OPINION - THE CRIMINAL’S BEST FRIENDS?
By Chris Botha
On Thursday, 11 January 2024, two politicians from two political parties in South Africa, each released a statement on issues of South African policing (1).
These were based on answers received to questions posed by them in Parliament. Three common themes emerged from the content of the two releases: the South African Police Service (SAPS), firearms, and Bheki Cele (South Africa’s Minister of Police).
An analysis of the three common emerging themes produces a narrative that should leave South Africans very uncomfortable.
Analysis
The SAPS and firearms:
The SAPS is a major supplier of firearms to mostly unidentified (2) people (which people are consequently then in possession of unlicensed firearms). During the period April 2021 and July 2023, 1725 official firearms were stolen from the SAPS. If that is not bad enough, 357 firearms stored to be used in court as evidence were stolen from these stores since the 2020/21 financial year (Groenewald asserts that it is reasonable to assume that firearms are mainly used in serious offences, such as murder and robbery. Without the evidence, he writes, the chances of successful court cases are very slim).
The total amount of firearms stolen during the periods covered comes to 2082. In comparison, Groenewald’s press release informs the reader that former police colonel Christiaan Prinsloo, between 2007 and 2015, facilitated the theft of more than 2000 firearms from police custody before selling it to gangs. By 2016, Groenewald writes, some of these stolen firearms had been linked to the deaths of 89 children, while another 170 children had been wounded by them. He also points out that Prinsloo only served three years and ten months of an eighteen-year sentence.
Since you and I will, under certain circumstances, lose the privilege of legal firearm possession if our firearms are stolen, one wonders what happened to people in the SAPS who were tasked with the safe carrying and storage of these firearms – in fact, with the control of firearms and the sanctions needed when a firearm is no longer where it should be. One of the four basic tasks of a manager is still ‘control’, is it not? Do the appointed managers know this, or is the cadre designation paramount? Terblanchѐ posits that whatever the SAPS is doing is not working, and that alternative measures are not visible. The DA will be asking further questions to the Minister in Parliament, since he avoided answering the part of the question on how many SAPS firearms have been positively linked to a particular violent crime. According to Groenewald’s media release, the Minister listed a number of precautionary measures that had been introduced recently (in his reply to the FF Plus question) but that these were clearly not effective.
In comparison, Burger, and also Du Toit, covers some statistics: 16 people are daily killed in the war between Ukraine and Russia; 75 people are killed daily in South Africa during criminal incidents (3). At the time of writing, I am not in a position (yet) to comfortably supply reliable statistics on the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. However, some statistics are being reported, as they were covered in South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. I will report on this at a later stage (4).
General Bheki Cele MP, Minister of Police:As can be expected (politicians are politicians, after all, and there is an election looming) both media releases are critical of Cele. Terblanchѐ’s media release states that Cele’s response (in Parliament) was months overdue and in violation of Rule 145 (5) (a) of the Rules of Parliament. His leadership is of a lackluster (5) nature, and Cele has avoided answering the second part of Terblanchѐ’s question (the link between SAPS firearms and particular violent crimes). Groenewald’s comment, on the precautionary measures that have ‘recently been introduced’ and are ‘clearly not effective’, are concomitantly linked to his remark that the government is putting illegal firearms and ammunition in the hands of dangerous criminals while there are efforts to disarm lawful, private firearm owners.
This year June, it will be two years since I have written an open letter to Cele (6). I have written about Cele’s relationship with Gun Free South Africa (GFSA) and the rather strange arguments used in the efforts to disarm legal firearm owners. Likewise, I have been worried about the delay in releasing the assessment by the Wits School of Governance (WSG, on the effects on crime of the Firearms Control Act, 60 of 2000, commonly referred to as the FCA). Indeed, said the WSG report, there is little evidence that the FCA has caused a decline in crime rates during the period under assessment. Rather, strong policing was the answer, according to the WSG. (Terblanchѐ’s reference to Cele’s ‘lackluster’ nature in the media release probably suggests that he, Cele, is not the person to lead an effort of strong policing). This assessment was completed during 2015, but only released by the Civilian Secretariat for Police Service (CSPS) on 25 June 2021. I noted that this was reminiscent of the delayed release of the Panel of Expert’s Report on the Marikana findings, and I asked whether this delay in releasing important reports was not perhaps indicative of a pattern in the Ministry.
I wrote in some detail about Dr Johan Burger’s exposition of the right to self-defence (Cele was of the opinion that South Africans did not need guns for self-defence) in his analysis of Minister of Safety and Security v South African Hunters and Game Conservation Association [2018] ZACC 14. I added my own views to this.
I closed the open letter with the following: ‘Lastly, General, do you realise how difficult it is to confront you with compassion? If I did not quite succeed, please bear with me. I will try harder next time’.
I have had no response.
Finally …
The SAPS and its Minister are the criminals best friends? You be the judge …
Hartenbos
13 January 2024
(1) DA MP Okkie Terblanchѐ: https://www.iol.co.za/news/61-police-firearms-are- (accessed 12 January 2024); FF Plus leader Pieter Groenewald: https://www.politicsweb.co.za/politics/hundreds-of-firearmevidence-stolen-from-police- (accessed 13 January 2024).
(2) Only six private persons have been arrested, says Groenewald. Not a single police member has been apprehended, he writes, yet hundreds of firearms could not have been stolen out of well-protected storage facilities without inside help.
(3) See their respective articles in The Compassionate Confronter (Vol 3 No 4 December 2023; available at https://confronterjournal.weebly.com).
(4) However, in many posts on social media, some commentators are asking whether South Africa, given its internal situation, has the moral standing to take Israel to court. (I have published a slightly different view in a political satire, available on https://www.facebook.com/chris.botha.9615).
(5) According to Oxford languages: (adjective) lacking in vitality, force or conviction; uninspired or uninspiring (lackluster and not lacklustre, from languages.oup.com; accessed 13 January 2024).
(6) In The Compassionate Confronter (Vol 2 No 2 June 2022, pp 31-37. See specifically pp 34-35 on the firearms issue. Available at https://confronterjournal.weebly.com).
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