South African President Reassures Nation on Crime Fight
By Craig Timberg
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, February 9, 2007; 10:04 AM
JOHANNESBURG, Feb. 9--President Thabo Mbeki on Friday sought to reassure worried South Africans that his government is stepping up its fight against crime but offered little new detail on how it can curb levels of rape, robbery and murder that are among the highest in the world.
Mbeki, under rising political pressure following a string of high-profile attacks, went further than before in acknowledging that levels of violent crime terrify many South Africans. And he avoided quibbling over whether rates are rising or falling, or by how much -- abandoning an approach that provoked a sharp backlash after a televised interview last month.
"Certainly we cannot erase that which is ugly and repulsive and claim the happiness that comes with freedom if communities live in fear, closeted behind walls and barbed wire, ever anxious in their houses, on the streets and on our roads, unable freely to enjoy our public spaces," Mbeki said in a wide-ranging State of the Nation speech made before parliament in Cape Town and broadcast across the nation. "Obviously, we must continue and further intensify the struggle against crime."
Dressed in a dark suit and speaking in calm, even tones, he listed government plans to hire more police and improve their pay while also bolstering intelligence gathering and the sophistication of forensic laboratories. New jails also will be opened and court backlogs thinned, he said.
But administration officials acknowledged that they formulated and announced most of these initiatives before the recent public outcry on crime.
Analysts praised Mbeki for his expression of concern but faulted him for not offering major new plans on an issue that polls consistently rank among the top concerns for South Africans.
"All he was doing is he was calling for implementation of what already exists," political analyst Xolela Mangcu said. "He didn't announce anything new."
Crime analyst Johan Burger, of the Institute of Security Studies in Pretoria, said Mbeki's acknowledgment of the problem was "very positive." But he added, "What he did not say is what is the decisive action that is going to be taken, and how is the fight against crime going to be intensified."
Mbeki also used his speech to announce the government's goals of continuing to expand the availability of clean water, electricity and affordable housing while delivering more jobs and training. And he announced plans to create a new system of social security payments, funded by new levies on working South Africans, that will expand the government's system of grants to the elderly, poor and unemployed.
On the subject of AIDS, Mbeki pledged to continue increasing both prevention and treatment programs, although he offered few clues on how the government can slow the pace of new infections or save the already sick South Africans who will die unless they can obtain costly antiretroviral drugs.
An estimated 5.5 million of South Africa's 46 million people are infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and only a small percentage of those now are receiving vital medicine.
But it was the subject of crime that was most prominent in Mbeki's speech, an implicit acknowledgement of how the topic has come to dominate South Africa's national political agenda. Mbeki used his remarks to try to rebut allegations that he does not understand the fear permeating the lives of his citizens because he personally is insulated from the crime they experience.
To educate the president on the topic, one of the nation's largest banks recently printed 1.5 million fliers urging South Africans to write down their experiences with crime and send them to Mbeki. The fliers were to be distributed in newspapers across the country last weekend, along with pre-paid postage.
But politicians and business leaders close to Mbeki quashed the plan, news reports say.
Then a union created a Web site (www.dearpresident.co.za) to collect crime complaints for Mbeki. When the president's office failed to confirm receipt of thousands of e-mails the Web site generated, the union ordered 25 wheelbarrows to deliver them personally, news reports said.
A popular comic strip, meanwhile, portrayed Mbeki as so clueless on the issue that, while traveling the nation undercover, he was surprised to see the walls and electrified fences surrounding most homes.
In his speech Friday, Mbeki returned to crime again and again but tied it to broader themes, including South Africa's brutal history of racial subjugation and the enduring poverty among blacks.
"None of the great social problems we have to solve is capable of resolution outside the context of the creation of jobs and the alleviation and eradication of poverty," he said. "This relates to everything, from the improvement of the health of our people, to reducing the levels of crime, raising the levels of literacy and numeracy, and opening the doors of learning and culture to all." |
