[imagesource: Henk Kruger/African News Agency]

Last week, it was announced that South African National Defence Force (SANDF) units would be deployed to gang-plagued areas on the Cape Flats.

In short, they’re sending in the army, and it’s not hard to see why. During the first six months of the year, it’s estimated that 900 people were murdered in gang violence on the Cape Flats.

For an idea of how that stacks up against other parts of the world, and a sense of perspective, see here.

The army will be rolled out over the coming few days, Minister of Police Bheki Cele said yesterday, and many will welcome their presence with open arms.

Not everyone, though. Mark Shaw and Simone Hayson, writing on News24, argue that a military crackdown could actually make things worse.

Shaw is the director of the Global Initiative against Transnational Organised Crime (GITOC), and is currently working on a book about the illegal sale of state weapons to the South African underworld.

Haysom is a senior analyst at GITOC, and has also written a book about crime and murder on the Cape Flats.

Before we get to the gist of their argument, let’s start with why crime in the area has reached such epic proportions:

At the community level, there are loosely four key motors of violence, which may appear local but rely on external inputs: Firstly, the power that gang culture has to entice an alienated, frightened and hopeless youth to join its ranks; secondly, the desire to control drug turf and the profits they generate, control of which then give gangs the power to buy guns, which are the third driver.

Lastly, territorial control, enforced by gun violence, generates further competition over extortion profits and money laundering opportunities from local businesses. We are wrong to think these conditions are confined to Cape Town. This same motor can also be found in neighbourhoods in Johannesburg, Durban and Nelson Mandela Bay.

Recently we have found that there are direct connections between the gang structures in these cities, which means that these street-level organised crime groups have an increasingly nationwide reach…

It is worth remembering that the gangs that are in Manenberg, Hanover Park (or even Westbury) are just foot soldiers of something bigger, in which these figures play a crucial directing role.

Now for why the deployment of the army could make things worse:

The fact that some community organisations have called for this step is entirely understandable. The Cape Flats have exploded and people are living in an awful state of fear and grief. But one of the most difficult aspects of tackling organised crime is that enforcement is rife with dilemmas.

Taking out “kingpins” may leave leadership vacuums that lead to more violence, as has been seen in Mexico. Cracking down on major routes may splinter them into dozens of smaller ones, as can be seen with the globalisation of heroin and cocaine routes.

Cracking down on the Cape Flats could send Cape gangsters packing for Durban – a phenomenon that was crucial to breaking the Italian mafia out of Sicily and spreading it across the country. This is not to say that enforcement can’t work – only that it is hard to get right, and easy to get wrong, and to point out that the government is currently operating without an overarching organised crime strategy.

Others have provided excellent comment on why the military is ill-suited to operate in an urban, civilian context, or addressing concerns about justice – e.g. the arrest and prosecution of criminal actors.

We hope that the deployment does, nonetheless, provide some respite, and also that it is indeed short-lived, and followed by measures that aim to change the structural conditions that have created this situation, as political actors have promised it will be.

Shaw and Haysom are far from the only worried voices, with many community leaders expressing reservations about the move.

Reporting below via IOL:

The Anglican Church Archbishop of Cape Town Thabo Makgoba described the Philippi East murders as particularly shocking “against the backdrop of what has long been an appalling and unacceptable” level of gangsterism, violence and crime.

“I know that communities have been calling for the army, but using soldiers for police work when they have no practical experience brings real dangers.

“The army must follow police rules of engagement such as the use of minimum force and the police must use the resources freed up to investigate the violence, arrest the perpetrators and bring them to justice,” Makgoba said.

Social justice activist and Anglican priest Father Michael Lapsley called the deployment of the soldiers a “desperate” act and cautioned that it needed to be handled carefully.

“Maybe it’s become necessary as a short-term measure because communities have lost faith in the police.

“But in a democracy which many people fought at a great cost, many people will recall unacceptable things which were carried out under the guise of the state of emergency.”

Ultimately, when you have a situation where people are eating dinner crouched on the floor, for fear of being struck by a stray bullet, desperate measures may well be what is needed.

[sources:news24&iol]