The Presidency could not say on Thursday whether thousands of e-mails detailing South Africans’ experiences of crime had reached President Thabo Mbeki.
”I’ve not seen any of those letters. I’m not even sure whether they’ve arrived,” said spokesperson for the Presidency Mukoni Ratshitanga.
The trade union Solidarity on Tuesday launched a website through which ordinary South Africans could send Mbeki e-mails about how crime had affected them.
Solidarity spokesperson Jaco Kleynhans said on Thursday morning between 11 000 and 12 000 letters had already been sent. He said Solidarity had not received a response from the Presidency.
”We will go on today [Thursday] by putting pressure on the president to get him to address the matter in his State of the Nation address on Friday.”
Solidarity launched the site in response to First National Bank (FNB) having suspended a multimillion-rand anti-crime advertising campaign, reportedly due to pressure from some quarters of government and business leaders.
It involved print, television and radio advertisements and invited members of the public to write to Mbeki about their experiences of crime.
Kleynhans said Solidarity had received ”numerous requests” from people who wanted to tell their stories to Mbeki.
Among them is a letter that reads: ”Dear Mr Mbeki, I have experienced 11 incidents of violence and robberies in the past three years, and the crime is now getting out of hand. Please, I beg you to please do something about this. We are all too scared to go out or to live a normal life.”
Another reads: ”I hate South Africa because of the crime. I cannot drive with an open window because I am afraid of being hijacked. I cannot walk from the bedroom to the bathroom without de-activating my alarm. I am a prisoner in a ‘free democratic country’.”
De la Rey courage
A firm of commercial lawyers on Wednesday did what FNB did not do and published an advertisement in Beeld newspaper voicing its grievances about crime.
”We might not have an advertising budget like that of FNB, but we have De la Rey courage,” read the advert, placed by Pretoria-based Van Huyssteens attorneys.
This made reference to the Afrikaans song De la Rey by SA musician Bok van Blerk, about General Koos de la Rey.
The firm dissociated itself from any Afrikaner right-wing or political messages that might have been read into the song since its release.
Said partner in the firm Johann van Huyssteen: ”De la Rey courage is something that he had when he took up the struggle against the English colonialists in a peaceful way, not by way of arms … The new struggle is against crime.”
The Department of Arts and Culture warned on Tuesday that De la Rey was in danger of being ”hijacked” by right wingers who wanted to mislead Afrikaans speakers into believing that the song was a ”call to arms”.
The advert was addressed to Mbeki, the Cabinet and leaders on all government levels.
”Like most law-abiding citizens of South Africa, we are deeply concerned about the welfare of our country and levels of crime. Seemingly it only bothers the public and not South Africa’s leaders,” it continued.
It demanded of Mbeki and the country’s leaders to change their attitude towards crime, give assurances that action would be taken and that a plan of action would be published. – Sapa