By Bill Coles
AS Nelson Mandela swept into power on a wave of euphoria 16 years ago, South Africa was optimistically dubbed the Rainbow Nation. But on the eve of the first World Cup ever to be staged on the African continent, the colour is fast fading from this rainbow dream.
Crime is now so rampant that more than 50 people are being murdered in South Africa every day. These brutal killings – often accompanied by rape – are so rife that they merit only a few paragraphs in the local papers.
On top of this, the richest country in Africa is being swept by an Aids epidemic, with some 11 per cent of its 48million population now infected with the HIV virus. Average life expectancy is just 50 years.
The tensions are also beginning to show in the much-trumpeted harmony between black, white and coloured, as it was revealed this month that more than 3,000 white farmers have been murdered since President Mandela took power.
Retired journalist Brian O’Hanlon, who has lived in scenic Hermanus, near Cape Town, for the past eight years, said: “I would not go near a black township and I would not expect the people from a black township to come in to the white areas.
“There are murders every day but if you’re a resident you become inured to it. If you didn’t, you would probably have to go back to England or my native Ireland.”
With the World Cup just four weeks away, many believe the organiser Fifa is now practically running the country in order to ensure that South Africa presents a clean, wholesome image to the rest of the world. Thousands of beggars and street children have been shipped out of Johannesburg and Cape Town and crammed into tin-hut settlements.
An army of 44,000 police officers – more than a quarter of South Africa’s entire force – is dedicated solely to ensuring the safety of World Cup spectators. Some 8,500 of these officers will be wearing full body armour shipped in from France.
Meanwhile football fans are being blitzed with advice on how to stay safe, with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office warning of “a very high level of crime”.
Yet despite all the fanfare, even Archbishop Desmond Tutu, 78, was this week lamenting how crime and corruption were ruining his homeland. The Nobel Peace Prize winner said: “Something happened to us. It looks like we have lost our pride. It is not because of poverty.
“We are prisoners in our homes. Look at what is happening to the farmers. But it is not only the farmers. You read something horrific almost every day. We should ask ourselves: ‘Hey, what is going on?'”
For some, the constant menace of crime has become so traumatic that they’ve had no option but to quit the country. Since the end of apartheid, some 800,000 white South Africans out of a total of 4.4 million have emigrated, abandoning hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland.
Mr O’Hanlon said: “You have to box clever and you mustn’t put yourself in a situation where there might be trouble. You mix with your own.”
Almost every South African has some horror story to tell that has either occurred personally to them or to friends and family. These crime stories range from car-jackings at gunpoint – which are now so common they don’t even get a mention in the papers – to being pistol-whipped in your own home.
Philip Oliver, 41, left South Africa three years ago for work reasons and now can only marvel at how free and easy life seems in the UK. Performance coach Mr Oliver, a father of one, says: “In South Africa you have to be constantly aware of the dangers of crime. I have to pinch myself now that I’m in Britain. It may sound perfectly normal but here I can walk from my car to my hotel without a care in the world. It’s an absolute delight. You could never do that in South Africa where you live with this kind of shadow of crime over your life.”
He adds: “In Cape Town you can be living in an incredible apartment which looks over Table Mountain but you’re aware that it’s risky to walk there. It’s a heavy price to pay in South Africa but if that’s all you know, you accept it.”
The most notorious of South Africa’s cities is Johannesburg, which is one of the hubs of organised crime. In the run-up to the World Cup, dealers are stockpiling huge quantities of cocaine and the amphetamine “tik”.
Just near Johannesburg’s Soccer City stadium is the lawless ghetto of Diepsloot which is seeing four murders every week. A taxi driver was recently shot dead because he refused to hand over the equivalent of 50p in change. Vigilante squads now roam the streets while kangaroo courts dispense violent and summary justice.
One British expat moved to Cape Town after seeing his Durban home ransacked for the third time. During one of these robberies he was tied up and blindfolded. The expat, speaking anonymously, said: “When South Africa won the right to host the World Cup, we thought this was gold but now we learn that for six weeks Fifa will run this country. The informal traders who thought they would make a killing cannot go anywhere near the stadiums.
“Of course security is a priority, with the crime and theft rates the highest in the world. Petty crime will be at a high level. The other day in Cape Town and without any announcement, 250 police and armoured cars drove through the streets in a show of strength. It was laughable. The police in the cars were all overweight, their beer bellies hanging over their belts. They couldn’t have run 50 metres.”
Seraj Jones, a senior sports writer with Media 24 in Cape Town, was equally dismissive of Fifa: “They are throwing their weight around this country, especially in terms of monitoring the ticket allocations. Nothing moves here without Fifa’s approval. But I’m not at all sure that the infrastructure is going to be finished on time. I can see it all as I come in to work every morning and I’d be amazed if the transport system was ready in four weeks.”
Since 1994 the murder toll among South African farmers has been alarming, with 3,000 dead including recently white supremacist Eugene Terre’Blanche. Almost all were white Afrikaners and many were tortured before they were killed.
One farmer, Manie Potgieter, was seconds from being shot dead by three armed raiders. Mr Potgieter, 30, was attacked at his farm in Vredefort, south of Johannesburg. He was tied up and forced to watch his wife Helena, 28, being stripped.
“She was telling me in Afrikaans not to worry,” he said. I just prayed. The man said: ‘Listen you white b******. I have Aids. We are now going to rape your wife and give her Aids too. Then, we kill you.'” Luckily the attackers were disturbed and fled.
Race relations have now deteriorated so much in South Africa that Julius Malema, the firebrand leader of the ANC’s Youth League, has been whipping up rallies with an old anti-apartheid struggle song which includes the words, “Shoot the Boer”. He caused further outrage by telling a BBC journalist: “Don’t come here with that white tendency” before throwing him out of a press conference.
Mr Oliver, who moved from South Africa to Edinburgh, said: “You just get used to hearing about the violence and sometimes if you’re unlucky you experience it yourself. Of course you do all the usual things to stay safe. You’ll have burglar bars on the doors and windows as well as alarms and you’ll hire a private security firm to provide an armed response.
“You’re also on constant alert when you’re out of your house, when you’re driving or parking your car. You have this natural awareness of what’s going on around you. But sometimes it’s not enough.
“A couple I know from Johannesburg had five youths break into their house and their daughter was home alone. She was very distressed. That was the last straw. They were out of the country within weeks and ended up in the UK.”
He added: “I don’t know many South Africans who are not schizophrenic about their love and hate for the place. If you could wave a magic wand and remove the crime then I’d go back there because it’s God’s own country.”
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