Nightmare times for SA Police Service
This article below was published by IOL:
August 9 2015 at 05:08pm
By Craig Dodds
Johannesburg – These are anxious times for the top brass of the SAPS.
Forty-four people were killed in Marikana. Ten people, including two policemen and two Lonmin security guards, were killed in the week leading up to August 16 when police shot dead 34 striking miners. File photo: Siphiwe Sibeko
They’ve known since the moment on August 16, 2012, when the dust cleared and 34 mineworkers lay dead at Marikana, that they were in deep, deep trouble.
The extent of their panic can be gauged from the efforts they made in the following days to patch together a story that would explain the deaths as an unavoidable consequence of the mineworkers’ aggression – and to hide information showing it was in fact the police management who had taken the decision to disperse, disarm and arrest the strikers – before any escalation in tensions had happened, and in the face of warnings that this would lead to bloodshed.
The cover-up failed and the consequences are bearing down on them, starting with the pending inquiry into National Police Commissioner Riah Phiyega’s fitness for office.
Her inner circle did not help their cause by issuing a statement in her support last week.
It prompted an unprecedented rebuke from Parliament’s police oversight committee – supported by all parties. Now the generals will have to appear before the committee on Wednesday to explain themselves.
If there is one message they should take from this turn of events it’s that whatever political cover they may have believed they enjoyed has either evaporated or was never real.
The mood after Marikana demands that heads roll.
But the bigger question than the fate of a handful of police officials is whether the process will stop with the ritual sacrifice of Phiyega and a few others, or provide the impetus for a complete overhaul of a service that, in many ways, was in crisis long before Marikana.
The National Development Plan (NDP), in terms that Marikana would subsequently render prophetic, had, in 2011, already pointed to the increased militarisation of the SAPS, contrary to early post-democracy efforts to remould it into a citizen-friendly service, along with “serial management crises”.
Militarisation had happened in response to public distress over spiralling crime, in the belief that a show of force and military ranks would command more respect, but it came with a shift in emphasis, from a policing imperative to keep the peace and “protect and serve”, to a military approach of seeking to “destroy the enemy”.
Remarking on the police action at Marikana’s “scene 2”, a koppie where fleeing mineworkers had hidden and were shot after being surrounded, the Farlam Commission report said: “Firing hundreds of rounds into the koppie is typical of a military action, aimed at overpowering and destroying an enemy. A policing operation would be limited to firing shots at particular members of the group on the koppie who posed an imminent threat to life.”
The commission endorsed the NDP’s recommendation that the SAPS be demilitarised, along with its proposals to professionalise it by establishing a policing board to set objective standards for recruitment and promotion, among others.
The Civilian Secretariat for Police said this week it was preparing a position paper on the meaning of demilitarisation, going beyond simply the question of military ranks. Inputs from civil society, including the Right2Know campaign and African Policing Civilian Oversight Forum, suggested militarisation included aspects such as the use of paramilitary units for crowd control, the use of language identifying protesters as potential criminals, and the conception of force as a means of solving problems.
But the Farlam Commission also noted that “remilitarisation” of the SAPS had been accompanied by “repoliticisation”, evidenced in the “improper and inappropriate political considerations which guided the conduct of both the National Commissioner (Phiyega) and (North West) Provincial Commissioner (Zukiswa Mbombo)”.
The commission also highlighted the dire lack of policing experience of Phiyega and Mbombo, the two most senior officials in the decision-making line, saying they were “entirely unqualified to make any decisions at all bearing on police operational matters”. The report continued: “Running a police service is not simply a managerial job: it requires a high degree of skill in policing operations. This was totally absent in the two key positions at the time of this operation.”
This speaks directly to another of the NDP’s recommendations – that the national commissioner and deputies be appointed by the president after a competitive selection process conducted by a panel on an objective basis.
A white paper on policing, released for public comment in March, has adopted the NDP’s recommendations on demilitarising the service and making it more professional. It sets out a promising vision for a reformed SAPS in service of and in partnership with communities but stops short of providing for this competitive appointment process.
Addressing the police committee this week, Acting Secretary of Police Reneva Fourie said the white paper had been deliberately vague on this question so as not to infringe on the president’s constitutional prerogative to appoint the national commissioner.
The white paper does, however, provide for a “state of the police” report to be compiled with immediate effect, and include a competency audit of “officer qualification, knowledge, attitude and training” and an “integrity audit”, including random lifestyle audits, to determine possible administrative and/or disciplinary action.
Gareth Newham, head of the governance, crime and justice division of the Institute for Security Studies, said while it was important that the national commissioner be a professional of the highest integrity and competence, it would be unfair to expect one person to turn the SAPS ship around.
The audits proposed by the white paper needed to weed out the “bad apples” in the top echelon of 70 officers and retain the competent ones. Criteria for promotion and recruitment should demonstrate that integrity and dedication will be rewarded, and wrongdoing punished. Any political office-bearer giving instructions to the national commissioner should do so in writing and the instructions be presented to Parliament biannually, Newham suggested.
Though the white paper is simply a policy framework to guide possible legislative and regulatory amendments – a process which would usually take some years – Newham suggested it wasn’t necessary to tamper with the constitution or SAPS Act to give effect to the NDP recommendation on the appointment of commissioners. The president could simply appoint the selection panel and ask it to give him the names of the top three contenders, following its interview process.
Chairman of the police committee Francois Beukman asked Fourie to consider a role for parliamentary input. The urgency of police reform highlighted by the NDP, the events at Marikana and the Farlam Commission report, appear to have galvanised attempts to show something will be done. But whether that urgency lasts long enough to ensure that the action has lasting positive results, remains to be seen.
The Farlam Commission flagged the strong link between politicisation of the police and flawed operational decision-making as a contributor to the Marikana tragedy.
But this seems unlikely to be broken while the battle for the soul of the SAPS – played out conspicuously in the saga of crime intelligence boss Richard Mdluli – continues.
The country has had many police commissioners from a civilian background, who have proved to be dismal failures, but whether the lesson has been learnt will be tested when Phiyega has replaced.
Marikana will always be a gruesome stain on South Africa’s democracy. But it could be the catalyst for a renewal of the SAPS that finally delivers on the constitutional vision of a service whose role is to “protect and secure” the public, along with fighting crime and upholding the law. But there is a real danger that, as anger over Marikana dissipates and officials take the fall, the focus will be lost – and the opportunity with it.
That would be an even greater waste of 44 lives.
Political Bureau
