that foreigners, especially Nigerians, now rule the roost. They do not see any xenophobia in the jackboot treatment meted out to those being pounced upon.

‘You could feel pity for them, but these guys are wreaking havoc here,” said an onlooker, who asked not to be named. ‘Each corner has its own trade. On one you have guys who specialise in Mandrax, on the other people who buy stolen cellphones, on the other people buy stolen computers and such things.”

One onlooker pointed out a poor woman who was packing up her tray with the sweets she had been selling. The hardened officers were not moved: ‘Let’s be realistic,” said one. ‘Who goes out to buy 20c sweets at 10 or 11 at night? These people are up to something. The sweets are just a front.”

A shebeen on the Hillbrow/Berea border was next. There the security officers became party-poopers.

The music died as they demanded to see passports and identity documents. Revellers were ordered to stand in a queue: ‘South Africans first!” barked an immigration official. Foreigners followed, those living close by were escorted home to fetch their papers. And then the girls; to judge by their clothing they were unaware of how much temperatures had dropped since they had entered the shebeen.

The officer with the Morpho Touch was disappointed that only three of the more than 100 people packed into the shebeen were linked to crimes. Two of them, Nigerians, admitted they had had trouble with the law in the past, but swore that their cases had since been finalised. By the end of that night’s series of raids in Hillbrow, 30 people were behind bars for offences such as illegal possession of firearms, public drinking, assault or malicious damage to property. Nineteen were illegal immigrants.

The next stop was a grocery store doubling as a drinking hole. Inside, two Metro Police officers heard movement from the ceiling of the shop. Each with a gun in one hand, a torch in the other, they yelled at the unseen enemy: ‘Come out of there now! Come here!”

Down came a young man of 17 or so. ‘I go to school! I sell sweets! I am not a criminal!” he cried. But he would have to wait his turn in the long Morpho Touch queue.

Not everybody was keen on the crime crackdown. An attendant at the drinking hole pointed out, ‘As you can see, people are leaving and they are not going to come back, at least not tonight. The owner of the business will be angry.” She shrugged her shoulders resignedly.

Two hours after the authorities had departed, Esselen Street was back to what it was before they had arrived. But one policeman at least hopes that such anti-crime efforts will bear fruit. ‘It is hard,” he said, ‘but we will get there.”