President Cyril Ramaphosa's Gun-Spree South Africa turns New Dawn into darkest night

Dear DM168 readers,

I  hate guns. Glocks. AK-47s. R4s. Uzis. Smith & Wessons. I hate them because in the trigger-happy hands of unhinged humans, of which we know there are many, guns release bullets that tear through hearts, brains, skin, lungs, legs and arms.

They maim and murder. They convert innocence into anger and revenge. They cause ruinous wars for generations of families, communities and countries.

A bullet in a brain or heart does not just end an argument, it ends a life – the life of ­someone’s mother, father, brother, sister or best friend.

It always bothered me that Jacob Zuma’s pièce de résistance at mass rallies was his Umkhonto weSizwe struggle song Awuleth’ Umshini Wami (bring me my machine gun). For what exactly did he need his machine gun in a democratic South Africa? Who did he and his supporters need to shoot? Enemies in the ANC? Opposition parties? Journalists who exposed the Nkandla scandal and the Gupta Leaks? Or maybe they needed it to rob a bank. Or a country.

If Reuben Brigety, the US ambassador to South Africa, is to be believed, the ANC government is not as nonaligned in that carnage of a war that Russia is waging against Ukraine as it would have us believe.

The ambassador has claimed that our government supplied weapons and ammunition to Russia on the Russian ship Lady R that docked in Simon’s Town late last year. If this proves to be true, it’s clearly not just dancing Jacob who is longing for his days of Umshini Wami. President Cyril Ramaphosa and his New Dawn, rapidly fading to dusk and utter darkness, and the ANC he leads are just as keen for the spoils of war.

My revulsion towards guns graduated from distaste to a visceral loathing when I witnessed an innocent man being mowed down in front of my eyes by an AK-47-wielding gang of robbers at a tiny Troyeville restaurant in Johannesburg in the early 90s.

The transition between apartheid and democracy was a terribly violent time. Guns proliferated everywhere, from dirty-tricks Security Branch members to Eugene TerreBlanche’s AWB, the IFP, the ANC, Apla and other armed wings of anti-apartheid movements as well as your garden-variety gangster and druglord.

Today, 29 years into democracy and with a bumbling Bheki Cele in charge of the police, Ramaphosa nominally in charge of the country and an enfeebled, under-resourced National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) under Shamila Batoyi, our country feels just as ungovernable and lawless as it was then.

In this week’s DM168, read Caryn Dolley’s heart-wrenching story about the innocent victims shot with guns that were sold by crooked police to gangsters and you will understand why none of us is safe.

Assassinations. Armed robberies. Drive-by shootings. It’s a free-for-all because those appointed to keep the peace seem to be more in love with war. Looting and shooting on a massive scale, from arms deals to State Capture and the bumping off of whistle-blowers, competitors or councillors to get a job with your snout in the trough.

As Rebecca Davis and Victoria O’Regan write in our lead story, despite its budget growing by 82% since 2012, the South African Police Service’s ability to solve murders dropped by 55% and armed robberies by 53%.

The NPA’s 994 vacancies and lack of budget, along with the ineptitude of police, make it impossible for the authority to do its job. Murderers and the masters of State Capture are strolling into the sunset laughing at the nonexistent New Dawn.

Sorry to be so downbeat, but if you need an opportunity to vent as I have about this, or anything else that has been bothering you this week, or you have some bright ideas to change our Gun-Spree South Africa, write to me at [email protected] and I will publish your views on our readers’ page in next week’s paper.

Yours in defence of truth,

Heather

This story first appeared in our weekly DM168 newspaper which is available countrywide for R29.