Opinion piece about the rise of police brutality in South Africa Post-apartheid era.

South African Police Service: A history of violence.

Trevor Hlungwani

Daily, police and traffic officers can be seen forcing their way through traffic to smooth the way for privileged politicians travelling in blue light cars. I am sure our grandparents still remember the fear inspired by the yellow police vans and hippos that used to patrol South African townships. The duties of those officers were clear: to brutalize and oppress the black majority in order to enforce and maintain a white minority government.

Since the fall of apartheid, South African police officers have heard the word “brutality and force” replaced by “service”, but the grand question is: how many South Africans today can say they are confident our police are there to protect and serve us the public?

Recent acts of police brutality have put the South African Police Service in the international media spotlight and highlighted the need to reform the police service.

Who can forget the brutal killing of Andries Tatane in Fiksburg? The story went viral and also got international coverage. What could be the defense in killing a defenseless man protesting for service delivery? But the state is still dragging their legs in meeting out justice.

Citizens like Mido Macia are left to die in police cells and the 34 bodies lying in the dust of Marikana on August 16 last year is engraved in the minds of South Africans post-democracy. As if that was not enough, a Community Policing Forum chairperson in the North West was assaulted and dragged by police officers in their vans.

Thousands of trainees, desperate for jobs and with no ambition to serve and protect citizens, are entrusted with guns, badges and power over the public every year. Their poor pay makes them susceptible to bribery and corruption.

A police commissioner appointed from the ranks of a political organization will always have a particular idea of who he or she is meant to ‘protect and serve’. This creates an atmosphere for a police service that exists to protect the ruling elite, while abusing the general citizenry; I guess that’s what happened in the events that led to the Marikana massacre.

According to a Human Rights Commission official I once spoke to, SA’s constitution is one of the world’s shining lights of jurisprudence. It helped to create a just and equitable democracy but it remained an ideal that still have to be realized. He argued that creating just laws does not create a just society; the law must be put into practice.