EL DERECHO COMO GRAMÁTICA DE LA GUERRA ANTES DE LA CONSTITUCIÓN DE 1991

The version of the NW in Kayamandi involved two bodies. The first version involved police-trained volunteers, called reservists, made possible through funding provided by an initiative that was launched in 2002 by the then MEC of the Western Cape for Safety and Security. The second version was a NW funded by government funds known as Bambanani (neighbourhood watch). The Bambanani (NW) volunteer programme was initiated by the Western Cape Community Safety MEC, Leonard Ramatlakane, in 2003. It entailed the mobilization of communities as volunteers to assist the police and other law enforcement agencies in addressing crime, especially contact crimes, in the Western Cape. The name denotes a spirit of working together to solve problems, a shared goal and solidarity. The word Bambanani has been used as a rallying point for those who want to participate in community policing activities. The term was used by the provincial campaigns for the NWs and on T-shirts and jackets for volunteers carrying the Bambanani emblem. The reservist initiative was run by the police whereas the Bambanani NW was the initiative of the residents with support provided by the Department of Community Safety in the form of training. The police however actively identified people to run the Bambanani NW intiative.

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Figure 6: left - Police reservists in uniform and NW volunteers wearing the yellow and black Bambanani T-shirts. Right - NW volunteers in Kayamandi

Six months training was provided for the reservists. The first volunteers I encountered when I conducted fieldwork in Kayamandi in 2008 were the police-trained reservists. The reservists together with the police were deployed to guard schools and patrol the streets in town everyday. In January 2011, in a telephone interview to update me on the reservists, a police inspector in Kayamandi confirmed that reservists were going to be absorbed permanently in the police. No new reservists would be trained because there were no new funds from the Provincial Safety and Security portfolio to carry on that initiative. Since 2009, the reservist initiative has been under review and no new police reservists have been enlisted.

The reservists cited the payment they received as one of the reasons they enlisted to be police reservists. The incentive structure had a bearing whether one would participate in community policing initiatives or not. The payment the police reservists received, though insufficient according to most of them, was cited as one of the reasons for enrolling into the programme. In 2012, a considerable number of police reservists had stopped because there was no payment for their services. Therefore an incentive in the form of payment was linked to how community policing was perceived. A considerable number of young adults in Kayamandi pointed out that it was no use being part of something they were paid for very little or not paid for. For this reason, some chose to stay away from volunteer initiative because there was not a sufficient incentive in terms of monetary reward.

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Let me turn to the details of how the Bambanani NW initiative functioned in Kayamandi. I sat at the concrete ledge outside the Kayamandi police station, waiting for the Kayamandi NW chairperson. A Kayamandi police inspector had arranged the appointment for me. When he arrived, he passed me and went straight into the police station. A few minutes later, he emerged from the building, called out my name and I got up swiftly relieved that he had come for the appointment. He gave me a firm handshake and quickly proposed we do the interview outside. He got straight into talking, breaking the ice before I could even ask any questions. He began his story:

How did I end up being involved with the NW? Alright, here is my story, firstly, crime is very high here; the statistics do not record everything that is happening. One day when I was coming back from work, I found that my house had been broken into and I reported to the police and they said they would investigate. Three days later, my sister found the guy selling my things, a television set and clothes. I went straight to the police and told them that I knew the suspect and they should come with me. They did not do that and they said they were still investigating. I was very angry. You see, if you follow the government rules, it does not work sometimes because they do not deal with your concerns. We found the man and we beat him with my friends. (He used the legs and hands to show that they gave the man a thorough

hiding). He confessed and said he will pay me for what he stole from me and that then we left

him. (He said with confidence how the method they had used was effective in dealing with the

suspected thief who confessed after the beating). Sisi (sister), (he affectionately called me),

after that incident I asked myself how many people have gone to the police and told them they knew who had committed a crime and nothing was done.

In an indirect manner, he told me how he condoned the use of vigilante methods to deal with a problem or criminal but only when they were sure of the facts. He stressed that the ways in which the NW worked entailed the ability to use their discretion and the example of how he solved the issue of his stolen goods demonstrated that. He continued his story by telling me that

we started recruiting people and encouraging them to join in to do something about crime. At that time, the Bambanani initiative had been launched. We had to organise people to go for training as NW volunteers. The volunteers are given one week’s training. We have ways of doing our investigations if there is a crime that has been committed. We know the ones who cause trouble. We make sure we have meetings every month or even twice a month especially if there is something very urgent. People are busy trying to organise their lives as well so attendance depends on who may come. Training for volunteers has stopped now; there are no funds for that initiative.

The issues he raised point to matters that I raised earlier, namely that there was no sufficient financial and institutional support for local community policing initiatives. The local community policing initiatives in Kayamandi and Kylemore owed their existence to those few who were dedicated and had the ability to sacrifice their time and financial resources.

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The NW chairperson in Kayamandi pointed out that if he had office space at the police station it would make it easier and quicker to liaise with the police and deal with issues and the residents would find them easier. The chairpersons of the CPF and the NW in Kayamandi stressed the issue of the unavailability of space at the police station. That workspace symbolically represented being taken seriously by the police in terms of crime fighting in the neighbourhood or not. During an informal discussion with the NW chairperson, he told me that he was going to stop working with the NW because of family commitments and that he had to concentrate on finding another job. Being unemployed had put pressure on him since he did not have the money to do some of the NW tasks, for example making phone calls to organise and co-ordinate the NW activities. He stressed how being at the forefront of such community initiatives meant that he had to use his own financial resources to get things done, for example giving airtime to make telephone calls and making arrangements for people to go for training. He noted how there was a need for more volunteers and he spoke proudly about those who had been able to go for training.

One representative in Kayamandi told me that, ‘on a good day, 25 volunteers would turn up during the patrols which occurred during weekends’. However during some of the weekends that I participated in patrols, at times only six people would turn up for the NW. The patrols in Kayamandi consisted of a group of police reservists, the police on duty that evening and the Bambanani volunteers. The volunteers who were part of the Bambanani group and police reservists consisted of more women than men. I understood this to be awareness by the women of their vulnerability from crime hence their interest in being volunteers. Moreover, their economic vulnerability and need for money was one reason they stated as taking up roles as volunteers. A policeman made a remark about the gender asymmetry: ‘the ladies show more interest than men, during the weekends, most men are sitting in the shebeens and are not very interested in the

Bambanani’.

The reservists, NW volunteers and the police met at the police station early in the evening before weekend patrols. There was a briefing before the patrol started. The idea was to maintain some form of visibility. I found it absurd when we took off in three police cars for the patrol in a township that had almost 30 000 residents. The police were surely overwhelmed and could not be in all the trouble spots at the same time. The ways in which the police and volunteers went about their duties during the weekends resonated with what Comaroff and Comaroff (2010) in a recent paper pointed out, namely how the police perform security because they are sensitive to the ambivalent responses with which they are regarded. Therefore, they have

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devised techniques through which to enact their visibility and efficacy. The police play out in raids to send a message that the new South Africa is taking shape in a vital effort to produce social order. I observed that for the police, showing visibility was a way of attending to a populace that does not trust them, hold them in high regards or have confidence in them. The ineffectiveness of police and civilian patrols were reflected in statements by a Kayamandi resident such as:

The police need to be innovative in the ways they go about their business. The criminals know the ways of the police. The moment they finish patrols or the police leave an area, the criminals know they have an hour before the police patrol the same area or streets again. (He

pointed out police visibility only would not result in discouraging criminals to do their ‘business’).

One of the things the police attended to during the patrols together with the NW volunteers and reservists was enforcing the closing times of the shebeens in Kayamandi. This is an example of the negotiation of the way rules are put in place through local community policing initiatives. Although a considerable number of

shebeens are not registered, some residents of Kayamandi and Kylemore feel that the shebeens provide a

service for them. As expected, not everyone approves of the existence of the shebeens. In Kylemore, the opening of a registered sports bar and games room has not deterred people from going to the shebeens. The shebeens, according to the regular patrons, provide a more relaxed atmosphere compared to the registered bar in Kylemore. In addition, alcohol is relatively cheaper at the shebeens. Over the years, however, shebeens have become associated with major problems: they are places for using drugs and incidents of rape as well as alcohol being sold to minors have often been reported. In Kayamandi the police, NW and the shebeen owners often had meetings to discuss closing times, weapons and drug use by patrons which caused problems. The 11 o’clock p.m. closing time was an attempt to avoid the numerous incidents of alcohol related violence or people being robbed because they were drunk and left the shebeen late. However, the closing time of 11 o’clock p.m. for the shebeens as negotiated between the police and NW was often not observed. Shebeens often closed in the early hours of the morning. As soon as the police left, people walked back into the shebeen.

Stone-throwing and cynical remarks made to the police and NW during the patrols in Kayamandi were an indication that the people yearned for something else instead of the ritualistic patrols by the police and the volunteers. Many mornings after the weekend patrols, there were several reports of contact crimes and house break-ins. On Saturday morning, I went back to Kayamandi after a patrol on Friday night. I found the police busy rushing out to attend to a murder report that had just been made that Saturday morning. The

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paradox was that the commentaries people made after such incidents reflected or blamed the police for not being visible enough. The message to the police was that the police should have avoided the murder from happening. I was reminded of Steinberg’s (2011) commentary at a seminar that policy programmes demanded community participation but on the ground, there was a whirlwind of complexities. The police made an effort to convey an image of strength but they were doing so from a point of weakness due to insufficient resources to deal with the issues at hand. The people perceived their efforts with cynicism because the problems had not been dealt with effectively, hence the incidents of vigilante violence where suspected criminals were often beaten up in Kayamandi before the police were called or arrived at the scene.