It was a sad day when listeners of SAfm that used to market itself as one for the well-informed, praised high-handed police action in Intabazwe, Harrismith, that led to scores of injuries and the death of a 17-year-old youth.
Listeners who made time to call in suggested there was no price too high for the maintenance of law and order. They all but said that the police had found themselves in a kill-or-be-killed situation — and that they had rightly opted for the former. Some well-informed listeners muttered that the youth should count themselves lucky that only one in the group was killed.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, including the well-informed.
What makes me uneasy is that if the well-informed believe high-handed police action is justifiable, I shudder to guess what the less sophisticated are thinking. Unlike those who spend their time listening to inconsequential gossip relating to rap stars such as 50 Cent and catching up on the latest American slang, the well-informed ought to know about the South African police’s propensity to use the jackboot.
I would have expected the well- informed to remember Sharpeville 1960, Soweto 1976, the Vaal Triangle in 1984, Uitenhage in 1985, the Trojan Horse incident in Athlone, Cape Town in 1986, Winterveld in the former Bophuthatswana in 1986 and Brigadier Oupa Gqozo’s Bisho in 1992, where 29 died at the hands of that ‘independent country’s” security forces.
These infamous uprisings were known, in the language of the oppressors, as ‘disturbances”. All entered the history books because police believed the easiest way to deal with a ‘disturbance” was to open fire on the crowd.
It could also be argued that the police in Harrismith used rubber bullets and pellets, instead of the live ammunition they preferred prior to a democratic dispensation.
However, the fact that one young person died shows the police still have the ability to kill. When are the police going to start using water canons and other non-lethal weapons to safely and effectively deal with internal disquiet. The police know that a rubber bullet shot at close range is as fatal as live ammunition.
There is simply no running away from it. Our police need serious retraining with regards to handling community protests. They need to accept that we now have a Constitution that guarantees the right to protest, the shackles of the gatherings Act, which regulates demonstrations, notwithstanding. The police ought to know that despite their opposition, Parliament enacted Section 49 of the Criminal Procedure Act to regulate when they can use deadly force.
The current government entered into a covenant with the people of South Africa promising that when they woke up on the morning of April 27 the nightmare of apartheid, in all its guises — including that of the police being too quick to the draw — was over.
The ‘disturbances” in Intabazwe are a reminder to politicians about the need for effective social delivery. The violent response of the police should remind our politicians that the poor are still vulnerable to arbitrary state action. And they have few willing to fight their cause, as our well-informed listeners showed.
The police have been trying hard to tell the South African public that they have changed; that they now serve and protect. They have been telling anyone who will listen that they are changing and are employing new training methods relevant to a modern democracy. On evidence provided in Intabazwe, they are failing and maybe it is time to return to the drawing board.