[imagesource: Esa Alexander]

Earlier this week, we covered how two analysts reckon that deploying South African National Defence Force (SANDF) units to gang-plagued areas on the Cape Flats may actually make things worse.

As the crisis deepens, increased media attention is being paid to crimes in the affected areas, with Carte Blanche’s show on Sunday going inside the gang warfare.

Something needs to change, because the stories coming from those affected are horrific. On Monday, a 22-year-old pregnant woman was murdered, caught in the crossfire of rival gangs whilst hanging up washing.

Another statistic, sure, but also a truly tragic story of how the everyday lives of those in the area are forever changed.

There is actually precedent for army forces being sent in, with SANDF deployed in Manenberg 21 years ago.

Writing for the Daily Maverick, Marianne Merten details what happened next:

Around 15kms from the pretty City Bowl and the luxurious Atlantic seaboard, a deadly conflict was under way across the Cape Flats between gangsters and Pagad, the anti-drug vigilantes, and between gangsters and other gangsters, that I reported on as a young reporter, then for Cape Talk…

Calm arrived in Manenberg. A curious calm. Young (gun)men disappeared. Older gang lieutenants and the bosses laid low, or vanished to other parts of Cape Town or even upcountry as residents quietly whispered about this one and that one. The gangsters were on an enforced holiday in 1998. The aunties relaxed in keeping an eye on the children playing outside in the streets, now safe. The uncles moved theirklawerjas or checkers from the tiny, crowded front rooms of council flats into the streets. It was safe.

The calm held for as long as the soldiers were about. But the deployment was always going to be short-lived…When the SANDF left, the calm unravelled – fast.

That was always going to be the issue, and is part of what was covered in that piece from earlier this week.

The stories of what came next should serve as a serious warning sign:

Hard Livings gang boss Rashied Staggie more than once drove along Manenberg Avenue – the main thoroughfare is officially named without any hint of irony – dishing out hard cash in big notes. Die Hok, where his kring (gang leadership) met, was on council property, with a fancy underlit floor as it doubled up as a nightclub and bar.

I returned to Manenberg, usually, but not only, because another gang fight killed a youngster, or gangster, or bystanders. Efforts by community activists to put up after-school programmes, to show the youth different possibilities or to put up community anti-crime structures somehow never got official support, while on occasion sparking active opposition by officialdom…

Now the soldiers are coming in, again. And, again, saturation cordon-search-and-seizure operations are unfolding in what is effectively a local lockdown. Why anyone would think this time round it would be different remains a mystery. Like the definition of insanity, often attributed (but disputed) to Albert Einstein, as “doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results”.

The reality is that the SAPS is too afraid of what it needs to do – to get out of their offices and vehicles to patrol on foot in among the narrow spaces between shacks, where criminals, gangsters and violence haunt residents.

Given that they’re paid peanuts, and are often ill-equipped to deal with the issues that they are supposed to battle, it’s tough not to feel for police in the area.

Then again, as Marianne points out, these are the same areas that women are supposed to walk through at night, and raise families in.

Communities are living in fear of their lives, daily, and it’s a multi-faceted failure of epic proportions that has led to this point.

The army should strike some fear into criminals operating with impunity. Ultimately, though, even if it serves as a solution, it will be shortlived:

In the headiness of politicians’ politicking and the inability of the SAPS generals to move away from knee-jerk displays of the kragdadigheid they mistake for effectiveness, it’s so much easier sending in soldiers.

And that’s what’s done then even though such deployment for saturation policing provides little other than temporary relief as the gangsters and criminals go on an enforced rest period – leaving that which gives rise to violence, crime and killings fundamentally unresolved.

Once the army moves on, the criminals will continue to do what they do best.

There is no quick, easy fix, but when problems go unaddressed for the best part of a generation, there seldom is.

[source:dailymaverick]