CAPE TOWN: Wavingand giggling, crowds of children scamper behind a Casspir military armoredtruck trailed by police vehicles as they snake through the streets on a raid inthe gang-ridden Cape Flats area of South Africa. A few blocks down the road,the rifle and shield-brandishing forces hop off their vehicles and meanderthrough lines of hanging laundry, before swooping in on a cluster of apartmentbuildings suspected to be crime hotspots. South Africa in July deployed some1,300 soldiers to shore up the police forces which has been battling deadlygang violence ravaging the area.
Situated on thesoutheastern outskirts of the touristic city of Cape Town, the Cape Flats areacomprises multiple townships where blacks and people of mixed race werecondemned to live by the oppressive apartheid regime. It has become one of the most dangerousplaces in South Africa, plagued by gangsterism and under-resourced policing.But a month after their deployment, the troops appear to have brought littlerelief for the crime-weary and poverty-stricken community.
"Everybodywas elated when they heard the news that the army was going to come in becausethe situation was so dire, that anything to improve the situation would havehelped," said Kader Jacobs, who heads a community policing forum inManenberg township. People had expected a roll-out of large scale lockdownswith specific targeting of well-known criminal hotspots and gang leaders but"there's been none of this". "The people aren't seeing any majorchanges or improvements in the area," said the frustrated communityleader.
Working withintelligence
Police statisticssay murders in the Western Cape province rose 6.3 percent to nearly 4,000 inthe year up to April 2019. A new report on urban safety released by the SouthAfrican Cities Network this year, showed Cape Town recorded the highest murderrates in the country at 69 people killed per 100,000 -- double the nationalaverage of rate recorded last year.
"They sendin the army but the army can't do anything," said 50-year-old Sally-AnneJacobs who lost both her son and 19-year-old cousin to gang violence over thepast four years. "The army is here but I don't know how far they can go tominimize the killings on the Cape Flats," she said. Bowing to pressurefrom local government, community and social organizations after 43 murders wererecorded in just one weekend in July, President Cyril Ramaphosa cleared atemporary three-month military deployment.
Working withintelligence gathered from community members and other sources, the militarygoes in and secures parameters allowing the police to raid and arrest - attimes evoking applause from neighbors. But the numbers of killings have notreduced much. Despite the army presence over the past month, 47 deaths werereported on the second weekend of August - making it the deadliest weekendsince the infantry arrived.
Police MinisterBheki Cele said while "it's not an ideal world to send soldiers intocommunities," there has been more than 1,000 arrests so far for variouscrimes including attempted murder, robbery and hijackings. In addition, policehave seized 45 firearms and 1,036 rounds of ammunition. Even with such mass arrests,locals continue to live in fear and suspect may cases won't be thoroughlyinvestigated. "Half of the detectives in the province have a caseload of200 dockets or more, when the ideal number is between 50 and 60,"provincial minister Alan Winde said.
'No majorchanges'
Social activistof the Manenberg Safety Forum charity, Roegchanda Pascoe is also not impressed."From what I've seen the army hasn't done much. Minimal to nought impacthas been measured. Two guns in the last operation were found out of the manyartillery we know is out on the streets," she said. There's more tocurbing crime than just military show of force, according to Pascoe. "Thesocial fabric of our communities has broken down entirely. We sit with brokenfamilies, with unemployment, teenage pregnancy, drug and alcohol abuse."
But the policeminister says it is still "early days" of the operation as he warnedgangsters that "your days are numbered." Costing the taxpayer $1.4million (1.25 million euros), the operational expense "would be worth itif it led to a long-term disruption in violence," said Andrew Faull, aresearcher with the Pretoria-based think-tank Institute of Security Studies(ISS). But so far the military deployment according to Faull is akin to a "politicaltheatre". "They are being seen to do things but they are just goingthrough the motions. So it's performative politics."- AFP