Violent crime in northern KwaZulu-Natal — thought to be the work of Mozambicans filtering through the porous border — reached new heights this week. An armed 14-member gang stormed the Thonga Beach Lodge in the Greater St Lucia Wetland Park, tied up staff and guests and made off with five 4×4 vehicles.
Also stolen were cash, electronic equipment, curios and liquor.
Last week, five vehicles, including ambulances, were stolen from Mseleni Hospital, about 80km south of the Kosi Bay border post.
Residents in the economically marginal Kosi Bay area have been affected by cross-border raids for more than two years. Since the Mail & Guardian visited the area in February after a similar spate of hijackings, policing has been stepped up amid an eruption of vigilante justice.
‘We’ve got more deployment down here and we’ve made numerous arrests and been reasonably successful with opposing bail,†said KwaNgwanase police commissioner Ian Smith.
Smith said the hijacking rate had been halved and the Tonga Beach Lodge robbery was the first in two weeks.
Brett Gehren, owner of the Thonga Lodge, said police had done a ‘crack job†in recovering two of the vehicles stolen last week and in making arrests. But what was ‘absolutely lacking†was a joint plan drawn up by the South African and Mozambican authorities to combat crime.
‘There is a large amount of frustration among the police I have spoken to. They’ve followed vehicles, illegally, to a point in Mozambique, and have had to turn back,†he said.
Gehren believed the lack of political intervention would lead to the crumbling of the ecotourism industry — the only industry in the area — and further economic marginalisation of locals.
Smith echoed this view. ‘To be blunt, the politicians must get off their arses; we need the full cooperation of the Mozambican authorities. That is the long-term solution.â€
He repeated a call for the reinstatement of the South African Police Service anti-vehicle smuggling unit at the Salamanga Bridge, 50km inside Mozambique, which was withdrawn in 2005.
The South African foreign affairs ministry could not say if the issue of cross-border cooperation had been raised between South African and Mozambican delegations when President Thabo Mbeki hosted his Mozambican counterpart, Armando Guebuza, in March this year.
But Makhothso Sotyu, chairperson of Parliament’s safety and security committee, said: ‘We definitely need greater cooperation between ourselves and other countries. If stolen cars are being driven into other countries, we must strengthen the communication between ourselves and the other countries.â€
Sotyu was a member of the site inspection team from the peace and stability parliamentary cluster that visited various border posts last week. He said the team would report to the cluster and meet the directors-general of relevant departments to see what could be done. Greater interdepartmental cooperation was imperative.
The Kosi Bay area has seen sporadic outbursts of vigilante action this year. A local, Paulo Mdluli, told the M&G that six suspected criminals had been killed in Feburary, four of them set alight.
‘People have become tired,†said Mdluli, who was hijacked last year. He said the nature of crime had changed, with a shift to house robberies, often marked by rape.
In May three men were hacked to death and one of the bodies burnt, ostensibly in retaliation for a tavern robbery. Said Smith: ‘You can read between the lines. This is a small community; people know if you were involved in a robbery.â€
The ANC’s KwaZulu-Natal secretary, Senzo Mchunu, said that, in response to the ‘gruesome†attacks, a mass protest march had been organised for Friday ‘to send a message to the criminals and call for police to be more active and for national government to interveneâ€.
‘Aim for the head’
Perhaps not yet as popularly known as the Gunfight at the OK Corral, or as efficient as the Four Dead in Five Seconds Gunfight in El Paso, Texas, in 1881, but KwaZulu-Natal policemen’s recent gunslinging efforts are beginning to conjure images of trigger-happy lawmen from the American West.
Eight alleged criminals have been fatally shot by police in various incidents around the province in the past two weeks in what seems to be a response to a call by KwaZulu-Natal MEC for safety and security Bheki Cele, who called on South African Police Service members earlier this month to ‘shoot to killâ€.
‘If someone who is carrying a camera wants to shoot a picture of you, respond with a smile. But if he is carrying a gun and threatens to shoot you, then you must respond in a similar manner,†Cele told policemen at a provincial awards ceremony in Amanzimtoti recently.
The Sowetan newspaper reported that during a prayer meeting in Umlazi township, south of Durban, Cele had urged police to ‘aim for the headâ€.
Recent police statistics showed police deaths in the line of duty had increased 14% from 95 in 2005/2006 to 108 in 2006/07. It appears Cele is taking the matter seriously and now intends that violent criminals be sent to their graves.
The recent death toll in KwaZulu-Natal includes Rasta Msisi, the alleged mastermind behind a syndicate targeting restaurants in the city’s affluent Morningside area, and two ATM bombers, who were killed in Pietermaritzburg last week.
A day after Cele’s call, four alleged hijackers — who had attempted to hijack an off-duty policeman — were killed following a high-speed, 20-minute car chase through the residential suburb of Effingham, during which more than 100 shots were exchanged. A suspect escaped.
Provincial police spokesperson Superintendent Vincent Mdunge said: ‘The [recent] cases were not related to the calls by the MEC. Our primary mandate is not to kill, but to protect, and generally these issues came down to self-defence on the part of the officers. [SAPS] members will continue to retaliate when they are under attack,†he said.
When asked if Cele’s call might cause criminals to become even better armed, Mdunge said: ‘Criminals are criminals. When they engage in serious crime, especially organised crime, they go in knowing they may have to be violent.†— Niren Tolsi