Guards robbed, forced to drink petrol

[BobbyMac]

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2175612,00.html

Johannesburg - Four security guards were robbed of over three million rand and forced to drink petrol at a mine in Middelburg, Mpumalanga police said on Saturday.

Captain Leonard Hlathi said the SBV Security guards had been delivering and loading money to ATMs in Middelburg and Witbank when they were attacked by two armed men at Arnot Mine near Middelburg around 07:30 on Friday.

Hlathi said before the guards could get out of the vehicle, two armed men forced them back inside at gunpoint.

Another four men, armed with AK-47s, pistols and a five-litre can of petrol then joined them.

"They forced the guards to drink the petrol and then poured the petrol all over their bodies and in the car, threatening to set them alight," he said.

 

[kingrob]

Makes me think of the old Apartheid days, when the blacks suspecting of co-operating with the apartheid government got a tyre round the neck, forced to drink petrol beforehand and when they set the tyre alight and they breathed, they basically exploded.

 

[StrongTurd]

Now that you mention that isn't it ironic that necklacing is something that has been almost completely erased from the collective memory of South Africa yet it is one of the most cruel forms of torture ever devised?

A few months ago I ran into an ex-school buddy of mine for the first time since the late 80s. He says that as a police constable on the East Rand townships in the early 90s he saw at least one necklacing a day; sometimes quite a few. He says that in almost all cases the victim was left to slowly burn to death while a large crowd danced in a circle around the victim and normally only dispersed when the police showed up. In many cases the victim was unrecognisable as a human being but, horiffically, still clung to life for a while afterwards. This guy told me that in his case the PTSD that he still suffers from is almost entirely related to what he saw at these necklacing ceremonies.

Did the TRC ever deal with any of these necklacings?

 

[Ady]

I can't believe that these things still happen in our so called democracy. It is nothing more than barbaric with no respect for human life.

 

[wcoetzee]

I can't believe that these things still happen in our so called democracy. It is nothing more than barbaric with no respect for human life.

Welcome In South Africa! Please, have you tried the fish

 

[Ady]

LOL, reminds me of the joke about these tourists that arrive at OR Tambo and the customs official asks them if they have a gun and the reply that they don't. With this the customs official says you going to need one, here take mine.

 

[NameOfBeast]

TRC and Necklacing

Now that you mention that isn't it ironic that necklacing is something that has been almost completely erased from the collective memory of South Africa yet it is one of the most cruel forms of torture ever devised?

A few months ago I ran into an ex-school buddy of mine for the first time since the late 80s. He says that as a police constable on the East Rand townships in the early 90s he saw at least one necklacing a day; sometimes quite a few. He says that in almost all cases the victim was left to slowly burn to death while a large crowd danced in a circle around the victim and normally only dispersed when the police showed up. In many cases the victim was unrecognisable as a human being but, horiffically, still clung to life for a while afterwards. This guy told me that in his case the PTSD that he still suffers from is almost entirely related to what he saw at these necklacing ceremonies.

Did the TRC ever deal with any of these necklacings?

They did (but more on an individual basis). For instance
http://www.info.gov.za/speeches/1998/98722_0w8389810250.htm

Of course the contemptible little ***** who provoked such incidents denied any responsibility (surprise that):

The United Democratic Front (UDF) conceded that the language used from time to time by some of its leaders could have provided a reasonable basis for some of its members to infer that violence and even killing was acceptable.

But the political climate in South Africa in the 1980s had to be borne in mind, leaders of the former prominent 1980s anti-apartheid organisation said in a submission to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Wednesday.

The UDF, however, disapproved of necklacing and condemned its use on several occasions, former UDF leader Azhar Cachalia told the TRC's human rights violations committee.

Giving evidence to the committee in Cape Town, as part of a delegation of former prominent UDF leaders, Cachalia, now head of the South African Police Services' civilian secretariat, said this was communicated through the media and by discussion among UDF affiliates.

The UDF, however, had very little direct control over the development of the necklacing phenomenon.

The organisation's capacity and ability to intervene was limited due to the negative impact of the state of emergency in the mid-1980s on the organisation, Cachalia said.

"The UDF constantly made public statements distancing itself from such conduct."

The ANC's TRC submission included quite a bit on `revolutionary justice':
http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/misc/trc2.html

As the mass-based resistance against apartheid took root in the mid-eighties, the ANC leadership strongly disapproved of some of the methods chosen by people to kill informers and other collaborators, particularly the "necklace", and stated this on more than one occasion. UDF leaders also condemned the use of the "necklace" on several occasions. But the ANC leadership refused, and will always refuse to condemn those who believed they were part of the struggle for liberation led by the ANC and the UDF, and were making their contribution by ridding communities of informers and those amongst them who directly collaborated in apartheid violence (please refer to our first submission, pp 77 - 78).

...and following that the claim that necklacing was all a terrible plot by the security forces to discredit noble revolutionaries (a claim which IIRC was successfully challenged).

Here is Chris Hani (same link) on necklacing:

"You know for a long time South Africa, being a colonialist power of a special type, has depended on the continued repression of our people through active collaboration by puppets. We know that even in the classic colonial situation in countries like India, Kenya, the old Tanganyika and elsewhere, the colonialist has always depended on the African askari. Similarly, in our country, we know ourselves that the colonialist, the racist regime if you like, has always depended on the active collaboration of the oppressed on the recruitment of the Black policeman, the Black special branch. Because the Black policeman the Black special branch and the Black agent stay in the same township as we do, they have been the conduit through which information about our activities, about our plans has been passed to the enemy. This has made the process of organisation and mobilisation very difficult.

"So the necklace was a weapon devised by the oppressed themselves to remove this cancer from our society, the cancer of collaboration of the puppets. It is not a weapon of the ANC. It is a weapon of the masses themselves to cleanse the townships from the very disruptive and even lethal activities of the puppets and collaborators. We do understand our people when they use the necklace because it is an attempt to render our townships, to render our areas and country ungovernable, to make the enemy's access to information very difficult. But we are saying here our people must be careful, in the sense that the enemy would employ provocateurs to use the necklace, even against activists. We have our own revolutionary methods of dealing with collaborators, the methods of the ANC. But I refuse to condemn our people when they mete out their own traditional forms of justice to those who collaborate. I understand their anger. Why should they be cool as icebergs, when they are being killed every day?

"As far as I am concerned, the question of the necklace and how it should be used belongs to all of us, to the ANC, to the democratic movement. We should sit down and discuss amongst ourselves how we should mete out justice. What is revolutionary justice? One fact is that, where agents and collaborators are concerned, we should establish, where it is possible, our own revolutionary courts where justice should be meted out. And in those courts we should involve some of our best cadres so that our forms of justice do not degenerate into kangaroo justice. We would like to maintain revolutionary forms of justice. But South Africa is not a normal society; the situation is very very abnormal. People are angry because we are fighting fascism in that country.

"The ANC will never abandon its leading role. We are saying to our people, whatever method you devise, there should be democratic participation, there should be democratic discussion, and whatever method we use, that method should conform to the norms of the revolutionary movement. As I say we understand why the necklace has been used. We know even the negative and positive aspects of the necklace. There is a lot of discussion now going on the question of the necklace. But it is not this silly co nclusion that it is Black on Black violence. The necklace has been used against those who have been actively collaborating with the enemy. We say the movement should be vigilant to ensure that whatever sentence is passed on anybody, it is a result o f participation by the revolutionary elements of our struggle." (Sechaba, December 1986.)

 

[StrongTurd]

Interesting. So basically Chris Hani approved of necklacing, then.