Get beat up, the beloved country — SA’s men in high castles will not change anything

5 Jul 2023

There can be no greater symbol of the inequality and violence of our society than a group of thugs, paid by the state, beating up motorists for some imagined slight. And the ultimately devastating expectation that they are likely to get away with it.

The images of VIP Protection Unit police officers beating up three people in broad daylight on the side of a major road have sparked outrage about the repeated thuggish behaviour of those who guard our political elites. The whole horrific episode also symbolises massive problems in our troubled society and points to why some of the deepest ones are so intractable.

Despite widespread public frustration at this kind of abuse, and the cost of the VIP Protection Unit, it appears no one in the ANC has ever publicly suggested the unit, or its costs, should be reduced – which is a conundrum of its own.

Perhaps the real potency of those shocking images is that they show how unbound by any rules are our political “elites”. South Africa’s Constitution declares, “Everyone is equal before the law and has the right to equal protection and the benefit of the law”... but who is defending it?

It says much about those in power, whether they be violent police officers or corrupt politicians, that they feel safe committing their criminal acts in broad daylight. And to be recorded doing so. And time after time getting away with it.

Public outrage around the VIP Protection Unit is one of the more enduring scandals of our democratic history.

Over the last few days, several media organisations have compiled lists of previous incidents where members of the unit have broken the law. Astonishingly, these lists are describing a feature of and not a glitch in our political and security setup.

Some of those violent and impudent transgressions have been truly astonishing.

From the VIP guard who shot at a motorist’s tyres, to the case where Chumani Maxwele was illegally detained overnight and forced to write a letter of apology for extending his middle finger to then president Jacob Zuma’s convoy (when the Human Rights Commission ordered the police minister at the time, Nathi Mthethwa, to apologise, he went to court to challenge the finding), to Thomas Ferreira, a young man living with brain damage after being hit by a VIP vehicle, the stories are shocking, but not surprising.

Among this was the observation, first made by Gareth van Onselen in 2018, that the government spends as much (and sometimes more) on VIP protection as it does on land reform, despite the public claims by those same politicians about how land reform is a necessity.

There is no sense of shame over this.

The symbol of the Presidential Protection Service features three swords, appearing to emerge from a triangular scabbard.

Why would the symbol of a protection unit feature weapons more prominently than a shield? Unless the aim is to explicitly show that the Presidential Protection Service is an offensive unit rather than a defensive one.

vip protectioin

There are important short-term and long-term consequences of this latest act of sheer inhumanity.

While the person the protection unit was supposed to be protecting, Deputy President Paul Mashatile, was not with the unit at the time, his reaction has been quick.

Much left unsaid

His office rushed out a statement, condemning the attack and saying that he “abhors any unnecessary use of force, particularly against civilians”.

But there is much that has been left unsaid.

For example, it is generally understood that a politician who receives protection from this unit is allowed to refuse protection from certain officers. In other words, Mashatile has the power to say that he will not accept protection from the men who committed the assault.

And yet he has not done so.

Also, his statement would have carried much more power had he looked into the nearest camera and told its microphone that he, personally, condemns the attack. And that he, personally, would never allow those guilty of the assault to be around him again.

Perhaps the fear that he would have to also take questions regarding the recent report about where he spends his time and the accommodation given to him by Edwin “Cholera” Sodi, has severely limited his ability to do this.

Also, despite the fact that once again South Africa is in an uproar over the VIP Protection Unit, there is still no serious discussion within the ANC about reducing its budget. Or its power.

Those in the ruling party are, unsurprisingly, making decisions about their own interests, rather than the interests of society at large.

There are important longer-term consequences here.

The first is obvious. Those in the government who have VIP protection have nothing to fear from crime, which probably dilutes the impetus to fight it. There may well be a direct link between our high levels of violent crime and the fact our politicians do not have to face it. (We are in this article not going to address one of SA’s most burning issues, the one of a merging of big crime and large swathes of the political elite. – Ed)

The massive social distance that was created between those who claim to be leading and those who have no choice but to be led is at the very core of SA’s many problems.

Those in power – the ministers, the Deputy President, the President – are insulated from perhaps the three worst fears of most South Africans. They do not face violent crime, load shedding or having to take a child to a hospital run by the Gauteng Health Department (or many other provincial health departments, for that matter).

A direct and personal incentive for them to attend to these problems has been almost totally removed over the years.

And the more the national situation on delivery worsens and these fundamental services fail, the greater the incentive for those in power to demand more from their generators, their medical aid, their transportation services. And the VIP Protection Unit to protect them from unhappy citizens.

And the social distance between the elites and everyone else keeps deepening.

No incentive to change

Despite repeated massive outrages over the VIP Protection Unit in the past, there is no indication that the unit or those within it are changing their behaviour. There is simply no incentive to do so.

This is a very basic failure of democratic accountability – by the officers in the VIP Protection Unit definitely, but much more by those who brought South Africa to the terrible state we’re in.

Amazingly, despite very real changes in our politics and the prospect that the ANC could lose national power next year, there is still no public evidence that those in the party understand this.

One of the problems the ANC and the government now has is the public’s immense distrust. Virtually no one outside the police has said in public they believe the officers who committed this assault will be removed from the unit and properly prosecuted.

This latest sickening event presents an opportunity for President Cyril Ramaphosa, Mashatile and others to grasp the moment and make a public example of the culprits. They could also announce wide-scale reform and reductions of the VIP Protection Unit.

Will they do this? It would be unwise to hold your breath. The ruling elite has, so far, never failed at failing… the one service they expertly deliver on. DM

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South Africa

Much left unsaid

No incentive to change