Why are SA cops “shocked” at murder and hijacking of British tourist?
Over 700 people have been murdered in Gugulethu since 2005
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Mzoli's - Gugulethu township in Cape Town an outdoor barbecue restaurant and bar which bills itself as an ‘authentic taste of township life’. Jamie Oliver visited it last year and in a seven-page spread in his magazine, described the food as ‘heaven’ and ‘totally sexy’. He added: ‘In this part of the world, fresh is where it’s at. Just kill it. Gut it. Skin it. Eat it.’ ‘When I go back to Cape Town, I am absolutely going to Mzoli’s.’
The SA Institute of Race Relations questioned why the South African police were “shocked” at the murder and hijacking of a British tourist.
As international and local media agencies have reported a British national and his wife were attacked in the township of Gugulethu on the urban periphery of Cape Town while honeymooning in the city. The couple were kidnapped by armed robbers and the wife was later found murdered. In response to media coverage the South African Police Force has released a statement expressing "shock" at the murder.
The police are out of touch with reality for expressing shock at the murder of a tourist in Gugulethu in Cape Town, the SA Institute of Race Relations said on Tuesday.
"Data in the possession of the South African Institute of Race Relations shows that over 700 people have been murdered in Gugulethu since 2005. In the year to March 2010 some 110 murders occurred within the Gugulethu police precinct," the SAIRR said.
"This amounts to one murder every two-and-a-half days for five consecutive years. How under such circumstances can the police claim to be ‘shocked’ or surprised at what happened to the British couple?"
The SAIRR said if the police were truly shocked, then it suggested that "the police’s senior management is out of touch with the reality of life on the ground for people in areas such as Gugulethu who have been left to run the gauntlet of violent crime on a horrific scale".
The institute said it was "revealing" that it took the murder of a foreign national for the police's senior management to take stock of the state of affairs in Gugulethu.
'This murder of a newlywed woman has become the symbol of our country'
Many South Africans rightly deserve to feel deeply let down by the performance of their government and insulted when it feigns shock and surprise at violence that has become commonplace in South Africa.
We live in a country where human life means absolutely nothing to violent thugs.
But this one murder - of a beautiful young woman who had just married - has become the symbol of our country to the outside world.
This is evidenced by the British media's coverage of the murder.
The Daily Mail report on the tragic death of the British bride ended by concluding: "South Africa has one of the worst crime rates in the world."
Similar observations have appeared in other publications with The Telegraph reporting that 46 murders are committed each day in South Africa, "a statistic that led to a substantial rise in security during the World Cup".
South Africa is indeed a violent country and far too many South Africans are intimately acquainted with this knowledge.
And this murder resurrects the doubts and prejudice that surfaced before the World Cup earlier this year.
It also reinforces the idea that the safety foreign visitors enjoyed during the tournament in June was a mirage. This murder then shows how life has returned to normal after the soccer fans departed.
Anni Dewani's body will be returned to her home and her widower will leave too. Life, as they say, will go on. But it is a life that has become frighteningly abnormal because of our acceptance of barbaric acts of cruelty and violence as a normal feature of South Africa.
*Gugulethu made headlines in 1993 when an American exchange student, Amy Biehl, was stabbed and stoned to death. On August 25, 1993, she was driving black friends home to Guguletu township when the car was attacked by a group of youths chanting "one settler, one bullet" -- urging death to all white citizens. The youths stoned the car and struck Ms. Biehl on the head. She fled, bleeding, but the youths cornered her and stabbed and stoned her to death. She was 26 years old.
Posted by ZeroTolerance at 1:27 AM 0 comments Links to this post
Labels: ARMED ROBBERY, CARJACK, CRIME, HIJACKERS, MURDER, SA CRIME STATS, THEFT, VIOLENT CRIME
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