As I write this column, I am watching the distraught Hesti Potgieter (from Boschkop) trying to come to terms with her husband, Francois', brutal death at the hands of gun-toting intruders who broke into their home in the early hours of Saturday morning. Hesti cradled the dying Francois in her arms, incredulous that her life's partner could be wiped out within minutes, so callously for a cell phone.
I look at her and know the feeling that we think it will never happen to us and then, in a flash, it does. Some depraved assailants deny a woman her husband, her children a father, and her grandchildren, a grandfather.
Potgieter's death is a sequel to a string of murders that have been happening in Muldersdrift. There is no national outcry because this is just another dispensable white person. I say white because the series of killings in Muldersdrift have been predominantly of white people and in some instances their farm workers who happen to be foreign nationals. Democratic Alliance Member of Parliament, Anchen Dreyer's comments on Facebook alert us to the serial "total onslaught" against the residents of Mudlersdrift, particularly in Clinic Road, where 93% of households have been attacked.
In researching this war zone, I am gobsmacked at the number of shootings and cold-blooded killings that have been going on there since 2000. Just to mention a few of the most recent, makes for horrific reading: in September 2012, 13 year old Alyssa Botha was shot dead, while her attackers shot and wounded her father and sister; in November 2012 Jacques Botha was shot and killed in the presence of his toddler and on that same night three others were also attacked; a week later, 27 year old Kirstie Adams was shot at by armed robbers, who missed, but shot and killed her dog, after tying up her 19-year old housemate; 30 November a 29 year old Malawian farmworker, Mupho Ndhlovu, was killed by a gang of robbers on the farm where he worked, and his friend, 46 year old Keston Banda, was also shot and ended up in life-support in hospital. Well-known owners of the farm, Mr and Mrs Starkey were also tied up and robbed in June 2011.
Andre Jordaan who lived 500 metres from Alyssa Botha's house was also shot; and Dr Anne Biccard and her husband were also victims of robbery and shooting; more recently, the estate manager, Paul Schulze, of the Heia Safari Ranch in the same area, was also shot and killed; Schulz's father-in-law, Franz Richter, was murdered in 2007; and Liesl Botha, mother of Alyssa, was attacked again in the very house where her daughter was murdered.
Ms Dreyer has been relentless in taking this crime hotspot to the police and although the police have made some arrests, the police modus operandi is not good enough. We need dedicated expert detective and forensic investigations of who these killers are and they need to be brought to book. With the BRICS summit, SAPS beefed up its security forces in ways that astounded us ordinary citizens.
Where there is political will, the government can always marshal troops to safeguard the interests of the ruling party. Not so for its citizens. As taxpayers, we do not get the same treatment and capacity constraints within the police ring hollow when government is able to demonstrate capacity for rugby and soccer world cups, international conventions, political and economic summits.
Despairing at SAPS' ineptitude, Anchen Dreyer, comments, fatalistically: "The Cradle of Humankind is at risk of becoming known as the Graveyard of Humankind." A tragic comment indeed!
This article first appeared in Die Burger.
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