Self-defence killings divide S Africa

[Drizzt]

Copyright 2003 Guardian Newspapers Limited
The Guardian (London)


January 7, 2003

SECTION: Guardian Foreign Pages, Pg. 12

LENGTH: 554 words

HEADLINE: Self-defence killings divide S Africa

BYLINE: Rory Carroll in Johannesburg

BODY:


South African police and legal experts have reassured citizens that under certain circumstances they have the right to kill criminals, following an outcry over the arrest of a couple who repeatedly stabbed a man who broke into their caravan.

The couple from Carletonville, near Soweto, are in jail facing murder charges after killing an intruder who tried to rape the woman. It is the latest in a spate of killings considered excessive force by the police but seen as justifiable self-defence by vocal members of the public. Paula Nothnagel, a police spokeswoman, said people had the right to defend themselves using reasonable force and that the police were not carrying out a witch-hunt to arrest innocent people.

"People need to employ the 'reasonable man' principle when protecting themselves. Would a reasonable man stab another person several times?"

According to radio phone-ins and newspaper letters pages, a reasonable man was entitled to stab an attacker many, many times, then bash him with the nearest heavy object before reaching for a revolver.

"If my girlfriend was about to be raped before me, I would also stab the perpetrator repeatedly . . . Actually, I'd keep going until he stopped moving. I would not stab him once and then nicely ask him if he would like to fight some more," one letter in the Johannesburg daily Star said.

South Africa's annual 21,000 murders and 55,000 rapes gives it one of the highest crime rates in the world, but even those figures are seen as an understatement. The police claim crime has stabilised but the perception that thieves and rapists act with impunity is widespread and there are calls for capital punishment, abolished after apartheid, to be brought back.

A 16-year-old boy who beat a man to death with a cricket bat after the family farm near Pretoria was attacked by a gang armed with spades and knives, leaving eight people wounded, may be charged with murder.

The police are also reportedly considering charging a woman who squeezed the testicles of a man who allegedly tried to rape her; he then lost consciousness and reportedly died of complications. Over Christmas, several shopkeepers were arrested for murder after shooting would-be robbers.

An armed robber holding up a factory in Krugersdorp, near Johannesburg, was surrounded by 18 women workers and battered to death with broomsticks and hosepipes. Three women, aged between 35 and 47, could be charged.

"Laws will not deter a father from trying to stab to death an attempted rapist of his daughter or wife. I agree that repetitive stabbing . . . is definitely excessive. With adequate training, one could learn to kill the bastard with just one knife thrust," said Allan Kayle, another letter writer to the Star, who said notions of 'reasonable force' ignored the terror and rage of those threatened in their homes.

Kevin Hopkins, a law lecturer at Johannesburg's Wits university, was criticised for suggesting that householders had no right to kill. Yesterday he set the record straight: "The law will allow a victim to use whatever force is necessary to ward off attack from the assailant - but only with a view to making him stop. If it takes multiple stabbings to achieve this, then stabbing the assailant multiple times would in fact be reasonable."

 

[Preacherman]

Drizzt, the real problem here is that life is very, very cheap in South Africa. Eighteen years of civil war, intertribal and inter-political-movement violence, an absence of a culture of civil rights, etc., have all led to the current situation.

In the eighteen years of sporadic civil war between 1976 and 1994, something like 100,000 South Africans died, and millions more were affected to a greater or lesser degree by violence, social upheaval, etc. At one point in the late 1980's and early 1990's, a man's life was worth about $5 U.S. - that's what it would cost to hire someone to kill him, for any reason. AK-47's with a magazine of ammunition were freely available on the streets of certain townships for about $10 U.S. So many had died, both through terrorist violence and Government-sponsored counter-violence, that many grew fatalistic, surviving one day at a time with no thought for the future. They also developed an extremely proactive approach to defence - if they thought someone was a threat, they killed them outright, rather than wait to find out if their suspicions were correct!

This attitude still exists, compounded by elements of racism, inter-tribal friction, massive unemployment (at least one-third of the South African workforce is officially unemployed, and there is little or no welfare assistance for them), poverty, etc. There is still a huge gap between rich and poor, and the State is so burdened by a limited tax base and "hangover" debt from the days of apartheid that it can't do much to equalize the distribution of good education, health care, basic facilities such as electricity, clean water, sewage, etc. in the short term. This is compounded by truly massive government inefficiency, bureaucratic bungling, and institutionalized corruption.

Put all that together, and you have a situation where law and order are largely a figment of the imagination. I have a lot of personal experience of this from my many years there, and it's not going to change soon.

 

[Jaco]

About Preacherman’s analysis of the South African political, social and economical problems there is only a few minor points I could disagree on, but on the whole he is right. But I won’t go into politics…

Firstly about the multiple stabbing of a BG. At one time in my life I have been stabbed in the head, numerous wounds in the back, both arms, shoulder, shallow cut on my nose and attempting slitting of my throat (which clearly was not that easy with a blunt knife and me giving a proper “boere†fingerstab in this amateur butcher’s throat). I only fell down after being knocked down with an iron pipe from the back, and then I still had the power to run full speed out of the situation and get to a safe place. What I am trying to say is that it takes a LOT of stabbing to get a man incapacitated, and that’s why you have a better chance with a cut. But explain that to someone in a government who has never been stabbed…

And with that adrenalin rush with defending yourself or attacking in the defense of others, who is going to give you a running account of the stab wounds to get to the fine line between incapacitation and elimination?

And one fact that Preacherman didn’t state is that the government is trying to disarm the population. We now face automatic weapons with semi-automatic pistols and revolvers. In the future it would be facing it with a sharp stick or carrying a brick in your pocket (but of course the brick must be licensed, holstered, unnoticeable, and locked in a safe when not in use).

 

[Blackhawk]

(at least one-third of the South African workforce is officially unemployed, and there is little or no welfare assistance for them)

Capital investment is what produces jobs through the production of goods and services.

Capital is the most timorous of essentials a country needs.

It will flee if the risks it faces are not limited to business risks.