Given the latest petrol hike, that bin is a fairly expensive barricade…

While the rest of us took the day off yesterday to sleep in seriously think about sleeping in seriously think about human rights, the small community of Hangberg near Hout Bay was rocked by violent protests as residents took to the streets to lash out against a police taskforce that raided local homes looking for abalone poachers.

The drama unfolded soon after 8:00am yesterday, during a joint raid by police, a technical response team and Marine Coastal Management officials. At about 5:00am, the Special Investigating Unit was told that five boats and approximately 50 men were illegally diving for abalone near Robben Island.

One of the task force members said they had observed the group of poachers with police and followed the group back to Hout Bay until they stopped in the Karbonkelberg area, where about 50 bags of abalone were taken into two different premises in Rhode Vos Road. But as team members started searching homes, the area quickly became the scene of a violent riot.

Cars, both civilian and official, were pelted with rocks and roads were barricaded as residents retaliated against the police. Shots were heard, and plastic bins filled with petrol were set alight. One police officer was taken to hospital and several others received minor injuries.

Residents gathered to pelt police and passers-by with rocks. Happy Human Rights Day to you too!

One resident was so frightened by the melee, that she couldn’t go to work;

There were no taxis and I was scared of the loud sound of the bullets. I ran home and watched from my window.

Other residents complained of police brutality as their homes were ransacked.

One, Paula Masias was still trembling when reporters interviewed her. In the morning, officers, ”with very big guns” appeared on her doorstep, she said. Masias claimed she opened the door before they could break it down. She told them: “Please, I have children here”. The police said they were not going to hurt the children they just wanted to know where the pink house was but I didn’t know,” said the mother of four.

Officers ran to her 25-year-old son’s shack and kicked down his door. ”My son’s girlfriend is pregnant and she started bleeding. The police took nothing, they just scratched in his bag and smacked him in the neck,’ she said.’

The Hangberg Peace and Mediation Forum has called for an urgent meeting with Western Cape police commissioner Arno Lamoer, describing the tactics used by police during yesterday’s raid as “heavy-handed”.

Forum spokesman Greg Louw said although they respected the police’s position to target individuals wanted for the illegal trade of abalone, their use of gunfire had provoked the community, he said, continuing,

We expect a certain level of professionalism. They were shooting their guns in the air, and chasing people in and out of the homes of elderly residents. They said they were targeting certain homes, but the effect was to provoke the entire community. It was so tense that I could not even move across to speak to the police to try to defuse the situation!

Another resident complained that unemployment is “crippling” the small community that clings to the southern slopes of the Sentinel,

What do you think youngsters are going to do if they can’t live off the sea? If they don’t poach, they are going to break into the rich people’s homes!

The small community of Hangberg has not had an easy relationship with the rest of Hout Bay, nor the local authorities for several years.

[Source: Times LIVE, IOL]