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Subject: Good old
Apartheid days? From www.rsa-overseas.co.za
It just continues under the
ANC ... no change! Except there is now much more police and
security brutality. So, what did the poor sods fight for? To
make the ANC leaders rich while they live in worse poverty than they did
before?
From www.theherald.co.za newspaper.
"Cops launch brutal raid
on Plettenberg squatters
Janine Oelofse,
GARDEN ROUTE BUREAU CHIEF, 30th January 2008
MAYHEM broke out in Plettenberg Bay yesterday when police and security
guards attacked unarmed squatters with sjamboks (heavy whips) and shot them
with rubber bullets in an unprovoked attack witnessed by several shocked
journalists.
In the midst of the violent assault, the security guards also threatened to
break journalists‘ cameras if they photographed the attack.
Police have vowed to investigate the incident and have promised to take
disciplinary action against any police officer found to have abused his
powers. The brazen and brutal blitz took place as members of the Bossiesgif
squatter community were talking to journalists about the demolition of their
shacks earlier this week.
During the interview, about five members of Valstra Transport, a Knysna
security company hired by the Bitou municipality, arrived in the camp
apparently to demolish more shacks. A group of about 20 community members,
none of them armed, gestured the security guards away by gesticulating with
their arms.
Five minutes later, the security guards, accompanied by policemen in two
unmarked cars, sped into the industrial area next to the squatter camp.
A number of policemen armed with rifles jumped out of the vehicles and
immediately started shooting rubber bullets into the crowd, which
included elderly women and babies.
Members of the security company, armed with guns, sjamboks, a knobkerrie (a
heavy wooden stick with a large knob at one end. They used to be used
for killing when the tribes were fighting each other) and pepper-spray,
helped police chase the crowd into the squatter camp, where they shot
them at close range with rubber bullets. The police and
security guards also sprayed pepper spray into people‘s eyes and hit them
with sjamboks.
One resident, 67-year-old Armstrong Magidigidi, who had been hit in the back
by a rubber bullet, ran into a nearby factory building to escape the attack.
Two security guards followed him into the building and dragged him out,
swearing at him as they dragged him into the back of a police vehicle.
The Valstra members claimed a knobkerrie was found in his possession, but a
television journalist claimed he had seen them plant the weapon on
Magidigidi. David Erasmus, who had been taking rubbish out of his shack, was
shot by police from close range in the arm and side.
Yesterday‘s attack followed a similar incident in the area on Tuesday, when
police fired rubber bullets at community members, injuring more than 10
people. Among them was Zoliswa Msila, who is still breast-feeding her
seven-month-old baby. She said police had shot her in the chest in her home
while she was cooking porridge for her child.
The unrest followed the demolition on Monday of five shacks that the Bitou
municipality claimed had been built in areas that had been cleared for
development. Bitou Mayor Lulama Mvimbi‘s spokesman, Kenny
Leluma, refused to comment on the latest violence. He said Valstra did not
need permission from police to act in their jurisdiction as they worked “in
matters falling under the municipality‘s competency”.
Valstra could not be reached for comment yesterday."
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So what have the African people (of all
colours and races), who were in many cases coerced with propaganda and
brutal acts such as public necklacing (a car tyre placed around the neck,
filled with petrol and set on fire) gained? With the Rand currency
being worth now a fraction of its value when SA was under sanctions with
white government, food as expensive as in Europe but with the incomes a
third or less of the European averages, for those who have jobs (40%
unemployment) and the promised houses, jobs and security by the ANC now
being a seemingly unattainable dream.
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