Police are victims too

Over the past few weeks we experienced a serious media assault on police for serial offences of shooting innocent people and bystanders. To my Knowledge they have been doing this all along. Ask Independent Complains Directorate (ICD) in KZN they will tell you about countless number of cases they have been dealing with over the years. We must admit that there are those police who have little regard for the law and lives. What has changed is the media attention to vilify Bheki Cele and Nathi Mthetwha on the use of deadly force against criminals. Just like in the case of Zuma where the media led everyone to believe that the judge said, “there was a generally corrupt relationship” between Zuma and Shaik, the media again has coined the “Shoot to kill” as if it is Cele and Mthethwa who said it like that.

Media set the agenda and what they say over and over again becomes the gospel as the “ generally corrupt relationship” tag line proved. In Jeppestown massacre when police were murdered like animal the media was concerned that the police killed those murderers after they had surrendered. This made more headlines than the death of men and women who died trying to protect you and me.Few weeks ago Captain Scheepers pointed a gun at a criminal and ordered him to drop the gun. Do you think that criminal cared to listen? Captain Scheeper was shot dead. What made headlines the following morning was the fact that Captain Scheepers was not wearing a bulletproof vest, how sick is that? They stopped short of saying he brought this to himself. Between 2007and 2008 staggering 213 police we gunned down by criminals and still counting for 2009, but this did not make headlines because it is not sensational.

I have heard Bheki Cele on numerous occasions saying police should kill when they are in Danger or the public is in danger. He questions Section 49 of police Act. I also do, what if a criminal is running away from the scene carrying an AK 47 do we then say he pose no thread. Let him go until we have a proof that the AK 47 in his hand is not for decorating the streets? Section 49 should be clear on that as to when to shoot, but when you are under threat you know and you should act. There will be isolated incidents of police who go out of hand and I think ICD is there for that.

We can’t allow trigger-happy police to act with impunity. We need a holistic approach where as civilians we can help the police to send criminal to where they belong. Stolen goods are a hot property in our townships; in a country where 23% of the population is unemployed most want to keep up with the Jones’ in a country where materialism is everything. Let’s stop glamorising criminals I am not sure how many time have I read Sowetan telling its reader about the shoes and the cars the Mashobane “King of Bling” girlfriend was driving. It is this kind of reporting that is disappointing; instead of discouraging criminality we boost it by giving it the positive image. Instead of the main focus being on a criminal who is running out of time as a free man we put a spin by looking at his assets (needless to say accumulated trough blood sometimes even of police men & women)

Even the ministers are not helping with their push for more bling. Our ministers choose to buy the most expensive cars which have been assembled elsewhere when we actually assemble good cars in our back yard, Ask Blade Nzimande and Trevor Manuel where their cars were assembled you will be shocked. Will it not be better if they were helping to create jobs by buying local other than fuel inflation further.

We need a solution blaming shoot to kill won’t solve problems we are approaching Christmas and every criminal want to have a good Christmas and that is very terrifying for ordinary people. I think police intelligence post apartheid is poor, it need to be beefed up to minimise the killing of innocent people, further education is a must for police as crime changes all the time, some of the police can not even take a proper statement from a victim and this lead to high failure rate of convictions. But ordinary people should come on board in most case we know criminals in our midst.

How safe are we?

Is it not interesting that Gauteng government under Qedani Mahlangu dep’t abdicated their responsibility long time ago on Zimbabweans who live in the Methodist Church? Bishop was struggling alone with them until recently when the government decided to pay them an unannounced visit. What was striking from what they were saying was that they were united in calling for the closure the place of safety. Do they have buildings to relocate these refugees now? Since early this year Qedani and crew promised to move these people to other buildings. Now they complain that the place is not safe, but those people feel safer than out in the streets where the government is planning to relocate them to. If they care so much why did it take so long for them to think of those kids, if they care so much why did they fail to relocate them earlier. Do they have time for them now? Do they have a building for them now? When people get fat salaries to service people they should do that and not wait until the problem get out of hand. Ineptitude is the problem of our office bearers, but they never see that because they are too important. We are waiting to see what they are going to do with those destitute.

Labor Brokers and Unions

As early as May we knew that the honeymoon was over when Zwelinzima Vavi told a press conference that Zuma better hold on to Polokwane gains and election promises (that included abolition of labour brokers) if he still wanted their (Alliance) support. Labor brokering is on every ones lips right now for all the wrong reasons. I have known about labour brokers since 2003, I think the first real job that my wife got was through a labour broker which I never understood how they work. She did not pay anyone to get that job and she was not expected to pay any thing, in fact her relationship with that agent ended when she got the job.

Labor broker are causing a lot of harm to the unemployed as they hire and fire as they wish and they have become employers themselves. The ANC U-turn on the banning of labour broker infuriated a lot of COSATU heavy weights. At the same time the ANC is carefully using Blade Nzimande and Gwede Mantashe as a buffer zone to test and keep in check the hostilities in the Alliance and they are doing a sterling job at pulling wool over workers. They were the loudest in the latest COSATU 10th national Congress held at Gallagher estates. They seem to be oblivious to the fact that for COSATU this is about survival hence they want to hang on to the soldiers as their members.

Over the past 15 years COSATU has lost a lot of members in the private sector. This has weakened COSATU heavily in the private sector and the main culprits are labour broker and casualisation as big business try to hang on to their hefty profits whilst spending less and less on labour. The only sector that has kept COSATU going is the public sector. They can’t afford to lose South African Security Forces Union SASFU instead they want to robe in South African National Defence Union SANDU and the doctors in their books. It does not look like is about workers right to me ,but is about survival.

Most interestingly during COSATU congress in Gallagher estates, NUM members who work for Murray and Robert in one of the mines in Rustenburg wanted to gate crash the Congress to give Vavi they grievances because the NUM had failed them. They told me they were kicked out of their hostel by hired prison inmates and now they live in tents provided by the municipality in that city. As they were plotting to storm the gathering NUM national leaders were busy pleading with them not to do so.

This came in the heals of another attack on NUM officials in the same city, but from a different mine. As we speak one of those leaders who were attacked by their own members is still in hospital. Num is one of the biggest unions in COSATU and these events tell us that unions are becoming easy on employers to keeps number of member high. How do you explain a scenario where workers turn against their leaders?