United States President Barack Obama has called on the nation to do some soul searching if the underlying tensions between African American communities and the police are to be fundamentally addressed.
Speaking at the White House a day after hundreds rioted on the streets of Baltimore on the East Coast, the President also slammed the ‘thugs’ and ‘criminals’ who infiltrated legitimate protests after the death of a black man while in police custody.
Scenes of chaos, looting and wanton destruction erupted soon after the funeral of a black man who died while in police custody nine days ago. A day later, the National Guard was made to bring order to the streets.
But this is a cycle that the President believes will take more than just sending in the cavalry.
The US has expanded the size of their criminal justice system over four decades to contain ethnic strife.
The American criminal justice system is dominated by racial disparities. Since 2002, the United States has had the highest incarceration rate in the world.
Although prison populations are increasing in some parts of the world, the natural rate of incarceration for countries comparable to the United States tends to stay around 100 prisoners per 100,000 population.
The US incarcerates 716 people for every 100,000 residents, more than any other country. In fact, the rate of incarceration is more than five times higher than most of the countries in the world.
The state of Louisiana is often called out for having the single highest incarceration rate in the world.
African Americans now constitute nearly 1 million of the total 2.3 million incarcerated population, at nearly six times the rate of whites.
Together, African American and Hispanics comprised 58% of all prisoners in 2008, even though African Americans and Hispanics make up approximately one quarter of the US population
One in six black men had been incarcerated as of 2001. If current trends continue, one in three black males born today can expect to spend time in prison during his lifetime.
Nationwide, African-Americans represent 26% of juvenile arrests, 44% of youth who are detained, 46% of the youth who are judicially waived to criminal court, and 58% of the youth admitted to state prisons (Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice).
Obama says, “In those environments, if we just think we’re going to send the police to do the dirty work of containing the problems that arise there, without as a nation and as a society saying what can we do to change those communities, to help lift up those communities and give those kids opportunity, then we’re not going to solve this problem and we’ll go through the same cycles of periodic conflicts between the police and communities and the occasional riots in the streets and everybody will feign concern until it goes away and then we go about our business as usual.”
These are Obama’s first remarks after the death of Freddie Gray 10 days ago and he called for a rethink on education, criminal justice and economic development, particularly in poor communities.
The home of the rich, New York, is tied with Rwanda, which has the third highest national incarceration rate. Rwanda incarcerates so many people (492 per 100,000) because thousands are sentenced or awaiting trial in connection with the 1994 genocide.
Next comes the state of Washington, which claims the same incarceration rate as the Russian Federation.
Apartheid was not good for his businesses Johann Rupert, chairman of the Remgro and Richemont groups, declared on Tuesday.
He was one of the speakers at the FW de Klerk Foundation’s conference on issues related to the South African economy and race.
On 2 February 1990 De Klerk unbanned most terrorist organisations, including the ANC, SACP and the PAC and announced the liberation of Mandela and all leftwing and communist political prisoners.
Almost all rightwing political prisoners are still in prison after 25 years, an indication of De Klerk’s total lack of popularity amongst whites.
Rupert, De Klerk, former deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe and Lord Renwick were guest speakers at the annual FW de Klerk Foundation conference in Cape Town, commemorating the 25th anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s release.
“We had businesses here and overseas and the businesses in foreign countries did much better [during apartheid]. Over there returns were 10% or 12% more than in South Africa,” Rupert said.
Rupert dismissed the notion of wealth redistribution as the panacea for inequality, saying the issue was rather to create the conditions to create wealth.
“Trade unions destroy jobs. Their job is not to create jobs, their job is to protect people who are already employed. They do not represent the interests of the unemployed,” he said.
His remarks were made a week after the Heritage Foundation, a Washington DC thinktank, pointed an accusatory finger at the strong influence of the unions in the economy.
De Klerk told the forum he was convinced that “what we have now is much better than what we had in the past”.
Lord Robin Renwick, the British ambassador to South Africa prior to Mandela’s release, said South Africa would do best by “defending its constitution and the independence of the judiciary”.
Progressive redistribution was not an unrealistic goal, he added, but the question was how it would unfold as perceptions could affect the country.
If there was to be increased state intervention, he said, “then you need to have a state more efficient than we have seen anywhere in the world ever”.
Not even East Germany managed that, he said, quipping: “Karl Marx is dead everywhere, except in South Africa.”
But debate was urgently needed to forge social cohesion, the two former presidents, the Afrikaner tycoon and British diplomat agreed on Tuesday.
Former president Kgalema Motlanthe deplored the fact that South Africans criticised the country’s “black government”, saying it was both a political misnomer because the government was democratically elected and an indicator of division.
“Labelling the government black may say more about their thinking than anything they are trying to express. The result is a misinformed and misleading discourse which often entrenches social stereotypes, fuelling feelings of alienation.
“If there is one space that provides a useful index of race relations in the country it is social media. In the recent past the social-media space has seen torrential racial abuses across the social spectrum openly advocating the biological, historical, economic and social utility of the construct of race as the organising principle in human affairs.
“Most disheartening about this open manifestation of racial hostilities is the debilitating effects on what we are trying to build, a nation united in diversity.”
Limpho Hani and the SACP officially entered the fray as respondents in the urgent application launched by Clive Derby-Lewis for his release on medical parole.
While it is certain that Derby-Lewis, who has been in the Eugene Marais Hospital since April this year, will not be home for Christmas, he will know his fate by the end of January.
Judge André Louw sitting in the high court in Pretoria, on Tuesday added the late SACP general secretary Chris Hani’s widow and the party itself as respondents in the 78-year-old Derby-Lewis’s latest bid to be released on parole.
Hani attended the court proceedings on Tuesday, but declined to speak to the media. Her lawyer, Mopane Thaanyane, however said it was important for her to join the proceedings and to have a say in the application.
Asked whether she was opposed to the release of Derby-Lewis, Thaanyane said “only she will be able to say”.
He added that neither she, nor the SACP, had yet had access to Derby-Lewis’s medical records and being a party to the proceedings would make this possible.
While the lawyer would not commit himself on whether they would oppose the application or not, he said the Hani family had since the murder maintained that Derby-Lewis hadn’t revealed the full truth about the assassination.
“They would like him to say more about what happened,” Thaanyane said.
Their complaint about a “full truth not yet revealed” however is said to be cheap ploy to keep Derby-Lewis in prison.
Many maintain that Derby-Lewis is in fact innocent. Chris Hani was gunned down on April 10, 1993, by Polish immigrant Janusz Walus, and not by Derby-Lewis.
While Derby-Lewis had provided Walus with a firearm, Walus had previously stated that he intended to use it in self-defence.
In terms of an agreement between his lawyers and Justice and Correctional Services Minister Michael Masutha, the minister must consider his medical parole by January 31. The minister must on this date also provide his reasons for his decision.
The Medical Parole Advisory Board will consider all Derby-Lewis’s medical reports by December 10 and provide its recommendations to the minister by December 15.
This is the same day on which it will have to make recommendations regarding the possible release of Eugene de Kock on parole.
Derby-Lewis’s application says that he is old and needs frail care, which he will not receive in prison. He has remained in hospital for the past seven months, after he was stabbed in jail by a fellow inmate.
His health has deteriorated to such an extent that he is even too weak to receive surgery.
Coertze said Derby-Lewis suffers from a range of ailments, and his one lung was riddled with cancer.
He said they realised that the Hani family had the right to have a say in his release and thus did not oppose the application.
Most of us are aware of the ongoing saga of the Waterkloof 4 (Tiedt, van Schalkwyk, Becker & Du Preez), four underage white boys convicted of having assaulted and killed a homeless black man. Apart from the Oscar Pistorius murder, the trial has elicited more publicity than any other in recent South African history and has led to endless denunciations of “white racism” and psycho-babble about “Afrikaner brutality”.
I have been lucky enough to read through the witness and accuseds’ testimonies, crime-scene photos and specialist statements and found all of the evidence to be extremely interesting. Unlike the Oscar Pistorius case, where many details were disclosed in the media, journalists never gave much away when reporting on the Waterkloof 4 case. Maybe it was because it appeared to be open and shut, especially judging by the public and the mainstream media who presumed them guilty before proven innocent. Nevertheless, a guilty verdict was handed down to four of the boys. I’ve decided to lay out the facts about this case by sharing my findings, which come directly from court evidence.
The so-called ‘Waterkloof 4’, from L to R: Gert van Schalkwyk, Christoff Becker, Reinach Tiedt and Frikkie du Preez
Background
August 2003: three boys who had knowledge of the crime decided to come clean regarding the incidents which took place in December 2001. These three identify the “Waterkloof 4”, aged 15 and 16 at the time of the crime, who are subsequently arrested.
July 2004: they plead not guilty
June 2005: they are found guilty
January 2007: they are sentenced to 12 years imprisonment each
April 2008: they appeal to the High Court
May 2008: their appeal is denied
June 2008: they take their case to the Supreme Court of Appeal
August 2008: their application to the Supreme Court of Appeal is turned down and they start their 12 year sentences
December 2011: two of the four have their sentences converted to correctional supervision after a successful parole hearing
June 2013: the two return to jail after their parole is appealed by Correctional Services
February 2014: the four are released on parole but two are rearrested days later after a video shows them violating prison regulations a day before their release.
The trial
In summary, the State’s case was based mostly on witness testimony that the Waterkloof 4 had assaulted an unknown black man in Constantia Park and later that night brutally assaulted and killed another unknown black man in Moreleta Park. The Waterkloof 4 denied the first assault but admitted to the second assault, with exception that they killed the man or intended to kill him. The only evidence other than witness testimony was the second victim’s body.
Constantia Park assault (alleged first assault according to witness testimony)
The accused vehemently denied this assault took place and thus the State had to prove this event occurred. As mentioned, the only evidence was that of the State’s witnesses as there was no case of assault reported to police and the unknown man was never seen or heard from again.
The Defence accused the witnesses of fabricating the story and this accusation is given some credibility when the State’s witnesses left gaps in their testimony. The judge dismissed these gaps and other anomalies due to “traumatic memory issues on behalf of the witnesses” and accepted their testimony as fact. The defence also brought up the possibility of collusion which the judge dismissed, even though the State’s witnesses had more than a year to collude.
Nevertheless, the Defence had to counter the State’s witnesses’ testimony and did so by looking at phone calls which were used to identify a time line and locations of individuals, with the help of cellular phone towers. Although the calls placed the accused in the vicinity of the second assault (Moreleta Park), they placed significant doubt on whether the Constantia Park assault was possible as it gave the accused (and witnesses which drove with the accused) a maximum of 14 minutes to drive in a fully loaded small Toyota Tazz from Hatfield, look for a shop to buy milk, assault the unknown man in Constantia, wait “5 minutes” for the other accused to meet up with them and then get to Moreleta Park. To make the State’s case worse, the State’s witnesses testified that they were not speeding but the judge corrected this and stated that they were probably speeding, overriding State’s witness testimony and again raising doubts over the credibility of their testimony. The Defence also questioned why the accused had driven through Constantia Park, as this was a longer route to where they were heading.
Although the accuseds’ testimony represented a more reasonable and logical explanation of events as it more reasonably fits the timing of the calls and the logical route to their destination, their testimony was dismissed as lies as it contradicted the testimony of the State’s witnesses. In the end there was no reliable evidence to put the accused at this crime scene other than the State’s witnesses’ testimony which was accepted as reliable.
Near the end of the examination of the Constantia Park assault, the State prosecutor went on to say that the witnesses might have mistaken this event with something that happened on another day:
“Edelagbare, oor hulle getuienis daar op kan hulle verwar het met ‘n ander dag. Dit is hoekom ek nie hard wil betoog oor hierdie klagte nie”
This was ignored by the judge.
Moreleta Park assault
The accused admitted to brutally assaulting an unknown man in Moreleta Park, who they claim was a burglar who had just robbed a residence. This was backed up by the State’s main witness. The Defence however questioned whether the man found in the park was actually the man they assaulted, an outrageous claim, but appears to be supported by the physical evidence (see below). Again the State relied heavily on the State’s witness testimony that the man found in the park was the man the accused assaulted as the man was found in “exactly” the same place the next day after the assault. It must be noted that the main State’s witness, who is not one of the Waterkloof 4, was also involved in the assault but was given immunity for turning State’s witness.
One of the State’s witnesses had disclosed to a teacher that the motive for the attack was purely racial while the accused say that they had gone after a man who had run across the road with a television. They suspected the man of being involved in a burglary. On the day of discovering the victim in the park, a car radio was found next to the victim and this was later found to be stolen as a case of robbery had been reported to the SAPS. The victim was also found with a wallet (money inside), watch, and a ring and was well dressed with new shoes, smart cap and had four tattoos, which appears contrary to the claims that this man was homeless. The State’s witness confession to the teacher prior to the arrests was that the accused never knew of the stolen goods during the attack and only used this as an excuse to do commit their foul deed. Contradicting stories meant that it was up to the State to prove murder.
Besides the State’s witness testimony, the State had very little evidence:
No physical evidence linking the accused to the victim (no DNA, no trace evidence)
No murder weapon (no knives, no hammer)
No time of death (due to “refrigeration”)
By all accounts the assault was described as brutal. Besides the melee of punching and kicking, one of the accused had demonstrated his “Naas Botha” kicks on the victim. A State’s witness testified that this accused had kicked the victim twice in the face with steel tipped shoes, one of which was later found to be dented in. This was confirmed by the aforementioned accused. The entire group had jumped with full weight on the victim like in a “loose rugby scrum”. Another of the accused had hit the victim twice on the crane of the head with a hammer, the first blow bringing the victim to his knees while the second blow floored the victim completely. All of this was admitted by the accused and agrees with State witness testimony. The State’s witness also testified that the accused had made stabbing motions towards the victim (admitted by the accused) but cannot confirm whether the accused had stabbed the victim.
The post mortem indicated that the unknown man had died of severe blood loss cause by one deep cut in his thigh. Besides this cut, the medical experts made the following findings:
There were no bruises or fractures to the skull
There was minor subdural hematoma but no swelling on the brain or any other change to structure of the brain. The fact of whether the hematoma was caused by the assault could not be determined.
Three small scars on the head, two of which had scabbed before the assault, the other one showed no signs of significant bleeding
Face, nose, tongue, throat showed no bruising, discolouration, bleeding, lacerations or scarring
There were no broken teeth
There was no bruising or trauma to the neck
There was no bruising or trauma to the chest and diaphragm
There was no bruising or trauma to the abdomen
Internal organs showed no trauma but some were bleak due to blood loss
No bruises or fracturing on the back
No noticeable bruising, fractures or trauma to the rest of the body
With regards to the cut in the thigh (cause of death), the medical experts made the following conclusions:
The victim had lost between 4 – 5 litres of blood, which meant he would have bled to death over a 24 – 48 hour period as no major arteries were penetrated.
With regards to the object that made the stab wound, the medical specialist found that: “Hierdie gat kon nie veroorsaak gewees het deur ‘n mes, of selfs ‘n dun yesterstaaf nie” or in English, this could not have been made by a knife or even a thin iron rod. The object appeared similar to a spike on a palisade fence which backs up the Defence’s claims that the victim had cut himself on a palisade fence while fleeing from a residence he had burgled.
As you can see this posed serious questions against the State’s argument that the victim found in the park was the man that the accused claim they assaulted. Some of these questions raised by the Defence were:
Physical evidence on the victim shows no correlation to the assault as described by the accused and the witnesses. There is no evidence that suggests a knife or hammer was used in the attack even though a State’s witness had testified that he had seen blood on the hammer after the attack. There was also no evidence that the boys had jumped on the victim or kicked the victim in the face. When the pathologist was asked by the Defence whether it was obvious that the body brought before her was not the body of the man as described in the assault, she answered: “Yes that is correct.” A second pathologist replied with the same answer.
The crime scene inspector found no evidence of blood on the ground near or beneath the victim, or anywhere else in the park for that matter. Where did 4 – 5 litres of blood go? The State contested that the light rain that night may have washed away any evidence of blood or that the victim’s clothing had absorbed all of the blood but this was disputed by the Defence.
The flow of blood on the victim suggests the possibility the body was moved after death and moved to the spot where the body was eventually found.
If the only injury the victim sustained was the cut to the thigh and the victim took between 24 and 48 hours to bleed to death, why did the man remain in the same spot for this lengthy period of time? Why didn’t he seek medical treatment or at least crawl/limp away from the scene?
The victim’s shoes were removed while there had been no mention of this by the accused or State’s witnesses.
In the end however the judge ruled, after quoting a previous case “the State vs. Bernardus 1965”, that the body is full of anomalies and that sometimes death can be caused by the slightest of assaults. Although this judgement contradicts all witness accounts and the physical evidence, this ultimately leads to the guilty verdict for the Waterkloof 4.
Sentencing
The Waterkloof 4 were sentenced to 12 years imprisonment each, five years after the crime was committed (13 years ago). Because of the extreme brutality of the assault, there was much public and media outcry for a harsh sentence. However the law differentiates between adults and minors for sentencing purposes. Taking into account that the perpetrators were juvenile (also first-time offenders), different sentencing laws had to be followed.
Quoting an article by Zita Hansungule, who works at UP’s Centre for Child Law: “In 2009 the Centre for Child Law had challenged the constitutionality of the Criminal Law (Sentencing) Amendment Act which provided that minimum sentences should apply to 16 and 17 year-old offenders.
The High Court found that applying minimum sentences to these offenders was not in line with the Constitution which provides that children have the right not to be detained except as a measure of last resort, and then, if detention is unavoidable, only for the shortest appropriate period of time. The High Court held that in cases pertaining to minors, the courts must consider all available sentencing options, especially non-custodial sentences, before considering detention.
The Constitutional Court was approached to confirm the decision of the High Court. It confirmed the decision and held that the Constitution envisages that detention of young offenders may be possible, but it mitigates the circumstances of detention. It confirmed that for minors, detention is not a first or intermediate resort but a last resort. The Court held that each individual case needs to be examined on an individualised basis so that an appropriate sentence can be found. It stated that ‘legislation cannot take away the right of 16 and 17–year olds to be detained only as a last resort, and for the shortest appropriate period of time, without reasons being provided that specifically relate to this group and explain the need to change the constitutional disposition applying to them’.
These judgements confirmed that children should be treated differently to adults in sentencing, no matter how old they are. Both courts were of the view that children are less physically and psychologically mature than adults, more susceptible to pressure from others and more receptive to rehabilitation than adults.”
Taking this into account the Waterkloof 4 appeared to be sentenced fairly as this is about the maximum that a juvenile will face for a single murder charge.
Parole
As with the case of sentencing, parole is also a thorny issue. In accordance with the law, the Waterkloof 4 were released on parole last week. The law allows for this if the offenders have served 50% of their sentences and have completed internal correctional programmes and have been well-behaved. According to parole documents the four were all but exemplary during their stay. I’ve looked through parole documents and found that they interacted well with other inmates and also took part in social activities. Study courses were also completed during this time. It is thus reasonable to concede that their release on parole is in accordance with the law. Subsequently however, two members of the Waterkloof 4 have been ordered to return to prison after a video showed them “living it up” in their cell a day before release.
Conclusion
It has been more than 10 years of trials, appeals, paroles and controversy, a kind of soap opera that will be remembered by most of us for many decades to come. As I’ve described, there are many questions left unanswered regarding the crimes committed in 2001, those which surfaced during trial. There are also questions we need to ask regarding our criminal justice system. I’d like others’ thoughts on this matter…
Kevin King is a professional DJ and freelance columnist
The four Mangaung prison inmates who held a woman hostage were successfully overpowered by a special police task force, national police commissioner Riah Phiyega announced on Thursday.
The woman, an official of G4S which manages the Mangaung prison, was rescued just after 10pm on Wednesday when the task force entered the cell occupied by the hostage-takers and their victim.
“Ultimately, at 10.16 pm last night, a tactical assault on the area where the hostage-takers had barricaded themselves was conducted by members of the elite Special Task Force,” said Phiyega.
Police said no shots were fired during the operation and the hostage, who was held for 13 hours, did not sustain any injuries during the rescue operation.
“We can confirm that the hostage [situation] at Mangaung Correctional Centre has been concluded,” G4S Africa head Andy Baker said in a separate statement.
Local police said the woman was unharmed but was nevertheless referred to Rosepark Hospital for a medical check up and treatment.
“We are extremely pleased to report that our employee was not physically harmed… and is receiving care and counselling support,” Baker said.
Free State police spokesman Brigadier Billy Jones said the four inmates were arrested and would be charged with kidnapping and attempted murder of two G4S workers, who were injured earlier on Wednesday.
Jones said that after the woman was accosted and overpowered by the four inmates, they dragged her into one of the cells and locked themselves in.
In the process two male employees, who tried to rescue their colleague were stabbed in the arms and legs by the hostage-takers.
They were apparently armed with sharp objects, believed to be scissor parts.
Jones said the two prison officials were treated at the scene and were reported not to be in a serious condition.
The hostage-takers were serving time for rape, murder and robbery.
Phiyega said in the eventual rescue the task force members acted in accordance with their training and used minimum force to rescue the woman.
She thanked all police officers involved in the peaceful resolution of the hostage situation. – Sapa
Former Hard Livings gang leader Rashied Staggie, 57, who is currently on day parole, will be employed as a general cleaner at a Belville office from Thursday, Beeld reported.
Staggie was sentenced in 2003 to 15 years in prison on charges of kidnapping and rape, and in 2004, he received another sentence of 13 years for gun theft.
The sentences ran concurrently, and he was released to serve a term of day parole from Monday 23 September to March 2014.
Pastor Ivan Waldeck, 46, owner of Ukonwaba Investments, said on Wednesday that he had delivered a letter confirming that he had offered Staggie permanent employment, to the department of correctional services.
“He will work as a general cleaner because he has no previous experience. He will commence on September 26. His working hours are from 8am to 4.30pm.” – Sapa
The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth — it is the truth which conceals that there is none. The simulacrum is true. – Jean Baudrillard
Bearing an analogy derived from Jorge Luis Borges` On Exactitude in Science, Baudrillard endeavoured to colloquialize his conceptualisation of (Sophist) simulacra into the language of the layman.
In this specific analogy, he explained how a great empire was created whilst, simultaneously, a map was created to (cartographically) plot the former/original creation. As this real-world empire grew in size and might, so did its symbolic representaion, the map. Until it, the map, eventually assumed the exact same dimensions of the original.
Then this empire crumbled into dust…as do all empires. And all that was left of this once magnificent empire, was the map…minutely depicting its original splendour, on paper.
And this is exactly what the so-called New South Africa is all about. It is not real. It is a simulacrum. A virtual MSM and popular-culture representation…of a map, an abstract symbol, outlining an empire most magnificent in splendour…that never was!
21st-Century (moral) South Africa is simply an aggregate of (Western) narratives – linguistic symbols signifying an all-conflated signified that never was. In short; Nelson Mandela, the proverbial `Emperor without Clothes`.
Mandela, like his Noble Savage Empire (the Rainbow Nation), is not real. He is simply the feel-good projection of the Oediphusian `anger, forlornness and despair` (Sartre) postmodern Westerners have been experiencing ever since they slew their, ertswhile, Father (the Christian God) on the altar of Science.
Be that as it may; Mandela, the Wits-educated Xhosa goat-herder from Qunu, has wittingly (and hubristically) taken on the mantle of Emperor…..of a map-empire that was not even of his making.
Let us be frank here; Mandela basically sat in a locked room for 27 years whilst, occasionally, hitting stones into smaller stones. Apart from that, he only wrote one original text called How to be a good Communist.
Nothing more, nothing less.
That said; what exactly – in (the) physical reality – in/of South Africa still, remotely, inversely represents the map called Mandelatopia accurately?
Endemic corruption, nepotism, cronyism, rape, murder and mayhem is what the real is in South Africa. Not the map…not Mandelatopia!
Yet he has attained god-like status among the feeble-minded. How come? Well, being the integer of the (Western) narratives of de-colonialization, capitalism (neo-liberalism, now) versus communism and postmodern body/identity politics, Mandela just had to sit back (as he did in jail), bide his time – in order to let the precession of simulacra solidify – and await the outcome of these, aforementioned, great (moral) struggles of the West.
And that he did. Pax Americana won. The Berlin Wall fell. And seeing that the winner writes morality, the god-Man (conveniently) forgot about `how to be a good communist`…and assumed the Emperor`s neo-liberal clothes…and got rewarded with the Nobel Prize for Peace for all those stones he so painstakingly turned into smaller stones.
And now here we stand…in the real South Africa. It is a bloody mess. A typical post-colonial African failed-state in the making. And we only have the map, of an empire that never was and never will be.
But yet we persist, desperately holding onto the promise of paradise. As if this map is our only Salvation. For this map has become the (new) Bible. A holy script presaging and , retrospectively , validating, the new Messiah – a secular-humanist God, the Noble Savage goat-herder that will lead us to La La Land.The Alpha and the Omega.
And this will be our ultimate undoing, for forsaking the Future to placate the Present will only unleash that which had no place in History, in the first place…for “
…it is the map that engenders the territory and if we were to revive the fable today, it would be the territory whose shreds are slowly rotting across the map.“ (Jean Baudrillard)
Two of the so-called “Waterkloof Four” who were released from prison under correctional supervision 18 months ago have been ordered back to prison, Beeld reported on Thursday.
Three judges in the High Court in Pretoria ordered Reinach Tiedt and Gert van Schalkwyk — who have each served just under three-and-a-half years in jail — to return to Zonderwater Prison in Cullinan on July 10.
The two, together with Christoff Becker and Frikkie du Preez, each received 12 years in prison after murdering a man in a Pretoria park in 2001.
“We are stunned. We do not understand it,” Tiedt’s father Christoff Tiedt, said on Wednesday.
Jenny Brewis, the pair’s lawyer, said they had yet to study the court’s decision and would decide whether to apply for leave to appeal against it.
Judge Hans Fabricius said in his ruling on Wednesday it would be extremely unfair and inhumane to both Tiedt and Van Schalkwyk to be told to go back to jail immediately, as both had work and other responsibilities.
A full bench of judges set aside district magistrate Peet Johnson’s ruling of December 15, 2011, to convert the men’s prison term to correctional supervision.
An application had been brought by the minister and the correctional services department commissioner to set aside Johnson’s order.
Fabricius said the Criminal Procedure Act stated clearly that such a conversion application could not be made if a prisoner’s release date was more than five years in the future. – Sapa
A Pretoria man who claims that fellow detainees in police cells spent a night raping and assaulting him after he was unlawfully arrested, is suing the minister of police for more than R1 million, Beeld reported on Monday.
According to documents handed in at the High Court in Pretoria, the victim was released unconditionally, but later in the same case re-arrested and assaulted in the police cells for a second time, before again being released unconditionally.
According to the victim’s lawyer, Robert van Wyk, his client, who lived in Brooklyn and was expected to testify on Monday, was extremely traumatised and humiliated by the attacks.
He reportedly had to undergo three courses of anti-retroviral drugs to combat HIV.
“Fortunately he was HIV-negative,” Van Wyk said.
The victim had brought two claims against the minister of police, the first of which, for R940,000, was due to the arrest and detention involving the alleged rape, and the second, for R150,000, was for the second arrest and detention.
The plaintiff was arrested on September 16, 2011 at the Rustenburg Mall on charges of human trafficking and taken to the Rustenburg police cells, where he was detained in a cell along with about 20 other men.
He alleged that they stripped him, sexually assaulted him, raped, and severely beat him until 6am the next morning.
He asked police several times the next day to see to his needs and told them that he had been assaulted and raped, but they reportedly did nothing, and refused to allow him to call his family.
Idle No More is forcing many Canadians to be Willfully Blind No More.
Ostensibly, the movement spearheaded by Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence is about the protection of First Nations’ treaty rights. At its core, though, might be something more profound, perhaps best described as a demand for all of us in this country to re-think the relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians. The relationship is, of course, an uneven one, though it might be far more uneven than most of us in this country care to acknowledge.
Against this backdrop, policy makers and average Canadians alike would be well advised to ring in the New Year by considering the lessons Michelle Alexander highlights in her important book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindedness. The context is American, but the lessons may hit closer to home. In the book, Alexander writes the following in regards to African-Americans and the United States’ criminal justice system:
“It is fair to say that we have witnessed an evolution in the United States from a racial caste system based entirely on exploitation (slavery), to one based largely on subordination (Jim Crow), to one defined by marginalization (mass incarceration). While marginalization may sound far preferable to exploitation, it may prove to be even more dangerous. Extreme marginalization, as we have seen throughout world history, poses the risk of extermination.”
It’s a narrative equally provocative and compelling. Alexander argues that Americans’ obsession with ‘law and order’ began as a conservative attempt to breed white opposition to the burgeoning civil rights movement. Politicians on the right labeled civil disobedience a precursor to criminality, and branded supporters of civil rights legislation as promoters of lawlessness. Exploiting the fears of poor and rural whites, Republican politicians invented and propagated the ‘War on Crime’ and, more specifically, the ‘War on Drugs’ as a means to incarcerate, and thus control, the black population.
The scheme was so successful that any politician that questioned the effectiveness or morality behind the supposedly colour-blind ‘War on Drugs’ was accused of being ‘soft on crime’ — the death knell for one seeking public office. In 1992, Bill Clinton recognized that Democrats could peel off right leaning white voters by outflanking the Republicans on issues like crime and welfare reform, and promptly advocated for a number of policies that resulted in the largest increases in federal and state prison inmates of any president in the history of the United States, the overwhelming majority of which were people of colour. The normalization of racial marginalization, according to Alexander, was finally, quietly complete.
The book is more than a lament; it’s a warning. Alexander paints a bleak portrait of a future in which the majority of African Americans — increasingly economically vulnerable in a nation of skyrocketing inequality — being under the control of the criminal justice system is not entirely inconceivable. It’s an ugly commentary on contemporary American society. Canadians should pay attention.
One in five Canadian prisoners are Aboriginal
Troublingly, there are significant parallels between the plight of African Americans in the United States, and the Aboriginal population in Canada.
As American history is steeped in institutional savagery toward African Americans, Canada’s history, too, is pockmarked by the white majority’s mistreatment of Indigenous peoples. Most notable among a litany of gross violations of justice are the permanent occupation of ancestral lands beginning in the 18th century, the noxious attempt to ‘civilize’ Aboriginal people in residential schools in the early 1900s, and the refusal to recognize Aboriginal Canadians as legal ‘persons’ until the middle of the 20th century. And the similarities, unfortunately, are not only historical.
Though Canada doesn’t yet lock up the same percentage of its citizenry as its southern neighbor — the most heavily incarcerated society in the world — measures passed by Prime Minister Harper’s Conservative government have resulted in a steady increase in the number of Canadians behind bars. Canadians of Aboriginal ancestries have borne the brunt of the surge of prisoners.
The proportion of African Americans and Aboriginal Canadians in prison far exceed their representation in the U.S. and Canada, respectively. In the U.S., black Americans account for 12 per cent of the total population, but represent nearly 40 per cent of the prison population. In Canada, Aboriginal peoples make up four per cent of the total population, but 20 per cent of the prison population.
These significant discrepancies are not shrinking. In the U.S., over 40 per cent of new offenders to state and federal prisons are African American. In Canada, more than one in five new admissions to men’s prisons are of Aboriginal descent. Among women offenders, over one in three are Aboriginal. In the U.S., one in three black men can expect to be incarcerated at some point in their lives. In Canada, young Aboriginal men are more likely to go to prison than complete a high school diploma. And once in custody, a significantly larger proportion of African American and Aboriginal Canadian prisoners are recommended for maximum levels of security than white prisoners charged with similar crimes.
Structural discrimination
While it might be unfair to claim that Canadian politicians and the Canadian criminal justice system have joined forces to consciously ensure that our Aboriginal communities remain repressed and disenfranchised, it cannot be denied that Aboriginals across the country suffer from poverty, injustice and lack of opportunity more than other type of Canadian. One in four Aboriginal children live in poverty.
The life expectancy for Indigenous people in Canada is eight to 20 years less than non-Aboriginal Canadians. On First Nations reserves, 60 per cent of children do not graduate high school, and the lack of suitable housing and access to clean water is endemic. To be Aboriginal in Canada today is to be a second-class citizen.
As a new year begins, we should take this opportunity to look closely at the society that we have created, and address the appalling inequalities of our criminal justice system. There is still time to prevent the prison state of our southern neighbors, but only if we hurry.
No Canadian should be idle.
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