How KZN became the breeding ground for SA’s political assassins

KwaZulu-Natal has been singled out as South Africa’s breeding ground for assassinations, with its roots traced to the erstwhile apartheid government-formed hit squads, which operated in the area during the violence-plagued 1980s.

In a September 2013 paper titled A PROVINCIAL CONCERN? Political killings in South Africa, researcher David Bruce noted that, at the time there had been about 450 political killings in KwaZulu-Natal since 1994, mostly in the mid and late 1990s and just under 25% (107) since 2003.

A legacy of apartheid

According to University of Stellenbosch criminologist Dr Guy Lamb, the apartheid government provided training and armed certain individuals to target those sympathetic to the ANC.

The sun set on Apartheid in 1994 but he said this ugly legacy seemingly continued due to continued demand. The availability of skills, weapons and money, and exacerbated by a crisis in the crime intelligence fraternity, coupled by a lack of political will to deal with this problem all created the perfect environment for the trade to proliferate.

In May the KwaZulu-Natal Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) department expressed concern after several amakhosi, izinduna and their aides were killed in their homes.

MEC, Sipho Hlomuka reportedly said more than 27 of these individuals in the province had been killed, and several others had escaped assassination attempts since 2019. Despite this, there has been little to no action.

No political appetite to deal with the matter

“It seems it remains embedded and quite concentrated in KwaZulu-Natal… I mean, we had a whole commission of inquiry into political assassinations a few years ago, which sort of pointed to this problem. It is quite lucrative for the hitmen to carry on doing this because the chances of conviction are quite low, and it seems in KwaZulu-Natal there is no political appetite to deal with the problem other than making political statements about it,” Lamb said.

He lamented that there has not been a huge amount of actual success in dealing with this problem, and that the money can be good for those who have the skills and access to tools.

Lamb said dealing with the problem required good crime intelligence networks and informers, but lamented that the SA Police Services (Saps) crime intelligence service was in a state of crisis at the moment and has itself been linked to organised crime.

“The crisis in the crime intelligence needs to be dealt with first before you can deal with this problem of assassins. But what it does come down to, very few of these assassins have been brought to book, so there is this culture of impunity,” he added.

Poverty and desperation are contributing factors

Phakamani Radebe, Zitha Radebe, Nhlangano Ndlovu, Siphakanyiswa Dladla, Simphiwe Mazibuko and Sanele MbeleIe, the six men allegedly paid R2.8 million in total to kill whistleblower Babita Deokaran, are all apparently from KwaZulu-Natal.

The Gauteng health department official, a witness in the Special Investigating Unit’s (SIU’s) probe into allegations of corruption involving a R300 million personal protective equipment (PPE) tender, was gunned down outside her home in Mondeor, south of Johannesburg, last Monday.

But Theodore Petrus, Associate Professor of anthropology at the University of the Free State, warned against linking hitmen to particular geographical areas, as this created unfair stigmatisation.

He said the powerful shadow groups with connections and resources could find a hitman anywhere in the country where there is a person to eliminate.

Petrus said the answer to questions about who would kill for money was a complex one, with South Africa being troubled by criminality, and finding people to participate in even murder, was extremely easy.

Also Read: Babita Deokaran: Hitmen allegedly paid R2.8 million to kill Gauteng whistleblower

“Especially when you have the resources to be able to compensate them for that… We also have a very big problem with unemployment in this country, so you might have individuals that are willing to do whatever they have to if it meant they will be paid for it. These are not the only reasons but these are the two biggest reasons,” Petrus said.

He said unfortunately the police and crime intelligence were part of the problem, as corruption was endemic in all key law enforcement institutions.

Petrus added that SAPS will need to first get its house in order, particularly in dealing with its own corruption and capacity problems.

– siphom@citizen.co.za