Zama Zamas: Cele ‘a dark tourist in own country’ – expert

Police promises and plans to combat crime after communities’ cries for help were a little too late, residents on the ground have said.

This past weekend, Police Minister Bheki Cele and the National Police Commissioner, General Fannie Masemola, visited West Village and Kagiso to address residents about plans to combat crime and remove illegal miners or zama zamas.

Part of the plan was to deploy specialised police teams, such as the National Intervention Unit, Special Task Force and Tactical Response Team, starting today.

But West Village resident Nadia Steyn said they again heard what sounded like a gunshot fired days after hundreds of illegal miners were arrested.

Steyn was among the hundreds of residents that attended the police imbizo in West Village on Saturday.

“I am happy Cele and the high-up authorities came to visit our community. The imbizo was a great success, but it feels like it was all for show,” she said.

“Unfortunately, we don’t trust the police or politicians anymore. I will only be happy when we see real change. I won’t fall for their sweet talks,” she said.

Another resident, Samuel Nel, said the area was seemingly calm after last week.

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“Previously, a typical night would be gunshot galore. At 7 pm you hear five loud noises and then again, a half hour later, again and again,” he said.

Nel said people were so scared of the zama zamas that they would avoid walking past fields where illegal mining was taking place in fear of being robbed or raped.

Security expert Dr Johan Burger said the police seem to be using a form of crisis approach. “They only come into motion when there is a crisis,” he said.

Professor Jaco Barkhuizen, victimologist from the department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Limpopo, said the minister was becoming “a dark tourist in his own country”.

“Cele is going from one flare-up to another flare-up. If we had crime intelligence, we wouldn’t have this thing of reactive policing, he said.

We would be proactive.

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Barkhuizen said the fact that communities felt unsafe should be a massive concern for the government and police.

“Our minister reacts to the scene of crimes after they happened,” he said.