Last night, 5th /6th November, Patricia Mashale, who was returning to what she thought was a safe hiding place after visiting her children, narrowly missed being assassinated. The car she was in, driven by her son-in-law, was closely followed from her daughter’s home to where Mashale is in hiding in Bloemfontein. It was chased for a long distance by a double cab vehicle, and it was only by taking skillful evasive action that the driver managed to lose them. At 01h00 this morning she and her son-in-law were hiding in his car a long distance from their homes. She could not return to where she has been staying, nor could she take refuge in a police station, as the assassins had obviously been sent by one or more people in SAPS management, who would have alerted stations to inform them if she arrived. Were she to be detained at a station, she would either disappear to some far-off detention facility, or even die, mysteriously, in a cell. That is the reality of life for people like Mashale who take their oaths of office to report corruption seriously. In her matter it is the very department tasked with preventing crime that is committing crimes of corruption and violence. That they are able to do this with impunity is the fault of the country’s Executive, and police oversight bodies, including parliament.
Mashale, who has been living in hiding since March 2022 since reporting gross corruption in Free State management to the National Commissioner, is also a human rights defender, standing for justice for many competent, illegally dismissed members, and organizing legal assistance for them – and for herself. She is making reports to various relevant agencies including IPID, the Public Protector, the Special Investigation Unit, and the Presidency.
The South African government and its parliament should be hanging their heads in shame that, in a Constitutional democracy, Mashale and others – Thabiso Zulu being in a similar situation – should have to live in hiding, without any support or defense from attack, because they expose corruption, support others who do so, and work for social justice. Since early 2022, the parliamentary portfolio has been fully briefed on threats to Mashale, and to the gross corruption in Free State management, including disastrous (and dangerous) handling of firearms-related matters. What purpose does a Presidential Advisory Council serve when whatever is paid to its members would be far better served in assisting real corruption fighters to stay alive? In the cases of both Mashale and Zulu, the attacks emanate from the police and/or politicians to whom they are linked.
It is common knowledge that these problems start with the current Minister of Police, Cele, who overruled the President when he promised protection for Thabiso Zulu. Many existing problems of nepotistic appointment and corruption (like the Forensic Laboratory fraud which was subject to a forensic audit after it was reported to then National Commissioner Phiyega) originated during his tenure a national commissioner – from which post he was dismissed by President Zuma following a Judicial Inquiry which found, among other things, that he had lied under oath). He himself stands accused of various crimes, including irregular interference in procurement (by suspended Deputy Commissioner Vuma), classifying a report on hit squads in Crime Intelligence in KZN, and signing off on a corrupt World Tender in 2010 (the document bears his signature). Why has he not been charged? Why is he untouchable?
Minister Cele has never had the interests of competent black African police members at heart. When ANC representative and subsequently an MEC in KZN he ignored the plight of twenty seven POCRU members who had been maliciously charged by a right wing old guard management member (an NPO lawyer squashed the charges). He failed to intervene when competent, professional detectives were maliciously charged because their investigations exposed politicians. The case of the Richmond violence in the late 1990s is a conspicuous example : When one of the province’s best detectives made arrests which threatened to expose ANC leadership involvement in the violence, he and his team were abruptly replaced by a new group, and a cover-up ensued. The team leader and his commander were then maliciously charged and, although completely exonerated, the prosecution had cost the commander his appointment to head detectives in the province -which went to a former security branch member. A brilliant detective, the commander was by far the best candidate, but Cele had been trying to get him to move away from KZN. Why? A police member whose rapid promotion Cele was pushing had been implicated in attacks on trade unionists in Cele’s South Coast area in the latter 1980s. The real questions are: What was Cele doing in the 1980s before running off for MK training in Angola, and why does he employ an apartheid era policeman from the notorious Murder and Robbery-cum-SB units of the most repressive apartheid era as his advisor?
The Violence Monitor 