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JEREMY MAGGS: I want to start with this story, and many South Africans are furious at the latest blue light brigade assault scandal. On Monday, if you’ve been following this one, video footage circulated of members of the South African Police Services (SAPS) VIP protection unit, assaulting three motorists on the N1 highway near Fourways, that’s north of Johannesburg.
There have been suspensions, there has been much condemnation, but in an editorial (on Tuesday), the Daily Maverick’s Mark Heywood, who edits Citizen Maverick, asks why most current Cabinet members and MECs need their blue lights in the first place.
He joins us now. Mark, a very warm welcome, and of course, this is not the first time that we’ve seen an incident like this. It’s almost become a pattern.
MARK HEYWOOD: Good afternoon, Jeremy. Yes, I think it’s been going on for at least a decade, that periodically we are outraged by the behaviour of the blue lights, by their thuggery, by their acting as if they are above the rule of law…
I think by the wastage that it represents, we foot the bill of R1.7 billion a year.
It’s R8 million per person protected per year for a group of people, many of whom frankly do not require VIP protection as far as I’m concerned. So it’s more of a vanity project for many people than an actual project or necessary project to protect people who are at risk.
JEREMY MAGGS: I wonder why they have become a law unto themselves.
MARK HEYWOOD: Well, there don’t appear to be any rules or guidelines that govern their behaviour, certainly none that I’m aware of. But also, and I’ve been asking myself that question, Jeremy, and I think it is because their principals, i.e., the people who they guard and protect, think that they are above the law and countenance this behaviour.
Usually, as you know, these blue light brigades drive recklessly down highways escorting or carrying a minister or an MEC, that means that the minister or the MEC is happy with this type of behaviour, doesn’t criticise this type of behaviour. So I think we have to condemn the SAPS officials, but I don’t think that our condemnation and questioning should stop at that point. I think we should see that this is part of a deeper problem.
JEREMY MAGGS: You have to concede though that politicians do need to be protected, from time to time they would find themselves facing potential danger.
MARK HEYWOOD: Yes, I do concede that the president needs to be protected. Although whether he needs the whole convoy is another question. The deputy president, the Chief Justice Zondo needs to be protected, obviously, because of what he’s done through the Zondo Commission.
But does an MEC for housing in a province need to be protected? Does an MEC for education need to be protected? Those are the questions that we should ask. Does a mayor need this type of protection?
On the other hand, why do we not protect whistleblowers? I made informal inquiries to the senior leadership of the NPA (National Prosecuting Authority), the senior leaders of the NPA, with the exception of the National Director of Public Prosecutions, do not automatically get protection.
They have to pay for their own protection and yet we know that those people are vulnerable because they know who is behind organised crime in this country. So I’m not saying, I’m not being naive or idealistic and saying we should do away with this altogether. I’m saying that it should be properly regulated, and rule-bound if it is to exist.
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JEREMY MAGGS: These South African Police were quick to react, unusually swift, I think were the words that you used, that is to be welcomed.
MARK HEYWOOD: Yes, it is to be welcomed, but it’s not sufficient because we now know that four people have been suspended. That’s four out of seven who were involved in this incident. Probably we’re going to see them sitting on full pay for a few months before they get reinstated.
I think that what we witnessed, and nobody has questioned the legitimacy or the credibility of that video, warrants automatic dismissal. There was no excuse for it.
They weren’t acting in the line of duty; they were involved in a criminal assault on citizens of this country. What do you do when you see that type of thing? So again, you had to condemn it because you couldn’t deny it, but they’ve done the least, and nobody in authority is raising the bigger questions that you and I started this conversation with.
JEREMY MAGGS: You’re not the first person to say that the public deserves an apology from the deputy president. Do you think one will be forthcoming?
MARK HEYWOOD: Well, he’s made a muted response saying that it was his people and that he wasn’t in the convoy.
JEREMY MAGGS: That’s not an apology, is it?
MARK HEYWOOD: That’s not an apology, no, it should be an apology. But, but again, Jeremy, as I’m saying, an apology is one thing, but to accept that the deputy president often by omission and the president countenance this type of behaviour because they don’t stop and say, stop driving like this, or at the end say, this type of behaviour is not… It flows from them, that’s the problem.
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JEREMY MAGGS: Mark, just a final one. We don’t have time to get into too much philosophy here, but I wonder if this behaviour isn’t also a metaphor for bigger underlying issues in South Africa. There’s a lot of incipient rage that exists at the moment among all sectors of society.
MARK HEYWOOD: It is a metaphor for bigger underlying issues and for a whole series of issues. There is a rage, and I’ve written about it. We are a country that lives with trauma, various types of trauma, we don’t admit the trauma. Misbehaviour carries into much of our day-to-day conduct, including people who are often otherwise law-abiding citizens who take the law into their hands in the face of police failure.
It’s a much bigger issue than just what we’ve witnessed in the video. Outrageous as that is. But Jeremy, if we don’t stop this, if we don’t not just condemn … [and call for] accountability and action flows from this type of behaviour, then we are on a very slippery slope. Because there are countries in the world where it’s the norm, not the exception, that police can pull people over, beat them up, shoot them, leave them on the side of the road.
Some of those countries are just over the border from us and some are in Eastern Europe. But it is a slippery slope. That’s why we have to stop it and we have to stand up against it.
JEREMY MAGGS: Mark Heywood, thank you very much.
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