DURBAN - Opposition political parties in KwaZulu-Natal on Friday criticised the police’s apparent failure to close down a paramilitary camp in the northern part of the province.
The camp, whose members are allegedly aligned to the ANC, is located near an abandoned youth rehabilitation centre in the Vuma area, about 15 kilometres west of Eshowe.
Details of the camp and what training was being undertaken there were not immediately known.
IFP national organiser Albert Mncwango said he told police about the camp last month.
“I have raised this with the provincial police commissioner last month and he has not responded. This group is doing exactly the same work as the Mlaba camp was alleged to be doing,” said Mncwango.
He said members of the Mlaba camp were arrested because of their affiliation to the IFP. “Yet police are turning a blind eye to this camp because they are affiliated to the ANC.”
“I am very disappointed with the manner in which police are acting. They are allowing themselves to be used as pawns for the ruling party and this is precisely what the apartheid government did -- use the police for their own political ends.”
In August, 452 people were arrested at Camp Mlaba near the Hluhluwe-Mfolozi game reserve.
The members of that camp, said to be affiliated to the IFP’s former self-defence units, were charged with contravening the Criminal Law Second Amendment Act of 1992, which prohibits the training of people for “the conducting of any military, paramilitary or similar operation”.
ANC provincial secretary Senzo Mchunu said he was aware of the camp, but denied allegations of ANC involvement.
“Even though those people are claiming to be ANC, they are not. We did not create that camp,” he said.
Mchunu said he visited the camp in March last year.
“We found that somebody was training and recruiting these guys, but it was not the ANC. We also found that the vast majority of them did not qualify for the military, even though they claimed to be soldiers.”
Mchunu said he had told people in the camp that the only way to join the military was to apply for military posts by filling out a form.
Mary de Haas, a researcher and violence monitor, said those at the Vuma camp were initially trained by the IFP.
“These guys were trained by the IFP in 2006 in an area called Macabini. They were trained under the flagship of the South African Unintegrated Forces and were linked to a well-known IFP leader.”
In 2007, the group broke up and some of them went to Gauteng.
“Those who remained went to Melmoth and then to Vuma. But before they went to Vuma, they joined the ANC and called themselves ANC members,” De Haas said.
She had learnt through two independent sources that the Vuma group had been involved in conflict in he area “including the burning of homes as well as the stealing and roasting of cattle”.
De Haas said she had written a letter to Melmoth police about the group, but “the police did not arrest the culprits”.
Provincial police spokeswoman Director Phindile Radebe said: “At the Vuma camp, there is no paramilitary training going on, unlike the Mlaba camp.
“There are at least 70 people at the Vuma camp and we are monitoring the situation there.”
The DA’s provincial caucus leader Roger Burrows said: “Its totally unacceptable that any military or paramilitary force connected to whichever political party is being trained.
The MEC for safety and security Bheki Cele needs to immediately stamp down on this, close these camps and charge those involved. This must be seen to be fair, transparent, and open-handed.”
He said that if Cele did not move to close the Vuma camp, it would suggest that “he is protecting his own political party”.
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