"Those of us who have remained loyal, and those of us who have entered treacherous places by defending the African National Congress... today we are not wanted," he said.
"We are used like toilet paper that is flushed in the toilet. We are used like condoms, those who use condoms will know how condoms work, they use them and they throw them away somewhere else." Julius Malema claimed at a Youth gathering in Mthatha
Though Julius also known as "Juju" can sometimes or make that most of the time be out of hand, some of the things he say do make sense. There are a lot of things within the government that are ignored or turned a blind eye to and only when they feel that their toes are stepped on will they say something. I am not going to go deep but my concern at this stage is that of the Lonmin domino. Till when will this carry on. I feel there's a lot that needs to be addressed in this country, one man jokingly said "wait till Mandela dies, this country will go upside down" maybe he is right i dont know, what I know is this country seems to be going downhill very fast. Personally i think it is like a spit on the face of the people that faught for this freedom, and more over a crocifixion to the already dead Steve Biko and others.
What the police have been doing to the members of the public is highly unacceptable and very sad that they actually get away with all the crimes.
Paulina Masuhlo was shopping on Saturday near the Never Die Tavern in Wonderkop where Lonmin miners. Police began firing from a speeding armoured car and hit several women.
Masuhlo was hit in the abdomen and leg and rushed to the hospital, where she died on Wednesday,
Police spokesperson Dennis Adriao said he was investigating the report of a death. He said police had reported to the Independent Police Investigative Directorate that several people were hit by rubber bullets in a raid to disarm strikers on Saturday, the day after the government ordered a crackdown.
The directorate already has opened 34 murder and 78 attempted murder charges against police.
But no action has been taken against any of the officers involved. The government has said it is awaiting the outcome of a judicial commission of inquiry that is supposed to report to the president in January.
47 dead
Cosatu called for "the immediate identification and suspension of the police officers involved in [Masuhlo's] murder".
"We are also extremely unhappy that, to date, none of the police officers involved in the massacre on 16 August 2012 has been identified or suspended - this is totally unacceptable and unlawful," reports News24.
This brutality has always been, and the reason why it still continues it is because the perpertrators are never dealt with accordingly this goes far back to Steve Biko's death. Voilence has never been a way to go about fixing the wrongs and killings should be seen the same way it is when done by an ordinary member of the public, police shooting people everywhere has become fashionable and therefore is highly unacceptable.
Steve Biko an
inspirational leader who changed the course of South African history. As
leading anti-apartheid activist and thinker, Biko created Black Consciousness,
which has resonance to this day.
His death by torture, at the hands of the police,
robbed South Africa of one of its most gifted leaders.
Below in an excerpt from Biko – A
Biography, Mangcu describes Biko's arrest and how he was killed.
The Arrest
At the roadblock the police asked Steve and Jones to
step out and open the boot. Jones, who was driving, followed their orders but
struggled to open the boot. The car’s boot had to be opened in a special way,
known only to Rams Ramokgopa, back at Zanempilo.
Apparently, the car had been in a minor accident
resulting in a small dent above the left tail-light that jammed the lid. Whilst
Jones tugged at the boot, the police kept accusing him of being a terrorist on
his way to see Steve Biko,
while Steve sat quietly in the passenger seat. Jones tried to make light of his
struggle with the boot and invited one of the policemen to have a try.
After a while the senior officer, Colonel Alf
Oosthuizen, ordered the unit to clear the roadblock and to take Steve and Jones
to the nearby police station in Grahamstown.
Oosthuizen drove with Steve in Ramokopa’s car while
Jones drove with the other officers. The police searched the car thoroughly at
the police station. Jones recalls that “they even went through the ash in the
ash-tray. It was now clear that this was not a joke.”
They found Jones’s wallet, which, apart from an
amount of R43, contained his identity document. And then Oosthuizen bellowed in
Afrikaans: “As jy Peter Cyril Jones is, dan wie is daai groot man?” – If you
are Peter Cyril Jones, then who is that big man?
Steve realised how awkward the situation was for his
friend. On principle, Jones would not reveal Steve’s identity, exposing himself
to torture and imprisonment. Yet in the end the police would find out anyway.
Steve interjected: “I am Bantu Steve Biko.”
And then there was silence. “Biko?”retorted
Oosthuizen, mispronouncing the B. “No, Bantu Steve Biko,”
retorted Biko, pronouncing the Bs in his name silently.
The two men were separated. Jones was taken to Algoa
Police Station and Steve to Walmer Police Station, both in Port Elizabeth,
about 250 km from King William’s Town.
I was in front and Steve was a couple of paces
behind me. My entourage stopped at a Kombi and I was told to enter and lie face
down on the floor between the seats. I turned to look at Steve who had just
passed us and I called his name out loud. He stopped to look at me and called
my name and we smiled a greeting which was interrupted when I was slapped
violently into the Kombi. This was the last time I ever saw my comrade – alive
or dead.
Over the next months Jones was repeatedly
interrogated and tortured. He was detained for nearly eighteen months.
During the height of my interrogation there wasn’t a
spot on my body that wasn’t either swollen, bruised or sensitive. At times, I
struggled to find a comfortable sleeping position, resorting to sleeping in a
kneeling position with my forehead resting on the floor.
How Steve Was Killed
At Walmer Police Station Steve was kept naked and
manacled for 20 days before being transferred to the notorious Sanlam Building
in Port Elizabeth. The security police there resented the respect Steve enjoyed
from the King William’s Town security police. Stories had reached them that
Steve had, in a previous stint in detention, even fought back and had punched
one of the senior officers in King William’s Town, Warrant Officer Hattingh.
When he arrived at the Sanlam Building the security
police told him to remain standing. After a while he sat down. That was when
one of the policemen, Captain Siebert, grabbed him and pulled him back onto his
feet. A“scuffle” ensued, and true to what he had told Sonwabo Yengo, Steve
would defend himself.
On 6 September Steve sustained a massive brain
haemorrhage. The cause of his death was not disputed: complications resulting
from a brain injury. Steve suffered at least three brain lesions occasioned by
the application of force to his head; the injury was suffered between the night
of 6 September and 07:30 on 7 September.
In their amnesty application the policemen who
killed Steve tried to evade spelling out what exactly had happened in the same
way that they had during the original Biko Inquest in 1977. The details are not
fully known. However, they admitted that after Steve had suffered a brain
injury, they still kept him in a standing position. They shackled his hands and
feet to the metal grille of the cell door. The police noticed that he was
speaking with a slur but would not relent and continued with their
interrogation.
Equally complicit in Steve’s murder were three
doctors involved in the case, the district surgeon Dr Ivor Lang, the chief
district surgeon Dr Benjamin Tucker and Dr Colin Hersch, a specialist from Port
Elizabeth.
On September 7, one day after Steve suffered the
brain haemorrhage, the police called in Dr Lang. Lang could find nothing wrong
with Steve, despite the fact that he found him in a daze with a badly swollen
face, hands and feet.
Instead the doctor alleged that Steve was
“shamming”. Lang’s more senior colleague, Dr Benjamin Tucker, was called in for
his opinion on what should be done. Tucker suggested that Steve be taken to
hospital, but the police strongly objected, and Tucker subordinated his
Hippocratic oath to their wishes.
Lang, even though he was acutely aware of Steve’s
condition, recommended that Steve be driven 700 kilometres to the prison
hospital in Pretoria. By 10 September Steve’s condition had deteriorated
alarmingly. The following day, September 11, the police put Steve in the back
of a Land Rover and drove him for more than twelve hours from Port Elizabeth to
Pretoria – naked, manacled and unconscious.
On September 12 Steve Biko
died, in the words of Sydney Kentridge, “a miserable and lonely death on a mat
on a stone floor in a prison cell”.
The minister of justice and the police, Jimmy
Kruger, issued a statement that Biko had died from a hunger strike. Addressing
a National Party Congress, Kruger proclaimed to laughter:“I am not saddened by
Biko’s death and I am not mad. His death leaves me cold.” Kruger’s remark
reverberated around the world.
Speaking at the first Steve Biko
Memorial Lecture 23 years later, UCT Vice-Chancellor Njabulo
Ndebele described this callous event as:
. . . a continuum of indescribable insensitivity
that begins as soon as Steve Biko and Peter Jones are arrested at a roadblock near Grahamstown
on 18 August 1977. It starts with lowly police officers who make the arrest in
the relative secrecy of a remote setting and ends with a remarkable public
flourish, when a minister of government declares that Biko’s death leaves him
cold. This situation lets us deep into the ethical and moral condition of
Afrikanerdom, which not only shaped apartheid, but also was itself deeply
shaped by it.
Here is how Barney Pityana describes his friend’s
last hours:
On the night of 11 September Biko, evidently a
seriously ill patient, was driven to Pretoria, naked and manacled to the floor
of a Land Rover. Eleven hours later he was carried into the hospital at
Pretoria Central Prison and left on the floor of a cell. Several hours later he
was given an intravenous drip by a newly qualified doctor who had no
information about him other than that he was refusing to eat. Sometime during
the night of 12 September Steve Biko died, unattended.
News of Steve’s death instantly reverberated around
the world. While there had been deaths in detention before, no one thought
that, in their savage madness, the security police would kill someone with the
stature of Steve Biko.
I am not pulling a racial card here on anything it does not matter what race was the police that killed or were involved in his death the fact is they are or were "police" till our Government does something about this it will forever be a continious quandary and there will be a day they will just decide to shoot everyone in the country cause they know they will get away with it.
No comments:
Post a Comment