SA CRIME INCREASES DESPITE ANC PROMISES

By Alex Eliseev, Lee Rondganger and Angelique Serrao

Murders, violent house robberies, hijackings, cash-in-transit and bank heists have shot up. The number of police officers slain is the highest in three years. But the police claim they're winning the war against crime.

The spike in violent crimes, and yet another failure to meet the government's annual target of decreasing crime by seven to 10 percent painted a grim picture at the release of the national police statistics on Tuesday.

Frighteningly, almost 60 percent of the country's 12 581 house robberies - the crime South Africans fear most - were executed in Gauteng.

Commissioner Jackie Selebi and Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula claim community participation is the only way the war will be won and that the missed targets will only further motivate the police. (Same old crap from these abject failures.)

For over a decade, virtually every category of crime in the country has been on the decrease. (Or reporting has been less as people realise that it is a waste of time)

But between April 2006 and March 31 this year, 19 202 people were murdered, up 2,4 percent, and 126 558 people suffered violent robberies, a 4,6 percent increase.

House robberies jumped by 25 percent over this period. (Often with the owners present)

Cash-in-transit robberies went up by almost 22 percent, from 383 to 467; bank robberies more than doubled from 59 to 129, and hijackings went up six percent, from 12 825 to 13 599.

Gilbert Swarts, CEO of the South African Banking Risk Information Centre (Sabric), said that while the number of robberies had increased, the amount of cash taken had decreased.

"Since the release of the last crime stats we have implemented various strategies, and this is why you see a decrease in the amount of cash taken.

"We have definitely upped our game, and our message out there to people is that their safety is key to us," he said.

Police explain the rise in murders to the increase in violent robberies, but assistant commissioner Chris de Kock said "this is not a train smash - it's a small increase". (But the figures are already unacceptably high and have been since the new government came to power 12 years ago)

He said that just five years ago there were over 21 000 murders in South Africa, and that the vast majority of murders, rapes and assaults are committed by people who know each other or are related. (But other organisations such as the SA Medical Council dispute the government's statistics saying theirs are much higher for murders and injuries.)

Of the eight contact crimes prioritised by police - murder, attempted murder, rape, assault, assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm, indecent assault, robbery and aggravated robbery - six have decreased.

Rape cases have dropped from 54 926 to 52 617 (5,2 percent), attempted murder from 20 571 to 20 142 (three percent) and assault cases from 227 553 to 210 057 (8,7 percent).

But Lisa Vetten from the Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Centre warned that the decrease in rape cases may reflect a drop in women reporting their rapes.

"What happened this year to make it decrease?" she asked. "Especially after the Zuma trial."

(Jacob Zuma is a future presidential hopeful who was accused of rape last year. In the highly controversial trial where he was accused of raping an HIV positive woman, he was aquitted)

Overall, a decrease of 3,4 percent was recorded for contact crimes.

Police also boasted about boosting their "detection rate" for contact crimes from 47 percent to 52 percent and increasing the cases that made it to court from 27 percent to 37 percent.

This still means, however, that almost 10 000 murders go unsolved each year.

There have been positive increases in the number of illegal firearms seized, as well as drug-related and drunk-driving arrests.   (But not the local police chief, Robert McBride, a convicted terrorist who placed a bomb in a restaurant in Durban and who crashed his State vehicle with no others involved and was reported to be really drunk by those who helped him. Still awaiting charges. The accident occurred on 21st December 2006.)

But one sentence in De Kock's report sums up the police's performance last year: "It is evident that, with the exception of rape and indecent assault, far less significant decreases were recorded during 2006/7 than during 2005/6."

When asked if the poor results and failed targets would weaken the trust between communities and police and cause fewer people to get involved, Selebi said "a lot of people are working with the police".

He denied there was a break-down with the way the 1 064 community policing forums (CPFs) worked with their stations.

Selebi said the statistics showed that "mega-townships" in Gauteng, KwaZulu Natal and the Western Cape needed the most attention, and extra resources were being deployed there.

The three provinces constituted 62 percent of serious crime in the country.

"House robberies are a problem. People get raped, children get abused and there are car-jackings," he said.

Selebi added that newly built areas, where people did not know each other, were more vulnerable.

"(Crime) is not happening in every inch of South Africa. There are specific areas and we must concentrate on them," he said.

All murders are concentrated in eight percent of the more than 1 100 police precincts nationwide.

And as for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, Selebi said he was not having sleepless nights. (Why should he. He has armed bodyguards.)

Nqakula commented: "Crime levels in South Africa continue to drop."

He was concerned, however, at the high level of serious and violent crime, which was having a "devastating effect on the psyche of the nation".

Nqakula added that in coming months the CPFs would be "re-designed and recast".

Police also stood by the controversial restructuring which saw some 15 000 officers migrating to various police stations.

Last year, 108 police officers were killed on duty, up from the previous year's 95.   (No wonder many police stations have private security firms guarding them)

Answering questions, Selebi and Nqakula said the police's relationship with big business was stronger than ever - despite the notorious botched FNB anti-crime campaign.

(The First National Bank planned to spend a lot of cash on publicising crime but was apparently quickly told to drop it by the ANC due to the bad publicity for South Africa.)

The forensic labs were not suffering from backlogs, and had processed 48 670 of the 52 486 samples given to them. And public initiatives to help fight crime were welcome.

Selebi added that the seven percent to 10 percent targets were much higher than international norms.

"If we don't achieve (the targets) I won't go home crying, I'll say 'let's do it next time'."

What a "plonker" this Nqaulka is. The highest crime rates in the world and he is happy.

Jonathan Clayton in Johannesburg.

The glass shattered with an ear-splitting explosion. A hand, clutching a spark plug to break a reinforced car window, flashed and the bag was gone. The driver had committed two mistakes. Running late, she had jumped into the car and thrown a handbag, containing a mobile phone, wallet and passport, on to the passenger seat. In South Africa, unwritten rules say you should hide such things under a seat or lock them securely in the boot.

With daylight fading, she then stopped at a red traffic light, rather than slowly inching her way forward if the way was clear. Once night falls in big cities, few dare to stop at junctions and crossroads.

The shadow in the dark used the momentary lapse to leap into action and within seconds the driver was another victim of the country’s soaring crime levels. Such is crime in South Africa where official statistics, published this week, showed another increase in murders, violent crimes, burglaries and carjackings. Over the past 12 months bank robberies have doubled.

The latest statistics have been met with fury across the nation. Radio phone-ins have focused on little else.

The front-page headline in a leading newspaper said: “You have never been in such danger in your home.”

Charles Nqakula, the Safety and Security Minister, admitted that the crime statistics were unacceptable, but dismissed calls to resign. For the second consecutive year the Government has failed to meet its target of reducing crime by between 7 and 10 per cent. “I am not going to resign,” he told business people in Johannesburg yesterday. “I am going to continue to find answers to the problems we have.”

Last February President Thabo Mbeki admitted that many South Africans lived in fear and promised an increase in police numbers and funding.

The crime statistics, which show that the country is one of the most dangerous in the world, are raising doubts over South Africa’s ability to host the football World Cup in 2010, and discouraging foreign investment.

The Government emphasised that crime overall had fallen by 20 per cent, and reported rape was also down. However, anti-rape activist groups say that with more than one rape estimated to occur every minute, many women never report such crimes. The police force is regarded increasingly as corrupt, incompetent and inefficient, and Jackie Selebi, the police chief, has been accused of dealings with underworld crime kings. He said his force would focus on the worst-hit areas. (Selebi is also the President of Interpol.)

The lengths to which people, particularly the white, and growing black, middle classes, go to avoid becoming yet another statistic often astonishes visitors from overseas. People driving home from shopping malls are warned to check frequently in the rearview mirror that they are not being followed. A strange car near a home may signal an attempt to raid their house.

Gangs, stalking shoppers in upmarket malls, stay in contact by mobile phone, and tip each other off when a likely victims is spotted. “A woman spending a lot of money in a jewellery shop, then getting into a car alone, could be signalled to the gang by a spotter. They will then follow her home and slip into the garage before the automatic door closes,” one policeman explained.

Fear of carjacking is even an acceptable excuse in court for failing to stop at a red light. In burglaries or carjackings, once the victim is alone with the perpetrators, murder or rape can easily follow.

Another African disaster in the making again? These things never happened in the old days.

Now this is where "foolish liberals" and the "politically correct" will say, "A racist must have written this!"

Now if you want to call the brother of President Mbeki of South Africa a “racist”, be my guest. But Moeletsi Mbeki is not a racist: In fact he is one of the few who talk sense about Africa. He has calculated using World Bank figures (are they racist?) that the average African was far better off under colonialism. This is not new news but is repeated here because people like Mugabe and the South African National Congress used repeated propaganda over the years, much of it lies or exaggerated, to worm their way into power with the results in Zimbabwe we see now, and with South Africa seemingly following the same path. With the new crime figures just announced for South Africa, some has doubled, all has increased except rape, but it is thought that this is because the women do not waste their time anymore reporting it as more often than not, nothing is done.

Planning on going to South Africa for the FIFA Soccer World Cup in 2010? Good luck! Make sure your will is up to date and you have worthwhile medical insurance for private hospitals for the State ones are grim.

Using Nigeria as an example, Moeletsi Mbeki has written that while China has lifted 400.000 (up to 2004) of its citizens out of poverty, Nigeria has pushed 71 million (yes, seventy one million) BELOW the poverty line since the end of colonialisation in 1960 when Britain gave Nigeria its "freedom". Hence the Nigerian pirates off the coast and the kidnappers inland, along with Nigerians having a bad reputation as international drug dealers and scam artists. Moeletsi says that the problems have been and still are caused by African leaders milking the economies for their own aggrandisement, as well as running the economies into the ground through poor and inept management.

So much of Africa is failing in its good governance of its peoples. Food for thought isn't it Sir Bob et al? One suggested answer by Moeletsi, a Black African who appreciates that for there were many White, Indian and mixed race ones until Black racism forced many of them to leave, is for Africa to sort out its own problems WITHOUT ANY AID or interference from anyone else unless human rights problems including genocide occurs. Then send in the United Nations forces along with the African Union ones who would need help. This would include the elimination of all racism currently being practiced with White farmers being kicked off their legally owned lands and serious crime being allowed to exist with governments, some illegally voted in with flawed elections, doing nothing to solve these problems.

Why am I concerned? I have children and grandchildren still living there, otherwise I would think as many do in Europe. No oil there? Who cares? I think that those responsible for allowing “Marxist terrorists” to take over especially these two countries years ago, despite the warnings of what would happen by those who lived there and who were managing the countries very well, with long life expectancies and food for all, are much more racist as the poor masses there now are really suffering.

I write in a state of utter sadness. After reading a newspaper article “Beefed up police stations turning crime fight around” (July 1), I was compelled to respond. On June 22, the worst nightmare became reality. I was at work at 1pm when the phone rang. I saw it was my home number, “the wife”, and tapped “silent” since I was in a mid-conversation. It started ringing again and again I pressed “silent”, planning to call at the end of the conversation, in two minutes. The third time I excused myself and answered the call.

On the other end of the line was the rasping voice of my wife: “I have been shot at home and am bleeding badly, please help!” This was 40km away. I ran past reception and shouted for them to phone the police while I got in my car and raced home. I was greeted by a sight which will haunt me for years to come ...

We had returned in May from Australia, after I completed a 16-month project in New South Wales. We had returned to evaluate our options and decide whether to stay in South Africa or not. It can’t be as bad as they say, we thought. My almost four-year-old son and almost two-year-old daughter were settling in nicely. We had spent some money on the house we had bought just prior to leaving, and built a prefab wall around the perimeter of the stand in Inchanga, not 200m from the Comrades route. This was to improve security a little, but this was a safe area. We were looking forward to settling into the new home after an extended period of traveling. After all, we weren’t the same as all the others South Africans in Oz — we wanted to stay. That day, my wife had run some errands and collected my son from school . As always, she clicked the button and the gate slid open, and she drove into the yard, with the kids taking an afternoon nap in the car — peace. As she pulled up next to the house and looked towards the door, she saw a guy climbing out of the window and another standing in the house. He said, “Hello, we are taking some stuff,” and stood there while the other started to climb out. She realised this was a problem and reversed the car . She reached the T in the drive-way and as she looked up she saw the first man round the corner of the house and raise a gun. She heard a shot. The window burst and she kept going. Another shot, and her arm flew off the wheel. The car slewed to the side, out of control, and stopped 15m from the gunman. She felt a burning sensation in her shoulder and arm and the gushing of blood down her side. A man appeared, grabbed her by the throat and shouted and swore at her for trying to leave. My son was still sleeping in the back of the car, but the little girl watched as the madman shook her mom around and poked a gun in her face. He demanded and took car keys, money and cell phone and, with a final insult, ran away, leaving a shocked and severely bleeding 50kg woman to her own fate.

She managed to retrieve the house keys from the car and staggered into the house to call me, while I was pressing the “silent” button on my phone — something I will never do again. She staggered back to the car and tried to unbuckle my frantic daughter from the car seat, but was losing strength. She left her there and staggered into the road to call for help. I arrived 20 minutes later to find her sitting in the car, bleeding terribly. Since the services were on strike, there was no ambulance in attendance. I took her to the nearest casualty ward.

She had surgery the next morning — four hours to insert a plate to gather the badly fractured pieces of the upper right arm and to remove the bullet from under the skin in the front of her chest. It has been a blur since then. Fear, confusion, children not understanding, pain — why did they shoot her? So, I sit here alone in my home, alone because I cannot bear leaving my people in this house while I leave — for any reason.

I read your article and think that it is utter bull, since I have not once, not even from the police themselves, had any indication that there is a possibility of catching these beasts. This after good fingerprints were lifted and the bullet was recovered (from the chest of my wife). Sadly, with this, we have been pushed to leave our beloved but now hated South Africa . We join the ranks of leavers — an engineer and a nurse, who yearn to live in and contribute to the country of their birth, a country that does not want them.

Today I watched as one of the many police vehicles you speak of was in a shopping-area parking lot being loaded full of civilians and shopping bags. I guess that one was off duty. — Ex-South African, Inchanga

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Wednesday's attacks fuelled concerns that criminals regard schools and parents of the children as soft targets, although police deny there has been an increase in such incidents.

Frayne was visiting orthodontist Dr Patrick Daly, who lives in the road behind St Andrew's School in Senderwood, about 10am on Wednesday.

He reversed his Toyota Prado into the driveway to make it easier to park.

A silver BMW followed him in.

"Next thing I could see there was this chap with a gun."

Frayne reversed, hooting loudly.

"He got a bit confused and I could see the advantage had passed to me. He hesitated, then ran back to the car, jumped in and fired."

The bullet went through Frayne's windscreen but missed him.

"I thought, Oh my God, now they're trying to kill me … I put my car into first gear and put my foot flat on the accelerator," said Frayne.

"I used my vehicle as a weapon."

He drove straight into the BMW, pushing it down the drive, across the road and into the school wall. The airbags deployed and the attackers fled on foot.

Frayne calmly noted what they were wearing and he and Daly, whose son had called the police, gave chase.

Police arrived and Frayne saw his attackers near the Jukskei River. The police arrested two men in their early 20s.

"That's the fourth time I've been hijacked, and now we're leaving. My wife and I have made up our minds, we're going to leave," said Frayne, who wasn't injured but said four attacks were enough.

Daly was held up by armed men a week earlier and robbed in his home.

"The police were fantastic. They swarmed all over this place in minutes," said the orthodontist.

St Andrew's School principal Pauline Jackson said the school's wall was damaged but nothing happened on the school property and pupils were not affected.

"Our security is tighter now."

Captain Cheryl Engelbrecht said a laptop found in the getaway BMW was stolen from The Ridge School's principal barely an hour before. The BMW was stolen in Parkview last month, and a gun found in it was stolen from a house in Norwood in May.

Cobus Snyman, the acting principal at The Ridge, said principal, Paul Channon and his father were attacked while driving out of the school grounds, where they live, just after 9am.

A silver BMW with three men in it blocked them off and robbed Channon of his laptop, cellphone and watch. No one was hurt.

In a seemingly unrelated incident, Judy Sexwale was hijacked outside her son's school, St David's Marist College, about 11.30am. Her car was later found at the nearby Thrupps Shopping Centre.

Marist Brothers principal, Rick Wilson said that about 18 months ago, another woman was similarly hijacked outside the school.

She was not harmed and her vehicle was also found at Thrupps.

No arrests have been made in the Sexwale hijacking.

*Tokyo Sexwale is a leading member of the African national Congress and was the Gauteng Premier for a few years. The chickens come home to roost? (BJD comment)

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From African Crisis Web Site

Southern Africa is running out of food - fast!

Submitted by Adriana Stuijt:

400,000 Lesothans, 1.2-million Zambians need urgent food aid - right now!

- but South Africa's farmers also no longer produce enough to feed the entire southern African region, unions warn:

July 20 2007 -- The southern African kingdom of Lesotho has declared a state of emergency today -- appealing for international help to feed more than 400,000 desperately hungry people.

And in Zambia, more than 1.2-million people also need urgent food-aid, even though the country has more than 150,000 subsistence farmers and is lush and green from recent rainfall. (Subsistence farming does not work.)

Moreover, 8,000 Zimbabweans a day are now fleeing from that country's man made-famine into neighbouring South Africa -- making huge inroads into South Africa's own dwindling food supplies, local farmers are warning.

Maize production has collapsed by more than 40% in Lesotho and Zambia this past season alone -- while in Zimbabwe, less than 10% of the normal annual grain crop was raised due to Mugabe's ethnic-cleansing campaign against his own people.

The World Food Programme warns that food-aid must be rushed urgently to all three countries. Why is all this happening so rapidly right now?

Killer TB+Aids: one-quarter of southern African population infected:

In all three countries - as indeed is happening throughout southern Africa -- more than one-quarter of the working-age population is infected with the combined deadly epidemics of Tuberculosis+Aids -- meaning that the number of people able to tend their their small subsistence-fields throughout the region drops as they are dying, while the number of orphans needing emergency food-aid and being unable to fend for themselves, has also risen dramatically.

All visitors to Europe from sub-Saharan Africa must be tested for this TB as it is almost impossible to cure and can cause an epidemic.

The average life expectancy for black African adults throughout all the southern African countries including in South Africa has now dropped to below 32 years. This means that these working-age adults are increasingly dropping out of the labour market as they fall ill and die -- and this is dramatically affecting all food-production.

For the past six months, subsistence-farm families throughout southern Africa have known that things were getting very bad, with many appeals flooding in for emergency help at local religious charities all over the sub-continent. These latest assessments by local and international institutions at the United Nations' World Food Programme have now confirmed their worst fears.

The WFP claims that the cereal harvests in Lesotho and Zambia now are less than a quarter of what the countries need to feed themselves.

Lesotho's prime minister Pakalitha Mosisili has declared a state of emergency only today.

Meanwhile in Zimbabwe, where the prices of the few available foods in shops have soared by more than 9,500% since January, the food-aid organisation CARE reports on January 19 2007 that Mugabe's police have looted all its foreign food-aid supplies which were awaiting distribution to starving villagers. Yet USA president George Bush is still sending emergency food-aid directly to Zimbabwe...

All these southern-African countries used to import excess-food produced by its neighbour South Africa -- now the only remaining excess-food producer in the entire region.

However, South Africa 's own food-prices are dwindling too: mainly due to the Mbeki-regime's own ongoing ethnic-cleansing campaign to decimate its 'white'(Afrikaner-) agricultural sector and replace them with hundreds of thousands of subsistence farmers. South Africa now produces less than 50% of its annual production of ten years ago.

Indeed its few remaining professional farmers now are no longer able to produce enough food to feed the country's own 47-million-strong population and the farmers' unions have been issuing warnings to this effect for the past two years.

LINKS: (Please cut & paste in your browser to view)

Transvaal Agricultural Union warns of food shortages in SA:

http://www.tlu.co.za

The Great South African Land Scandal:

http://www.africancrisis.org/images%5CLandScandalIndex.pdf

SA going the Zim-way - Agri-SA warns:

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_1395059,00.html

http://www.avocado.co.za/new/pages/AgriSANewsRelease19012007.doc

400,000 Lesotho residents need urgent food aid, July 20 2007:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6906923.stm

1,2-m Zambians need food-aid, July 20 2007:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4678592.stm

US sends 47,400 tons of food-aid to Zimbabwe, July 18 2007

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=84&art_id=nw20070717215233855C149747

Zimbabwe, a country in dispair:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/actionnetwork/A14061313

Agricultural trends in southern Africa 1989-1991 - statistics:

http://earthtrends.wri.org/text/agriculture-food/country-profile-129.html

Cattle-density in southern Africa year 2000: map:

http://earthtrends.wri.org/text/map_lg.php?mid=246

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MORE REPORTS ON THE SERIOUS CRIME SITUATION IN SOUTH AFRICA, INCLUDING THAT THE MURDERS ARE ABOUT 50% WORSE THAN THAN THE ANC's OFFICIAL STATISTICS AS REPORTED BY THE SOUTH AFRICAN MEDICAL COUNCIL

SA: Cafe owner kills one of four robbers.

[This is beautiful. I wish I knew of a way that we could support people who do this. We should give them a medal or something. Jan]

A cafe owner in Mountain View, Pretoria, opened fire, killing one of four men trying to rob his store on Friday morning, police said.

Captain Lucas Sithole said another man believed to be part of the group of four was arrested later in the morning.

The four men apparently entered the cafe early on Friday morning intending to rob it, and drew their firearms.

The owner drew his own firearm, firing several shots at the men, fatally wounding one of them. (Quick-Draw McGraw? Just like the old Wild West, eh?))

One of three men who ran away was later arrested at the Hercules railway station.

He would be charged with attempted robbery and attempted murder.

Police were searching for the remaining two robbers. - Sapa

URL: http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=15&art_id=nw20070824125319869C433244

Crime soars again in country where drivers dare not halt at a red light.

Southern Africa is running out of food - fast!

SA: Cafe owner kills one of four robbers.