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- A Stuijt
- Retired South African medical journalist, ex-Sunday Times of Johannesburg.
Xhosas and Zulus clash: two dead
19:59 | 
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A Stuijt |
Mob attack sparks fear of xenophobic violence in Durban squatter camp
September 28 2009 -- Dasen Thathiah reports on IOL that ‘tensions are running high after two men were murdered in a mob attack at the Kennedy Road informal settlement on Sunday. “
Killed were Mthokozisi Ndlovu and Ndumiso Mnguni when the Kennedy Road Development Committee was attacked by a group of about 40 armed men early on Sunday morning, according to a shack-dwellers community organisation.
Although they did not mention this earlier, the shackdwellers now claim that the attacks were as due to xenophobia - with Xhosa tribespeople being told to leave the largely Zulu community.
However, police denied this politically-loaded allegation – the ANC-regime has always denied that there were any cultural differences between Zulus and Xhosas -- instead saying that ‘vigilantes’ were responsible.
'They destroyed 15 houses before launching their attack'
Transport, Community Safety and Liaison MEC Willies Mchunu was at the scene late last night trying to calm the community, and stopped the crowd from taking the law into their own hands.
The Abahlali baseMjondolo (shack-dwellers' movement) spokesman Mzwakhe Mdlalose said: "The men were shouting, 'The AmaMpondo are taking over Kennedy. Kennedy is for the amaZulu'." –
‘All the amaZulu must come out…’
"Many people are also seriously injured. The attackers broke everything that they could, including the windows of the (Clare Estate Community) hall. They destroyed 15 houses before launching their attack. They were knocking on each door shouting, 'All the amaZulu must come out' and then destroying the shacks," he said.
Eight suspects were arrested by police hours after the killings and police fired rubber bullets to settle the unruly crowd as they scoured the area for suspects.
Tension in the community flared up again late last night, forcing Mchunu to step in to reassure the shack-dwellers. Mchunu told those who had been displaced that he would arrange for them to sleep in the local community hall.
- Mchunu said if the key to the hall could not be found those who were seeking refuge should break in.
Police Director Mrs Phindile Radebe said they ‘suspected vigilantism because the people who were killed were suspected to have been involved in other crimes and people were just taking the law into their own hands". "The men were beaten and stabbed to death. We are still searching for more suspects," she said.
Mdlalose claimed the attack on members of the movement was not the first. "Last year, both Mzonke Poni, head of AbM in the Western Cape, and S'bu Zikode, head of AbM in KwaZulu-Natal, were attacked and beaten up by groups of young men. "The men who attacked Zikode also said that he was selling Kennedy to the AmaMpondo," he said.
At least two shipping containers were set alight at about 7pm on Sunday night and members of the Sydenham SAPS, dog unit, Metro Police and the SAPS air wing kept a close watch on the situation. By 9.30pm last night, Kennedy Road residents were still standing alongside the road, despite the cold and rainy weather.
Speaking to the Daily News after addressing the 300-strong crowd using a policecar loud-hailer, Mchunu said it was believed the violence was a result of differences between two opposing factions within the settlement.
He said that while provincial government and police were investigating the conflict, the safety of innocent people was paramount.
"We have arranged for the police to patrol tonight. These people must also be allowed access to the community hall so they can spend the night. I have tried to arrange to get the key tonight, but if we can't, then the residents can break in if they have to, just as long as they are safe," Mchunu said.
- He said representatives from his department would visit the settlement on Monday to "hear both sides of the story" as he was due to fly to Pretoria on Monday.
- This article was originally published on page 1 of Daily News on September 28, 2009 http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=vn20090928102936125C525605
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Police have wrong suspects for Dr Paul Meyer’s murder - widow
‘I told them countless times these are the wrong suspects -- but the police just won’t listen…’
Murdered: dr. Paul Meyer (38)
Sept 27 2009 -- Marietie Louw-Carstens reports in Beeld that Marilise, left, the 32-year-old widow of the murdered wildlife veterinarian Dr Paul Meyer, said the Mozambiquan suspects which police claim were her husband’s murderers, ‘are the wrong people’. But they refuse to listen to her, she told the newspaper.
The widow, left with orphaned baby son Paul-Wouter, who at the age of six weeks was kidnapped with his mom and his father murdered -- told Marietie Louw-Carstens that “she’d told the police countless times that those are not the men who attacked us, but they simply won’t listen to me…’
She was asked to identify four arrested suspects – three of whom have since somehow managed to ‘escape ‘ from the Gravelotte police-station cells in Limpopo by sawing through the cell-bars.
Pathetic Police Investigation:
The widow slammed the police investigation into her husband’s murder as ‘pathetic’. “And then the police didn’t even let me know of the escape of these suspects. I had to hear it via friends and through the news media.’
- Three of the arrested men, Eddie Chauke (31), Marcy Nasser (30) and Rogero Thambale (29), all three from Mozambique, allegedly managed to get hold of a hacksaw which which they allegedly had sawn through the bars of their police-cell. The fourth suspect Alex Babunda, 31, is still in custody. They were arrested shortly after Dr Meyer’s gruesome murder and have been refused bail by the Phalaborwa magistrate’s court because all three men are from Mozambique.
Yet while one witness who saw these men from very close-by, namely Mrs Marilise Meyer, insists that these arrested men were not the ones who had attacked and kidnapped her and her husband; and that these were not the men who had shot had husband while they were kidnapped -- the police insist that they had the right suspects in custody.
Dr Meyer was shot dead in the Selati nature reserve when he, his wife, their babyson Paul Wouter (six weeks at the time) and friends were attacked by a group of armed black men. The Meyer couple and their baby were kidnapped in one of Dr Meyer’s 4x4 bakkie, their friends were taken away by the kidnappers in another 4x4 bakkie belonging to the vet. Shortly before they were leaving the nature reserve’s gates, Dr Meyer was shot and his body was thrown from the bakkie in front of his wife and baby-son.
Murders rose by 7,9% in Limpopo:
Beeld enquired about the odd investigation with superintendent Mohale Ramatseba – who told them that they didn’t know whether the three escapees had been caught as yet. According to the latest available (18-month-old) SAPS crime statistics, the number of murders in Limpopo province has risen by 7,9% percent.
Three more farm murders Sept 28 2009
20090926 Isabel Schonken, 55, killed at Klipkop AH, Pretoria
- Also: 'Cosatu boosting farm attacks'
- Robbery attacks on families inside their homes are soaring: http://www.beeld.com/Content/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/1928/6823570c8f6049ba9dee72fd9df36e39/23-09-2009-01-42/Huisrooftogte_skiet_hoogte_in
Virginia Keppler of Beeld newspaper reports
Pretoria – Sept 28 2009 - 55-year-old Isabel Schonken was shot dead from behind over the weekend, as she was apparently trying to escape to a guest bathroom to hide from a group of armed attackers at the Klipkop smallholdings east of Pretoria.
Three more farm-attack deaths this week:
This is the second lethal farm attack within the past 24 hours and a third death on Sept 16 has also only known become known. On Friday 18-year-old Sheun Anderson was shot dead at his parents’ smallholding at Wag-n-bietjieskop near Bronkhorstspruit. And news has also just been published of a third farm-murder in KwaZulu, of farm-worker Erasmus Mncube on September 16, 2009. Police waited to release this news until they had arrested three suspects…
Death toll, 3,088
This brings the total number of known farm-murders since 1994 on South African agricultural properties to 3,088. http://censorbugbear-reports.blogspot.com/2009/09/afrikaners-besieged-throughout-south.html
On Saturday, Mrs Schonken's businessman-husband Lars, 56, was shot in the torso during the attack near Klipkop at 02:00. Lars's skull and wrist were fractured when the robbers assaulted him and hit him with a pistol. He is currently recovering in the Little Company of Mary hospital in Groenkloof, Pretoria, writes Keppeler.
Picture by LEON BOTHA: Mrs Isabel Schonken’s body is taken away by the SAPS forensic services’ department after she was shot in the back by a group of armed farm attackers. Beeld photograph.
Cut through electric fence
Isabel's sister Héléne Rumsey, 52, who lives a stone's throw from the Schonkens, said the robbers had cut through an electric fence which stretches all around the smallholding. They were able to get into the house through an open sliding door.
- "They attacked Lars in the bedroom," Rumsey related. "It seems as if my sister had fallen asleep in front of the television in the living room and woke up when they shot Lars. Shortly thereafter she was shot through the heart. The robbers tried to shoot Lars in the heart as well, but luckily it was only a flesh wound," she added.
Lars lost consciousness after being shot. When he came to, shortly thereafter, he fetched his pistol from the safe and shot one of the robbers. According to Rumsey,the only things which were ‘robbed’ were her sister's handbag and cellphone and her brother-in-law's laptop. Lars phoned his daughter, Sonja Smit, and her husband, who also live on the smallholding.
Covered in blood
Smit's husband, who doesn't want his first name mentioned, found his mother-in-law in the bathroom and his father-in-law in the living room, covered in blood. "She was already dead," he said. He took his father-in-law to the hospital. Rumsey said the couple's youngest daughter, 17-year-old Alma, wasn't at home during the attack.
Police spokeswoman Monique Vermeulen, said police followed a trail of blood – left by the shot attacker -- to a gravel road near the smallholding, where the suspects possibly climbed into a vehicle and fled.
- Be on the lookout for a man with a bullet-wound…
- The police have asked doctors and medical personnel to be on the look-out for a man with a bullet wound. Since the South African trauma units treat about 127,000 bullet wounds a year, this might be a large undertaking…
Rumsey said her smallholding had also had an attempted break-in two weeks ago, but the attckers fled when they trigged the alarm.
20090916 Erasmus Mncube, farm worker, shot dead, God’s Grave Farm, Nottingham Road, KZN.
2009-09-28 11:33 Pietermaritzburg, Kwa-Zulu - Three people were arrested for the murder of a farm worker in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands, police said on Monday. Inspector Joey Jeevan said the men were arrested on Saturday and Sunday after intensive investigations by the Organised Crime Unit.
As has only now been reported, Erasmus Mncube was shot dead on September 16 at God's Grave Farm in Nottingham Road. He sustained a gunshot wound to the head. The robbers opened the farm safe and took two firearms, cash and credit cards, as well as cellphones.
- "During the arrests, a 9mm firearm was confiscated, which police believe may have been the murder weapon, as well as cellular phones and foreign currency that was stolen during the attack," said Jeevan. The trio aged between 27 and 30 are due to appear in the Howick Magistrate's Court shortly.
- SAPAhttp://www.news24.com/Content/SouthAfrica/News/1059/f9b3ed21975949bb86cc5d3dcf5e4438/28-09-2009-11-33/3_held_for_KZN_farm_murder
Police arrested wrong men for Dr Paul Meyer ‘s murder - widow
Murdered: dr. Paul Meyer (38)
Sept 27 2009 -- Marietie Louw-Carstens reports in Beeld that Marilise, the 32-year-old widow of the murdered wildlife veterinarian Dr Paul Meyer, said the three suspects which police claim were her husband’s murderers, ‘are the wrong people’.
The widow, left with baby son Paul Wouter, at the age of six weeks when he kidnapped and his father was murdered -- told Marietie Louw-Carstens that “she’d told the police countless times that those are not the men who attacked us, but they simply won’t listen to me…’
She was asked to identify four arrested suspects – three of whom have since somehow managed to ‘escape ‘ from the Gravelotte police-station cells in Limpopo.
Pathetic Police Investigation:
The widow slammed the police investigation into her husband’s murder as ‘pathetic’. “And then the police didn’t even let me know of the escape of these suspects. I had to hear it via friends and through the news media.’
Three of the arrested men, Eddie Chauke (31), Marcy Nasser (30) and Rogero Thambale (29), all three from Mozambique, allegedly managed to get hold of a hacksaw which which they allegedly had sawn through the bars of their police-cell. The fourth suspect Alex Babunda, 31, is still in custody. They were arrested shortly after Dr Meyer’s gruesome murder and have been refused bail by the Phalaborwa magistrate’s court because all three men are from Mozambique.
Yet while one witness who saw these men from very close-by, namely Mrs Marilise Meyer, insists that these arrested men were not the ones who had attacked and kidnapped her and her husband; and that these were not the men who had shot had husband while they were kidnapped -- the police insist that they had the right suspects in custody.
Dr Meyer was shot dead in the Selati nature reserve when he, his wife, their babyson Paul Wouter (six weeks at the time) and friends were attacked by a group of armed black men. The Meyer couple and their baby were kidnapped in one of Dr Meyer’s 4x4 bakkie, their friends were taken away by the kidnappers in another 4x4 bakkie belonging to the vet. Shortly before they were leaving the nature reserve’s gates, Dr Meyer was shot and his body was thrown from the bakkie in front of his wife and baby-son.
Murders rose by 7,9% in Limpopo:
Beeld enquired about the odd investigation with superintendent Mohale Ramatseba – who told them that they didn’t know whether the three escapees had been caught as yet. According to the latest available (18-month-old) SAPS crime statistics, the number of murders in Limpopo province has risen by 7,9% percent.
Somalis fear for their lives - again
September 27 2009 -- CAPE TOWN – Journalist Luvuyo Mjekula, writing in the Cape Times, reports that the ‘plight of Somalis in the Blikkiesdorp emergency camp in Delft is worsening as they say they are now terrified of even leaving their houses to look for food.’ The SAPS crime statistics show that Delft is a very violent place, with at least 90 murders/homicides a year and hundreds of armed assaults.
Picture of Reiger Park pogrom: foreign African being torched to death, with police trying to save him. He died later in hospital. Are these organised May 2008 pogroms against foreign Africans by black South Africans starting up again?
Mjekula quotes a 60-year-old mother as saying that ‘sometimes at night people bang on the wall of her State-supplied tiny, single-roomed zinc dwelling without bathroom or toilet and shout "Somalians, go away".
"We can't go outside because it's very dangerous," said a frightened 30-year-old woman who asked not to be named.
Delft police spokesman Joe Wilson said “no compaints of violence had been reported “ to them -- “but we are monitoring it closely," he added. “Police regularly patrol the area,” Wilson said. (It’s important to note that the SAPS statistics do not record whether attacks were motivated by xenophobia or race-hatred).
The 30-year-old and 26 other Somalis have been staying in Blikkiesdorp for the past 3 weeks in appalling conditions.
There is no electricity or running water in their corrugated iron structures. The woman and her family sleep on the floor and smoke from the paraffin stove is a health hazard to her children, including a month-old baby. http://www.capetimes.co.za/?fSectionId=&fArticleId=nw20090927185240643C969890
-----------------------------
May 2008 pogroms against foreign Africans by black South Africans:
On May 12, 2008 a series of riots started in the township of Alexandra (in the north-eastern part of Johannesburg) when locals attacked migrants from Somalia, Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe, killing two people and injuring 40 others.[16] In the following weeks the violence spread, first to other settlements in the Gauteng Province, then to the coastal cities of Durban[17] and Cape Town. Attacks were also reported in parts of the Southern Cape,[18] Mpumalanga,[19] the North West and Free State[20].
62 people officially were recorded as having been murdered in these pogroms -- but unofficially, migrant communities claimed many more deaths -- several hundred were injured, and there was a massive voluntary deportation of African immigrants to their home countries and destruction of immigrant-owned property.
Picture of Reiger Park South African sharpening his machete on the ground during the ethnic-cleansing campaign of foreign Africans in May 2008. Photo by Gianluigi Guercia, AFP http://photos.mg.co.za/view_photo.php?pid=3471&gid=225
In May 2009, one year after the attacks the Consortium for Refugees and Migrants in South Africa (Cormsa) said that foreigners remained under threat of violence and that little had been done to address the causes of the attacks.
The organisation complained of a lack of accountability for those responsible for public violence, insufficient investigations into the instigators and the lack of a public government inquiry.[28]
A report, Towards Tolerance, Law, and Dignity: Addressing Violence against Foreign Nationals in South Africa, commissioned by the International Organisation for Migration found that “poor service delivery or an influx of foreigners” may have played a contributing role.
Local leaders often reinforce resentment towards foreigners…
However – the main blame was placed on politics: [23] with the findings that ANC-led local community leadership was ‘potentially lucrative for unemployed people, and that such leaders organised the attacks”.[24]
“Local leadership could be illegitimate and often violent when emerging from either a political vacuum or fierce competition,: the report said, and “such leaders enhanced their authority by reinforcing resentment towards foreigners”….[25]
Gold pirates wage dirty, underground war
Sept 27 2009 -- The Times of London ‘s correspondent Dan McDougall this weeks reports about the Zama-Zamas – the South African gold-mine pirates battling it out more than a mile into the earth’s core, “a hellish place where touch eclipses sight and the rule of law is handed down by desperate men, armed with home-made grenades and machetes… a band of tens of thousands of unemployed men…”. They also are stealing gold for the international smuggling syndicates worth £300m a year…and of course steadily destroying the country’s legal gold-mining industry.
- Also read our previous stories on this subject:
- http://censorbugbear-reports.blogspot.com/2009/05/gold-production-now-below-50000-kg-in.html
- http://censorbugbear-reports.blogspot.com/2008/11/sa-mining-industry-in-serious-decline.html
ARRESTS OF GOLD-MINE PIRATES ARE RARE:
Pictured left to right are South African police constable David Hlobo, five arrested illegal miners all from Lesotho, and police inspector Velaphi Dlamini on the right. The Odendaalsrus police were proud of arresting this gang inside a working mine-shaft at a local gold-mine during a raid. In the past four years, 1,734 residents have been arrested in the Welkom area alone - mainly for being part of the Zama’s supply chain and processing the gold ore. Usually, the gold pirates themselves remain largely elusive. http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/265104
McDougall went down the mineshafts and even managed to get close to the illegal gold-mine smelting operations in Welkom, and writes: “From deep within this abandoned gold mine comes the distant hack-hack of heavy drilling. “Zama Zama,” says our guide, clutching his old Mauser rifle. “Gold pirates.” His eyes bulge with fear. The suffocating air smells of diesel fuel and ammonia in a shaft that has not seen natural light since it was sealed by its owners nearly 20 years ago. The tunnel stretching before us winds down and splits into two. “If we take it, can we make it back?” I ask our guard. Gripping his woefully inadequate weapon, he puts his index finger to his mouth and whispers: “They are right beneath us.”
- His face is a mask of terror as we hear the distant crack of a pistol. “They are warning us. They will move up the shaft and kill us. It is time to go.”
Zama-Zama life:
“Imagine an existence in the bowels of the earth where, for up to eight months at a time, there is no fresh air. The temperature between the walls that close in on you is a stifling 38C. There is no day and night as you drill for gold for 12 hours a shift. At your side is a weapon to protect yourself from the authorities and your fellow miners. To extract gold, you handle mercury so toxic that it can be absorbed through the skin, attacking the kidneys and brain.
“This is the life of South Africa’s gold pirates, a band of tens of thousands of unemployed men whose numbers have increased sharply in the past year with the soaring price of gold, a traditional haven for investors in a financial crisis.
“They break into some of the most dangerous mines on earth, many armed with commercial explosives rammed into bottles. They will emerge months later with their muscles wasting away and their eyes sinking into their sockets.
- “Here in the goldfields region of South Africa’s Free State province, their prize is a lump of crudely processed gold, barely the size of your palm.”
Prostitutes go a mile below to service ZamaZamas…
Last week The Sunday Times gained a rare insight into the lives of the Zama Zama — literally “Let’s have a go” in Zulu — and the burgeoning illicit businesses that supply them with everything from cola and hamburgers to prostitutes up to a mile underground.
1,000 illegal miners may have died underground last year alone…
“He writes that ‘many of the miners never resurface. In June the bodies of 91 Zama Zama were recovered from the closed 5,250ft Eland mineshaft in the former goldrush town of Welkom. The authorities believe as many as 1,000 illegal miners have died underground in the past year, killed by toxic fumes, fires and each other. (…)
He writes: “Outside Welkom more than 100 paupers’ graves bore testimony to the young men killed. Many were migrants from Mozambique and Lesotho, attracted over the border by the latest gold rush. “We have no names on our graves because we don’t exist,” Masahe says.
The fact that the men are virtually impossible to identify makes the police battle against them all the harder, he writes: “approaching 24 hours earlier, a Sunday Times reporter and photographer were threatened with guns and told they would be shot if we went any further. Now the police, hands shaking, clutch pistols and rifles as we run into the squatter camp. The smell of burning coal and mercury pervades the air. In the back alleyways are the smouldering remnants of small-scale chemical works used to leach out gold.”
The centre of Welkom’s illegal gold mining industry, G-Hostel is a place where police officers are seldom seen. The sewer alleys provide cover for Zama Zama middlemen to run illicit operations, breaking ore and grinding the pieces to powder. It is melted at temperatures of more than 1,064C to extract the molten metal that is passed on to smugglers. (…)
Quote: “These guys are serious criminals,” says the police officer leading the raid. “We have seen them with AK-47 assault rifles. There is a lot of money at stake and there is an endless procession of young men willing to do this.”
“With gold prices close to record highs at nearly $1,000 an ounce, the black market — which also employs children to haul ore — is expected to continue its rapid growth.
“According to Anton van Achterbergh, a legal adviser at the South African Chamber of Mines, cracking down is virtually impossible.
- “The area between Johannesburg and Welkom is like Swiss cheese,” he said. “We’re talking about a few thousand [kilometres] of tunnels underground. Gold can be mined fairly easily so how do we stop it growing?” Read the entire story: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article6850786.ece
Slum-activists attacked by 40-man death squad
Two killed in attack on youth camp: claim ‘Police 'knew' about attack’
2009-09-27 SAPA reports from Durban - Two members of an organised shack-dwellers movement died at an all-night youth camp when 40 heavily-armed men entered the settlement on Saturday and attacked them.
The spokesman of the Abahlali baseMjondolo (People who stay in Shacks) shack-dweller-rights movement, Mzwakhe Mdlalose, told Sapa: "... This was a carefully planned attack on the movement and... the police knew in advance that it had been planned and stayed away on purpose.”
Abahlali has often made claims of severe police harassment, including torture.[21] On a number of occasions, these claims have been supported by independent observers such as church leaders[22] and human rights organisations. [23] The movement currently has a constitutional court case pending against the Slums Act.[24]
Police director Phindile Radebe denied that police stayed away ‘on purpose’: noting: “As soon as the police were alerted they mobilised units and went there, and that's how eight people were arrested".
Shack dwellers forcibly removed to create “Potemkin’ look for WC2010
In early 2008 the United Nations expressed serious concern about the treatment of shack dwellers in Durban. [12] There has also been growing concern about evictions linked to the 2010 FIFA World Cup across South Africa.[13][14]
The eThekwini Municipality, which governs Durban and Pinetown, embarked on a slum clearance programme which means the steady demolition of shack settlements and refusal to provide basic services (e.g. electricity, sanitation etc) to existing settlements on the grounds that all shack settlements are now 'temporary'.
- In these demolitions shack dwellers are simply left homeless and others are subject to unlawful forced evictions to the rural periphery of the city.[15][16]
Abahlali is primarily committed to opposing these demolitions and forced removals and to fighting for good land and quality housing in the cities. In most instances this takes the form of a demand for shack settlements to be upgraded where they are or for new houses to be built close to where the existing settlements are.
However the movement has also argued that basic services such as water, electricity and toilets should be immediately provided to shack settlements while land and housing in the city are negotiated.
“Shack dwellers engaged in ‘mass appropriation of water and electricity’
The movement is engaged in the mass appropriation of access to water and electricity’ which puts a considerable burden on paying ratepayers.
Abahlali had a considerable degree of success in stopping evictions and forced removals, winning the right for new shacks to be built as settlements expand and in winning free access to basic services, but for three years was not able to win secure access to good urban land for quality housing.[17]
- However in late 2008, AbM chair S'bu Zikode announced a deal with the eThekwini Municipality in Gauteng which promiosed services provided to 14 settlements and tenure security and formal housing to three.[18]
The movement has been involved in considerable conflict with the eThekwini Municipality and has undertaken numerous protests and legal actions against the city authorities.[19] Its members have been beaten and many of its leaders arrested by the South African Police Service in Sydenham, Durban.[20]
In Cape Town there is acute conflict between the movement and the Cape Town City Council[25] which has centred around the Macassar Village Land Occupation