WORD OF CAUTION: Mayor Danny Jordaan is wary of calling in the SANDF, as requested by desperate Helenvale residents
IMAGINE a community gripped with such intense fear that they forsake their beds and opt for the hard floor because bullets flying through the walls of their homes are a norm.
This is the harsh, everyday reality for residents of Port Elizabeth’s gang-infested Helenvale, who are begging for the South African National Defence Force to be deployed to the area. However, Nelson Mandela Bay mayor Danny Jordaan says he does not believe sending in the army is the solution as that would be tantamount to calling for more people to be killed.
The killing of the latest victim in the ongoing gang warfare, two-year-old Caydene Ruiters, sent waves through the community this week, strengthening calls for stronger action to be taken to root out the violence. Caydene was shot in the chest when two men opened fire on a man who was talking to her mother over the boundary fence.
“One child has already been shot twice while sleeping in her bed. A bullet came in through the window and hit her in the tummy, and then two weeks ago [a bullet] struck the same child,” Helenvale Sector Crime Policing Forum secretary Rina Potgieter said. “It is no longer safe to be in your bed.
“I really cannot express how I feel . . . We are prisoners in our own homes. “Even in St Albans Prison they are safer. Here it is like we are in prison, but it is never safe. “Bullets are flying all the time.”
Potgieter said the situation had reached boiling point, the most dangerous in the past 30 years. “We are asking for the army to be released to Helenvale. Crime is out of control. We are begging them to come and help us.
“The army has been here before [in 1995] and it did help back then. We need them to search every house,” she said. According to Helenvale ward councillor Nico du Plessis, families in Leith Street have been sleeping on their floors since gang violence intensified this year.
He said when the army was deployed to the area in 1995, illegal guns had been confiscated and gang violence had drastically decreased. On Monday, Du Plessis asked the metro to fix broken streetlights in the area because the gangs thrived in the dark streets.
Northern areas film producer Justin Oliphant, who runs an outreach programme aimed at keeping children away from gangsterism and drugs, said the current interventions by the government were not working. “We need a different intervention. Something drastic like a military vehicle on every street corner.
There is a war going on here. “Last weekend eight people were killed in the northern areas and the stats are even worse for the last few months. “This is not how it is supposed to be.
“The army come as a stability unit to stabilise the situation and maintain order. The police do not have the resources or manpower to do this on their own. “They are reactive rather than proactive.
The military would not shoot innocent mothers and children.” Oliphant said municipal leaders should look at ways to create jobs. “Nothing stops a bullet like a job. We need commitment from leadership and business.
We need to stand together to expel this darkness.” Pastor Charles Smith, who has been living in Helenvale for the past 17 years and is based at Resurrection and Life Ministries, said there had to be more visible policing in the area.
“This has been the worst year I can think of. Last weekend four people were killed in Helenvale. “Some people are wanting to confront the gangsters, to ask them to stop killing innocent children.
Our children want to go and play outside, but it is not safe.” At Monday’s council meeting, Jordaan said the solution in Helenvale was to deal with the underlying social challenges by creating jobs and providing skills training for the youth. “We ’re all concerned and all angry and pained by the death of young people in this metro.
“And I’ve also heard the many calls for the army. That is a thing we have to think very carefully about because the army is trained to kill. It’s not coming to have meetings, to have negotiations or discussions; that’s not the army.
If you lift your gun, they must respond by firing an automatic weapon in that direction. “So, essentially the call is ‘come and shoot my family, my brothers and sisters’. It may be eight in a week [now]; it will be eight [killed] in one day,” Jordaan said.
“If you take that responsibility and say ‘I ask the mayor to bring the army to come and shoot’, I’m prepared the next day to call the president and say this individual or party says we don’t care, bring them, they must come and shoot.”
Jordaan said about R280-million worth of projects would be pumped into the area through German funding and the city, managed by the Mandela Bay Development Agency (MBDA). MBDA spokesman Luvuyo Bangazi said the Germans had committed to give ß5-million – which translates to about R81-million – on condition that the city provide counter funding.
“There is no commitment on another R5-million, but there is an intent. “Should we be successful during the first phase, they will give another ß5-million, which the city would have to match.”
Bangazi said the money would be used to secure schools, fight against the violence in the area, repair infrastructure, and for entrepreneurship training, among other things. “Skills are key.
If you are not skilled, you are susceptible to drugs and gangs and so on. “The MBDA on its own won’t change Helenvale, other departments will come in too. “It’s a multi-prong approach,” Bangazi said.
This story appeared in Weekend Post on Saturday,19 December, 2015 |
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