Re: Developments in South Africa

1998-02-24 Thread Thomas Kruse

ANC GUERRILLAS TURN TO CRIME

   By Alec Russell in Johannesburg 

   In a nightmare for post-apartheid South Africa, former African 
National Congress guerrillas have become disillusioned with their political 
masters and turned to crime.

[snip]

From guerillas to criminals is a story well known to Nicaraguans.  The flip
side is the conversion of dictators into democrats.  See, for example, the
case of the former Argentine General Antonio Bussi, who is now governor of
the northern province of Tucuman (today on the NYT website).  All was smooth
sailing with Bussi until they found his swiss bank accounts.  Apparently the
money came from liquidating the assets of his "dirty war" victims.  This
only came to light becuase Spanish courts are inquiring into the fate of
some 600 citizens killed in Argentina during the "dirty war".

All of this (and much more, such as was suggested by my notes from Chile)
suggests the need for a human cost accounting system for processes of
"democratic transition" and "structural adjustment" (often they go together).

Tom

Tom Kruse / Casilla 5812 / Cochabamba, Bolivia
Tel/Fax: (591-42) 48242
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]





Developments in South Africa

1998-02-23 Thread Sid Shniad

The Daily Telegraph Sunday 22 February 1998   

ANC GUERRILLAS TURN TO CRIME

By Alec Russell in Johannesburg 

In a nightmare for post-apartheid South Africa, former African 
National Congress guerrillas have become disillusioned with their political 
masters and turned to crime.
With a demoralised and corrupt police and a limitless supply of 
weapons from the region's many recent wars, President Mandela's society 
has long been seen by international criminal syndicates as ripe for 
exploitation.
Now as former ANC guerrillas tire of waiting for their government to 
keep its promises, the crime-lords have on tap a desperate and ruthless 
source of manpower to do their dirty work.
Over the last few months South Africa has been hit by a spate of 
military-style raids on bank vans. More than a dozen guards have been 
killed and more than œ10 million stolen.
In the bloodiest hit, which left six guards dead, the attackers cordoned 
off a major highway with a spiked chain before ambushing a bank van. 
They first sprayed it with armour-piercing bullets then stopped it by 
ramming into it with a commandeered 20-ton lorry.
It was a professional job with echoes of the tactics township defence 
units used against the police in the apartheid era. Few South Africans were 
surprised when Collins Chauke, a former member of the ANC's armed 
wing, Umkhonto we Size, was identified as a prime suspect.
The government has claimed that he was an exceptional case. But the 
inmates of Devon military camp 60 miles east of Johannesburg tell a very 
different story. Left to fester in their brick blockhouses they are simmering 
with resentment at the government. They also leave little doubt that many 
ex-colleagues are resorting to crime.
"The government promised us heaven and earth and they have not 
delivered," said Sipho Mavundla, a 32-year-old veteran of the "liberation" 
war who spent four years in exile in Tanzania.
"I can survive on the 600 rands (œ80) a month they pay us. But some 
can't. I won't say my comrades are robbing banks, but if you had army 
training, no job, and were desperate to feed your family, what would you 
do?" On a fire-extinguisher behind him someone had scratched: "This 
government is driving us to crime. They force us to rob banks."
A cartoon strip on an adjacent wall rammed home the message. In the 
first picture, three soldiers are marching up and down in freshly pressed 
uniforms. In the second, a duck labelled the "commissioner" struts around 
in a parody of a general out of touch with his men. In the third a man in a 
balaclava with an AK-47 on his back is running with a television in his 
arms. 
Peter Swarahle, a wiry 25-year-old, is the unofficial spokesman for 
those in the Devon camp. He joined Umkhonto we Size in the late Eighties 
and after the briefest of training fought in his local township, 
Hammanskraal, north of Pretoria, against the apartheid security forces.
At the end of the apartheid era in May 1994 he was among thousands 
of ANC soldiers who were promised a career in the army or training to 
adapt to civilian life. He opted for the latter. But since then he says all he 
has done is sleep and eat and collect his 20 rands (œ2.50) a day.
Last month he decided enough was enough. Now he and 11 colleagues 
are preparing to sue the government for breach of contract for failing to 
prepare them for civilian life. "Most of us have been here for three years 
and all we have to show for it is a certificate of a few weeks' training," he 
said. "We've written to the government and no one has replied."
Ronnie Kasrils, the deputy minister of defence and a former Umkhonto 
we Size leader, told The Telegraph that frustration was not widespread. 
The reality, he said, "does not fit the picture of ex-combatants being 
thrown out on the streets and becoming highway robbers. If we find there 
are former [Umkhonto we Size] members involved in crime it shouldn't 
surprise anyone. Every country in the world has seen former policemen and 
soldiers finding it hard to return to civilian life".
The British-monitored integration of the old white-led army and black 
guerrillas has been widely praised as one of the triumphs of South Africa's 
transition. But that is no consolation in Devon and other camps for 
demobilised freedom fighters.
"We were helping to set our country free," shouted one man who 
would only give his nickname, Triple M. "Now we are bounced around like 
a rubber ball. No one ever comes here. People call us criminals. But we 
have been forgotten."