Assassinations are nothing new, but why are they still so easy?

There’s some spirit up there protecting people from bullets this week. Between Donald Trump and local Sars advocate Coreth Naudé, bullets that were fired turned out not to be lethal. Many others haven’t had the same fortune.

You rarely even hear about most assassinations; from political ones in rural KwaZulu-Natal to business squabbles turned deadly in the Free State.

It’s probably why it’s become so easy to find a gun for hire. High profile matters get documentaries made about them before the case even goes to trial. The last we heard about the AKA hit was back in February. We were relieved when the Jayde Panayiotou hit was solved and her husband was successfully prosecuted but have since learnt just how many other similar cases go unsolved.

A would-be assassin could look at the numbers and think that the odds of getting killed in a taxi collision are higher than being caught for a hit – and it may make perfect sense to follow through. Morality and ethics be damned when desperation and money collide.

ALSO READ: Sars advocate shot three times in assassination attempt in KZN

Cloete and Thomas Murray were gunned down as recently as March 2023 and yet, we all seem to have forgotten about it despite the important work they were doing. If a list of people assassinated did exist, with a column next to it of how many of the cases were solved, it would make for depressing reading for the good people but would read as a job prospectus for the evil among us.

If the solution to somebody causing you difficulties is to off them, it does feel like a South Africa of old and certainly not the one supposedly granting dignity, equality before the law, and justice. There’s been so much noise since the election about policy ideas and money spent and positions of power and yet alarmingly little about retribution for those who pull the trigger and those who hire them.

People hire assassins to keep their hands clean and sadly it appears to be working so well that even gunmen aren’t getting busted. Seems like a far more convenient way of dealing with one’s dark actions; get rid of the people who will bust you and frighten their successors into cowardice rather than getting rid of the behaviour itself.

ALSO READ: Assassinations: South Africans ‘have no qualms’ taking out political rivals

You cannot run a just country if people can get away with skirting the law by killing those who hold them accountable. The Constitution is little more than a piece of paper if it only applies to those who don’t carry guns. The importance of dealing with assassinations cannot be overstated because the nature of the act is that of extra-judicial control of the law. I’m not saying that some murders are more important than others; all should be dealt with. This is a call to understand why assassinations going unresolved threaten the very core of our legal framework and opens the floodgates for more.

Getting away with tax evasion, insolvency issues, missed child support and the like is easy if you get rid of the people tasked with enforcing your obligations. The legal system is a set of structures to maintain accountability and those structures are filled with people. So, if you get rid of the people and fill the structures with people who are scared, then those structures don’t count for much.

Assassination is not just murder, it’s terror. It strikes at the vital lifeblood of our democracy, and our checks and balances. It’s not something to be taken lightly and certainly not something we can just forget and ignore until the next one comes up.

Godspeed Saps. Hope you nail these guys.

ALSO READ: Hitmen assassinate at least two people every week in South Africa