What is happening to the SAPS?

The recent report by the Public Protector implicating Police Commissioner Bheki Cele in an improper property deal and a subsequent raid by police crime intelligence officers on the Public Protector’s office have again brought home starkly the fact that all is not what it should be with the South African Police Service (SAPS).

There has been a clear shift as to how and by whom the SAPS is managed and controlled. This shift occurred in tandem with similar changes affecting other institutions in the judicial/security sphere, with distinct political connotations.

Accompanying these changes has been a marked change in both the style of leadership and its effect on the operational style of the SAPS. With it came a parallel rise in the use of deadly force, unlawful police actions and alleged police brutality.

Although difficult to quantify, in the absence of court cases or substantial research, there is a growing number of media reports of such incidents. The SA Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR) also recently compiled a report showing an alarming occurrence of police involvement in illegal activities.

There has been an alarming rise in claims that police have been overstepping their bounds into the political sphere, such as the unnecessary violent arrest  and sinister detention of a journalist who had reported on the property deal, or the raid on the Public Protector’s office.

The questions that arise are whether these developments are an indication of South Africa’s national police force becoming a rogue force and a law unto itself, and/or whether the police are becoming a political instrument of the ruling party?

Examples of such police forces can be found in neighbouring Zimbabwe, other African states and in South and Central America, among others. Even in countries such as the United States with its supposedly well-managed and regulated police forces, rogue elements often go this route.

In the case of the SAPS this of course may also only extend to certain elements or sections of the force, and all police officers should by no means be tarred with the same brush. Many South African policemen and women are hard-working and disciplined, performing their duties with commendable dedication.

Nonetheless, these recent developments were triggered by media reports detailing aspects of a multi-million-rand deal Cele had allegedly made with property tycoon Roux Shabangu to accommodate the police headquarters without following standard state tendering procedures. Shabangu had befriended both Cele and President Jacob Zuma.

Sunday Times reporters Mzilikazi wa Afrika and Stephan Hofstatter exposed the suspect police property deal causing Cele to deny any direct involvement.

Shortly afterwards Wa Afrika was arrested without a warrant at his newspaper’s offices in Rosebank, Johannesburg, for what police claim was his involvement in a fraudulent letter of resignation from Mpumalanga premier David Mabuza being sent to President Zuma.

While Wa Afrika's house was searched without any search warrant and his computer, notebooks, files and a cellphone were seized, he was later released on a judge’s order and charges against him were withdrawn.

Meanwhile a complaint had been lodged with the Public Protector who launched an investigation.

A crime against democracy

As the Sunday Times put it in an editorial comment, the raid on Public Protector Thuli Madonsela’s office “displays a lamentable lack of intelligence and amounts to a crime against democracy”.

It is pointed out that Cele lied when he blamed his underlings for decisions related to the police headquarters property deal. One of the documents police were looking for during the raid shows that Cele had months before the deal instructed police to refer all procurement of more than R500,000 to his office.

Cele also tried hard to distance himself from the raid, but as the editorial points out it is hard to believe him in view of his denial of his responsibility and his “open contempt for the law”.

If Cele is to be believed that he knew nothing of the raid on the Public Protector’s office, it means one of two things:

• either South Africa has a rogue police intelligence unit acting as it sees fit; or
• the alleged tensions between Cele and his crime intelligence head Richard Mdluli – said to be the last remaining senior member from the era of former police chief Jackie Selebi – have reached the level where nothing is sacred anymore and there is no regard for the damage done to national watchdog institutions, the country’s constitutional democracy or South Africa’s image in the world.

Meanwhile the Cabinet seems to be stalling on taking a decision on Madonsela’s report on Cele, whom she criticised in connection with the property deal for actions that according to her were “unlawful” and flouted standard procedures. The Minister of Justice, Jeff Radebe, was instructed to obtain more information from Cele.

However, Radebe is like Cele a member of what appears to be the same inner circle of close confidantes of President Jacob Zuma hailing from his ethnic home base in KwaZulu-Natal and/or the ANC underground structures he used to command in that province prior to 1994. Other members of that inner circle include Police Minister Nathie Methethwa and State Security Minister Siyabonga Cwele.

Complete inner circle control

A parallel development to the positioning of the police as an almost untouchable and unaccountable entity controlled by Zuma confidantes, has been a clean-sweep takeover by Zuma loyalists of all major security and judicial organs in the country.

These include Cwele as State Security Minister, Radebe as Justice Minister, Moe Shaik (from the ANC underground) as head of the South African Secret Service, and Menzi Simelane (from KwaZulu-Natal) as National Director of Public Prosecutions to name but a few. Out went all those associated with the previous administration of Thabo Mbeki.

Also out went the very successful independent special investigative unit, the Scorpions, which had spearheaded corruption investigations against Zuma, to be replaced by the Hawks, a unit of the SAPS headed by Anwar Dramat a former underground operative of the ANC armed wing Umkhonto we Sizwe and Robben Island prisoner – and a man who had therefore worked closely with Zuma and his band of underground operatives.

Going back in time, the firing by Mbeki of his then head of the National Intelligence Agency, Billy Masethla, first exposed a rotten can of worms in the state’s security apparatus: turf wars and factionalism, with different groups aligning either with Zuma or Mbeki.

The same happened when Mbeki was finally forced to take action against his rogue police commissioner, Selebi. Of course Zuma and his supporters won in the end, and they are now in control of these institutions which have largely been purged of any Mbeki loyalists or other Zuma opponents.

The recent developments around Cele and the Public Protector have, if anything, again shown the need for a special investigative unit separate from and truly independent of the SAPS like the disbanded Scorpions.

During his tenure as commissioner so far, Cele has shown himself as someone with scant regard for proper procedures or for allowing justice to take its course through the courts.

Cele’s record

He was also seen as being instrumental in the arrest and deportation of a British journalist during the Fifa 2010  World  Cup allegedly as scapegoat for the embarrassment police suffered after a security breach in the dressing room of the English team.

And, Cele is equally notorious for referring to British national Shrien Dewani as a “monkey” who came to South Africa “to murder his wife”. Dewani is still subjected to British legal procedures pending his possible extradition to South Africa to stand trial, but it is thought Cele’s crass remarks may have bedevilled the chance of that happening.

Furthermore it was Cele who gave the order that police should shoot to kill criminals without worrying about the consequences, also asking that the law be changed to facilitate this.

Police Minister Mthethwa later allegedly made similar remarks and said Section 49 of the Criminal Procedure Act would be amended to make it easier for police to use deadly force against criminals. Shortly afterwards President Zuma also threatened criminals with a shoot-to-kill policy.

These remarks caused a massive outcry from a variety of commentators and civil rights organisations, warning it would put ordinary South Africans at risk and turn the police into a law unto themselves.

These warnings seem to have been well founded. Immediately following these remarks by Cele and Mthethwa there appeared to be a marked rise in incidents where police officers used excessive force against suspects and even the shooting of innocent people.

For many it seemed like the government and Cele were placing the police above the law while encouraging police officers to use excessive force. Warnings were levelled at the government that this would breed a new culture of abuse, force and lawlessness in the police, and indeed there have been a number of incidents and developments in recent months that have caused much concern.

In February this year the SAIRR released its research paper "Broken Blue Line: The involvement of the South African Police Force in serious and violent crime in South Africa”.

In the overview of this paper the authors wrote: “South Africans have become accustomed to media reports alleging the involvement of policemen or ‘people dressed in police uniforms' in serious crimes. The Institute and its Unit for Risk Analysis have become increasingly concerned at the number and nature of these reports. To try and determine the scale of the problem, the Institute assigned a researcher to source as much information as possible on the involvement of police officers in committing crime. The results were alarming. The Institute consulted journalists, media reports, and information from the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD). Within a week, a list of over 100 separate incidents alleging and/or confirming police involvement in serious crimes was drawn up. The Institute's researchers stopped looking for more incidents after compiling this list of the initial 100.”

The paper was made available to the SAPS and government in the hope, according to the SAIRR, that it would facilitate better policing policies being formulated by legislators and the SAPS management. Both the government and the SAPS rejected the findings in the paper, however.

Remilitarisation

Commissioner Cele and Minister Mthethwa also elicited much criticism when they announced the remilitarisation of the police, a step that was deemed to be regressive by Appeal Court Judge Azhar Cachalia, and undoing the progress that had been made in restructuring the old police force into a new, civilian-friendly police service after 1994.

This return to military ranks, address, culture and discipline is also seen as distancing the police further from the public it serves, thus perhaps adding to what appears to be a growing culture of intolerance towards the public and an assumption of being above the law.

Meanwhile concern has subsequently grown in many quarters at what is viewed as an unprecedented increase in police brutality, illegal and unconstitutional police actions, and excessive use of force. In many respects it appears that police are doing so with impunity, free from any disciplinary or punitive measures from superiors. Recent examples include the following:

• In March 2008 police were caught on video tape bursting into several student nightspots in Stellenbosch looking for drugs, assaulting students and one pub owner, spraying them with mace, taking their cellphones, and ordering them to delete cellphone pictures of the raid. Some policemen allegedly also searched in female patrons’ underwear for drugs. No action was taken against the police afterwards;
• In February this year more than 10 policemen opened fire at close range on a Nelspruit man, Jan Coetzee, for objecting when they wanted to break open his shed to look for an allegedly stolen car. He was hospitalised and cuffed to his bed, but was never charged. No action was taken against the police involved;
• Also in February this year police were filmed on security video cameras when they stormed into a restaurant in Melville, Johannesburg and started assaulting patrons before arresting 12. The police had apparently been busy with another matter in the street below when an empty beer bottle was thrown from the restaurant, causing them to storm into the restaurant and order patrons down on the floor. It can clearly be seen on the video how several policemen grabbed an unsuspecting patron coming out of the toilet, repeatedly threw him to the ground and repeatedly kicked him all over his body. All charges against those arrested were withdrawn;
• In another incident in February a photographer of the Pretoria News was wrestled to the ground by several policemen after he quite legally and legitimately took a picture of police arresting a theft suspect. The photographer fled into the newspaper’s offices, before eight police vehicles arrived to arrest him. Only after calls to Gauteng Police Commissioner Mzwandile Petros were the police ordered to back off;
• In Welkom, Free State in September last year three untrained and unequipped policemen were sent to deal with a march by school pupils protesting the effect of the strike by teachers on their writing of exams. The policemen were armed with a service pistol containing sharp-point ammunition and two shotguns without any ammunition. Backup was only sent by their commanders once things got out of hand, but not before one officer had shot dead 17-year old schoolgirl Anna Nokele;
• A week ago SAPS officers and Tshwane Metro Police engaged each other in a violent confrontation in Pretoria after the metro police had tried to tow away illegally parked SAPS vehicles. One policeman described it as a “wild west style shootout” although later reports said no shots had been fired. The incident has nonetheless led to a  ministerial probe;
• A suspect, Ebrahim Adams, 46, was shot dead on the Cape Flats, Cape Town, on February 22, 2008 while fleeing after he was approached by a minibus with five patrolling metro police inside. Two of the five, Kevin Pillay and Tyrone Steward, are currently on trial for Adams's murder; and
• This month, three policemen in Claremont, Cape Town wrestled two theft suspects to the ground with “excessive force” according to an eyewitness before bundling them into the boot of a police vehicle and driving off.