Mon séjour en Afrique du Sud (Cape Town)

As South Africa celebrates Human Rights Day, the most basic of these rights, enshrined in Section 12 of our constitution – “to be free from all forms of violence” – remains as elusive as it was 13 years ago.

Despite its daily reminders of our lack of freedom from this fear, the media has recently been criticised by the Media Monitoring Project for failing in its duty in reporting on crime.

Given its extensive coverage, what more could the media do?

Mindful of the fact that criticism of the media in general runs the risk of oversimplification, given that reporting varies greatly in quality, there is one conspicuous gap in coverage, which is a crucial part of the broader crime context: crime levels in areas previously designated for black occupation, especially rural reserves.

The media could also play a very important role in sanctioning the conduct of the police and the courts – including through providing the public with follow up to some of its reports.

To point out the importance of the historical context of crime is not to absolve the government from blame for having made crucial blunders in attempting to transform the criminal justice system, especially insofar as policing is concerned.

During the apartheid years, when policing focused primarily on propping up the political system, an entrenched culture of criminality prevailed in townships, spawning vigilante movements.

The 1980s saw guns flooding into these areas as political violence escalated. Some warlords were known criminals, and the “com-tsotsi” category siding with the liberation forces also raped, robbed and killed. By the 1990s political violence had spread to rural areas, fuelled by a proliferation of weapons caches.

The entrenched tentacles of organised crime (not unconnected, as TRC reports on Project Coast show, to apartheid state-linked elements) also spread into rural areas.

By the 1990s, policing in townships and rural areas had sunk to new depths, with the recruitment by the then KwaZulu Police (whose ranks also included better trained former South African police members) of ill-educated and highly politicised recruits.

With the crumbling of the repressive walls of apartheid, violent crime increased in the formerly non-black areas. Although the different policing components have been integrated, little has been done to improve the literacy skills of many members. Nor have those notorious for their involvement in violence been neutralised by prosecution, or even by removing them from the areas in which they wreaked such havoc, where they continue to interact with their old networks.

Of crucial importance in any analysis of crime patterns are the racial and class dimensions. The evidence and findings of the TRC show that although black foot soldiers were used in the violence of the recent past, those who orchestrated and facilitated it were white.

While poverty may provide a fertile recruitment ground for criminal activities it does not, in itself, breed criminality – and those who do the recruitment are of all skin hues.

Silence facilitates violence.

The revelations of the TRC horrified many South Africans who had not been exposed to the reality of what was happening in the townships because of the separation of the races.

The media were largely unsuccessful in bridging this divide, especially given the restrictions imposed by states of emergency, and those who were overtly (to township residents) perpetrating it (including the police) escaped the opprobrium of outraged public opinion, so were free to continue their nefarious activities.

While the media post 1994 has made efforts to breach the racial divide, including as it relates to crime, there is a general paucity of coverage of the extent of rural violence – including by the public broadcaster.

While the murder of farmers, or of a high-profile personality such as David Rattray, receives prominent coverage, the deaths of ordinary citizens pass largely unnoticed. Nor do these deaths usually receive the type of attention from the police that more high-profile cases do.

Not only do the families of the deceased continue to suffer, but so do the public – for those responsible, who are often well armed, are able to carry on with their criminal activities with impunity.

Take, for example, events in kwaBiyela, outside Melmoth, during the past month, where at least seven people (some estimates are much higher) have been brutally murdered. In one incident, three members of one family were gunned down. An unknown number of houses have been razed, and cattle have been killed.

Since the dynamics of the conflict are far from clear everyone is afraid, and many people have fled their homes and are sleeping in the bushes. The attackers are well armed, and are so brazen they reportedly cook and eat some of the meat of the slaughtered cattle while still in the area.

Some residents claim the police are siding with the attackers, and fear opening cases, and providing information to them. Following a recent community meeting some of those named as attackers have been arrested, but others remain at large, continuing to threaten residents.

Quite apart from the deaths and injuries, it is not difficult to imagine the suffering of poor people who have lost their houses, their possessions, and an important means of subsistence – their cattle.

Is it not scandalous that they have had to leave their homes and sleep in the bushes because the SAPS is not protecting them? Residents here – and in other areas where the threat of similar violence is ever present – are begging for the deployment of the SANDF.

In the normal course of events, soldiers are no longer used for internal peacekeeping – but why, then, is there no deployment of adequately trained Public Order Policing personnel who, given the serious allegations against local police, have no links with them? Should the media not be exposing such a disgraceful failure of the SAPS to fulfil their constitutional mandate?

Two other areas in which locals are crying out for media attention to their plight, and for the deployment of impartial security force members, are kwaNyavu (Table Mountain, outside Pietermaritzburg) and Steadville (Ladysmith).

In kwaNyavu there have been a number of politically related deaths in recent years, and members of a group allegedly implicated have recently appealed successfully against life sentences imposed on them for the murder of a councillor.

Many residents are terrified the violence will escalate, and claim that certain members of the police are colluding with those responsible.

A local councillor is living in fear of his life, following veiled threats, and the presence of an unknown car near his house in the middle of the night.

In Steadville, several people died, and many others were injured, in attacks carried out in broad daylight by well armed men. Community members, especially political activists, live in fear of further killings following recent shooting incidents, and the release on bail of suspects who were arrested following a 2006 attack. Their pleas for the reopening of a satellite police station in the township have fallen on deaf ears.

All societies have institutionalised mechanisms for maintaining law and order and in a modern state this responsibility lies with the criminal justice system.

The type of anarchy which prevails in kwaBiyela is by no means unique and, with exceptions, the policing of rural areas is probably among the worst in the province.

Better media coverage of levels of crime in such areas might well shame police management (and politicians) into taking constructive action.

Leaving aside problems with certain courts, if the police service is ineffective, partisan, or corrupt, the ends of justice will not be served. While there are frequent media reports of poor policing – members drunk on duty, dockets disappearing – there is generally no follow-up.

Typically, a police media spokesman will agree the allegations are serious, but that appears to be the end of the matter. Should the media not be following up serious cases of alleged police corruption, and reporting on what action, if any, has been taken by management?

Given the crucial role the media can play in building and safeguarding democracy in South Africa it is regrettable that there is not more investigative reporting.

This complaint is often countered with the argument that media resources are scarce.

However, following up on reports of serious allegations against police members would surely not entail a great deal of time or work? Perhaps it is a legacy of the authoritarian apartheid state with the near absolute power it gave to the police that the utterances of their spokesmen are still taken at face value, without sufficient critical questioning.

In conclusion, these are but two key areas in which the media could improve its coverage of crime. While different media sectors may target specific categories of readers, listeners or viewers, and package their dispatches accordingly, they also need to guard against compartmentalising their news when it comes to crucial crime issues.

In other words, reports about what is happening in a black township or rural reserve area should reach English and Zulu-speaking audiences – for the bridging of the racial and linguistic divides of the past, in the interests of building a truly non-racial nation, remains paramount.