Critical evaluation of the three main political parties’ capability to steer successful land expropriation in post-2019 South Africa: Part 3-The ANC in perspective (13: Violence and Crime)

Title: Critical evaluation of the three main political parties’ capability to steer successful land expropriation in post-2019 South Africa: Part 3-The ANC in perspective (13: Violence and Crime)
Gabriel P Louw
iD orcid.org/0000-0002-6190-8093
Extraordinary Researcher, Focus Area Social Transformation, Faculty of Humanities, Potchefstroom Campus, North-West University, South Africa (Author and Researcher: Healthcare, History and Politics).
Corresponding Author:
Prof. Dr. GP Louw; MA (UNISA), PhD (PU for CHE), DPhil (PU for CHE), PhD (NWU)
Email: profgplouw@gmail.com
Keywords: Analyst, confidence, desperate, expropriation, journalist, perspective, political party, traumatised, violence.
Ensovoort, volume 40 (2019), number 11: 4

1. Background

In 1973 the American ex-Mafia boss Vincent Teresa1 revealed in his book: “My Life in the Mafia”, how the Mafia ruthlessly ‘whack out’ their enemies; how film stars and singers are snared by the mob; how the mob infiltrates big business; how the mob steals countless millions of dollars and makes millions of dollars through almost every conceivable crime; how to fix a horse race or corrupt a cop; how to be a top money-maker; how the mobsters live, and what their fatal weaknesses are; and how it is to live in hiding under constant armed guard with a half-million dollar price on your head from the mob for whistle-blowing by an ex-gangster. Citing the dangers and excesses of organised crime , from their numbers to their actions, etc., to serve as a warning that the same can happen anywhere else in the “good” outside world, is far too late for crime-stricken South Africa. Teresa states:1:295-296

Crime families can vary in size. In New York, Gambino had maybe a thousand made men; in our family in New England we had a hundred and fifty. Between New Jersey and New York you might have two thousand five hundred people. In the whole country [USA], there is probably six thousand five hundred. But these are just the made men, remember. There are another two hundred to three hundred thousand mob guys working for the made guys. Nothing gives the mob a bigger laugh than when some expert says the mob is nothing to worry about because there are only six thousand members. Hell, behind those six thousand you’ve got a whole army, not counting all the people who aren’t Italian but who work with the mob.
These Sicilian Mafiosi will run into a wall, put their head in a bucket of acid for you if they’re told to, not because they’re hungry but because they’re disciplined. They’ve been brought up from birth over there to show respect and honour, and that’s what these punks over here don’t have. Once they’re told to get someone, that person hasn’t a chance. They’ll get him if they have to bust into his house in the middle of the night, shoot him, bite him, eat him, suck the blood out of his throat. They’ll get him because they were told to do it.

The above scenario does not seem strange to South Africans living in informal settlements, neglected suburbs and other areas out of the ordinary public’s eyes, or those reading the daily newspapers or listening to the news on radio or following the many television broadcasts of the Zondo commission. Here, we have the same mafia behaviour and inclinations which have become ingrained in the actions of some of the ANC’s top leaders in committing serious crimes, varying from state capture, election manipulation, to murder. We see various kinds of uncontrolled crime, present all over the country, especially from 1994 with the advent of the so-called “first democracy” in South Africa. What differs between the USA and the SA crime scenes, making the situation here much worse than in the USA, is that the American prosecution authorities act constructively and are locking up crooks constantly. However, as the Zondo commission under the guidance of an excellent judge revealed, the many culprits that seem mostly to be part of the ANC’s inner circle are able to get away with their crimes and corruption as the prosecution authorities demonstrate an outright failure to bring these perpetrators to book.
The example of Teresa’s whistle-blowing in the USA presented us with an excellent outcome: 27 top-ranking Mafiosi were jailed in America, while many more had been indicted or charged. Teresa himself was jailed for twenty years for his criminal activities before being paroled. Here in South Africa whistle-blowers are harassed, taken to court for libel and slander by the crooks who committed crimes and who are still walking free under the ANC’s safety-net, while other whistle-blowers are being murdered. The ANC’s policy’s is that if you are not found guilty before a court and have not be sentenced for an alleged crime, you are free to serve in the ANC’s highest positions. That policy includes awaiting the outcome of an appeal so you are considered not guilty until the court comes to a final verdict and thus that you may stay on untouched and comfortable in your position as lawmaker. The ANC list of 22 tainted candidates for the May 2019 elections and the positioning of some of these tainted ANCs later to senior posts in Parliament, confirm this policy very well. Jacob Zuma has been staying out of jail now for years, based on appeal on appeal against his alleged crimes in the arms deal, while the ANC’s top structure was also let off and walking free by the now disgraced Sereti commission.2-5
In this article the presence of crime — especially violence, gangsterism and related phenomena — and how it has infiltrated society and even the statutory institutions under the mandate of the ANC, will be reflected, evaluated and described.

1.1. Introduction (Continued from Article 12)

Article 13 is a continuation of the previous article (Article 12, titled: “Critical evaluation of the three main political parties’ capability to steer successful land expropriation in post-2019 South Africa: Part 3-The ANC in perspective (12: Prosperity)”. This article, with the focus on violence and crime, is in sequence with articles 11 (Introduction) and 12 (Prosperity) already published on the ANC. The intention is also to analyse and to discuss further the arguments, opinions and viewpoints on the integrity and the ability of the ANC to effect land expropriation successfully, as reflected by its CVs and Attestations.

1.2. Aims of article 13 (Continued from Article 12)

The primary intention of this project on the ANC) is to continue the reflection on the three main political parties by specifically describing the profile of the ANC on the same basis as was done with Article 9 on the EFF and Article 10 on the DA.
Once more, we aim to evaluate the ability of the ANC to take care of the land expropriation matter in terms of the mandate as ruler it received during the election of 8 May 2019.

2. Method (Continued from Article 12)

The research has been done by means of a literature review. This method aims to construct a viewpoint from the available evidence as the research develops. This approach has been used in modern political-historical research where there is often not an established body of research, as is the case regarding the abilities of political parties to engage in successful land reform from 2019 onwards. The sources included articles from 2018, books for the period 1944 to 2018 and newspapers for the period 2017 to 2019. These sources have been consulted to assess and to describe the facts that must guide us in the making of an evaluation on the suitability of the ANC as the ruler of South Africa to effect successful land reform from 2019 onwards.
The research findings are being presented in narrative format.

3. Results and discussion

3.1. Overview

The manifestos, self-descriptions and public referees of the ANC were already reflected, evaluated and described in Article 11 (Introduction). The public referees of the African National Congress will further be reflected, evaluated and described in the under-mentioned division 3.3: The African National Congress: Perspective 1994 to 2019.

3.2. Louw Appraisal Checklist

The Louw Appraisal Checklist to Assess the Leadership Qualities of South Africa’s Executive Political Leaders and Regimes: 1652 to 2018,6 will again be used for the quantitative classification and measuring of the political records of the ANC. The 82 selective items of the checklist on leaders and governments, quantified in terms of its bad-versus-good classification, were again applied to all information collected in the literature review of the party’s’ manifesto and  the writings of investigative journalists, political commentators and political analysts, and interpreted as the researcher sees fit.6

3.3 The African National Congress: Perspective 1994 to 2019 (Continued from article 12)

3.3.1. South African violence and related crimes

One of the criteria of a failed state is the inability of a regime to guarantee and assure prosperity. Another one of the criteria for a good regime is to guarantee the presence and maintenance of law and order for its people, and thus to assure a peaceful society free from any crime, especially violence.
Undoubtedly South Africa has become a crime-ridden country, especially over the last two decades. Crime, in its broadest form, is totally out of control. It is practised on the highest levels by some members of our so-called political elite. The various judicial commissions, prominently the Zondo commission, bring this reality under our attention daily where it is alleged that certain top ANCs and their cronies stole millions of rand from the state, where murder in the form of assassinations to silence whistle-blowers is a common phenomenon, and where there is an almost complete lack of an effective prosecution system to punish criminals and murders.
South Africa is today a country of crooks without a single cowboy and a sheriff. If there is any doubt about the present-day South Africa being a gangster state and thus a failed constitutional state, just read the books of Adriaan Basson2, Pieter du Toit2, Pieter Myburgh5 and Jacques Pauw7. Through the mass penetration of crime in their daily dealings some of the political elite have become the South African Mafiosi, counting today nearly as many as Teresa’s1 thousands of Mafiosi in America. Unlike in America, the Mafiosi here are only partly friends with the politicians: many a time they are the politicians themselves. With such an official example it must thus not be a surprise that the practise of crime by some factions of society has become a common lifestyle.1,2,5,7
Crime takes various forms, from common theft, stealing, embezzlement, up to the most extreme form that should be punishable by hanging: Violence. Violence is central today in South Africa as the creator of poverty, political instability, inequality, as well as social, emotional and psychological traumas and despondency. It also tells us why prosperity is absent here. It plays a signifcant role in our country’s service-delivery unrest and the unstoppable chronic anarchy. The immense presence of violence in South African is well indicated by Bawa8 when he writes8:17: “South Africa is one of the most violent countries in the world”. But this violence is not experienced or observed at the same level by all the citizens; meaning that the middle and higher socio-economic groups, living and working in the better-off areas with good security systems, are mostly spared the extreme experience of daily rape, murder, robbery, etc. Predominantly, most sufferers of violence are the poor Blacks living in temporary shelters in isolated areas and informal settlements engulfed by crime and violence, far away from the security of the SAPS safety-net. But today the intensity of crime is spreading also to more developed areas and the poorer suburbs.8-10
Furthermore, it is clear that the statistics on violence and crime are understated, making the violence experienced by the poor far more comprehensive and in-depth than the general public realises. Their living conditions reflect not prosperity but utter adversity and hardship. What makes this crime condition so devastating, as well as a political pressure cooker waiting to explode, is the hard fact that nearly 30 million South Africans are poor, lacking sufficient housing accommodation, healthcare, basic education, work, and most of all not knowing when they or their children are going to be robbed, assaulted or murdered. Visible policing is mostly absent in those poor areas that are sheltering people marred by devastating life conditions that they can neither control nor are responsible for. These unfortunate people have been the forgotten, faceless ones for many years. They are people who are sometimes not only the ones to be robbed, assaulted and murdered, but who have in time become themselves robbers, attackers and murderers to survive in their dark, criminalised world. Some have an uncle, a nephew or brother as a parliamentarian but these have unfortunately forgotten them and their own homeland-past long ago because most politicians become with time blind and deaf to the outside world:  they live their lives ensconced in luxury and abundance.8-10
South Africa’s crime and violence, also as a barometer of the ANC regime as a failed government, will in the various next subdivisions be comprehensively described and be evaluated.

3.3.1.1. Western Cape

Even a cursory glance at South African media, persuades one that gangsterism and other crime-related activities such as the drug trade, theft, unrest, serious violence like assault, rape and murder, have taken over the Cape Flats of the Western Cape. It is not a sudden phenomenon, but a gradual development that has been gaining momentum over the last decade or two. It clearly betrays the ANC national government’s failure to maintain primary governmental structures. Prominent among these failures, must be counted the progressive downward spiral as to the quality of the South African Police Service (SAPS) and its ability to ensure daily crime prevention. It portends a very negative future for especially the poor living in the informal settlements as well as the lower-level socio-economic suburbs. The main sufferers and victims are Blacks, including the Coloureds. The immense long-term criminality in the Cape Flats is well reflected by the entrenched establishment of well-armed gangs, such as the Destruction Boys, which have become “armies” in their their own right. Organised, as well as common crime, associated with a very high murder rate, forced the ANC-regime to order the return of the South African National Defence Force (SADF) to the Cape Flats in July 2019. During the so-called Operation Prosper, the SADF was supposed to render assistance to the failed SAPS in areas identified as crime-ridden hotspots on the Cape Flats. (The “Cape Flats” is the collective name for a poverty-stricken, gang-infested area of more or less 25km between east and west, stretching from Bellville in the north, Blue Downs in the east, Khayelitsha and Mitchells Plain in the south to Gugulethu. It totals 11 townships, including the places Lavender Hill, Bishop Lavis, the Steenberg district, Manenberg, Delft, Marcus Garvey, Elsiesrevier, Nyanga, Khayelitsha, Mfuleni, Philippi and Kraaifontein.9,11-17
But what is often overlooked, is that crimes such as gansterism and violence are permanent features of a society in peril and caught in social and economic instability, which is a direct result of South Africa’s poor governance over many years. The almost pathological conditions in the West Cape has seemingly been unknown to the ANC leadership since 1994. It is a situation of which the roots have so far never been addressed by government besides treating the symptoms so as to get the “fever down without healing the illness”. Four years ago the same kind of experiment in intervention was execited when the SADF was used in Operation Fiela, in cooperation with the SAPS, the South African Revenue Service (SARS), Home Affairs and a plethora of other state departments to raid, search and arrest anyone who did not have a reasonable explanation for anything in his/her possession. The immense criminality already established, and basically left untreated from 2014 to 2015, apart from ordinary law enforcement in 3 205 operations, is reflected by the official data in December 2015 when Operation Fiela began to be wrapped up. The data reflect: 41 000 arrests, the recovery of 737 vehicles, confiscation of 375 firearms and 10 homemade firearms. In 2018 Fiela Two was launched again, but seemingly without success. The present hopeless failure by the ANC regime to combat the immense criminality in the Western Cape and the need to activate the emerging use of the SADF, has forced the Police minister Bheki Cele to describe it as a “national effort to combat gangsterism in South Africa”. (This description applies one hundred present to the country’s gangsterism in general, but also specifically to its Parliament, its SAPS and many state enterprises where corruption is seemingly well entrenched).9,11-13,15-18
It seems that the SADF interventions since 2014, as well as the SAPS’s constant presence in the problematic Cape Flats since 1994, have never brought successes; the present ongoing criminal situation in the Western Cape confirms it. Although Fiela One did not bring much bloodshed on the side of the criminals, experts warn that the “Cape Criminality” is a deep-seated phenomenon that has developed over many years. It must be seen in terms of the active unrest and anarchy which have spread all over the country since 1994.  From a security perspective, it seems already to have moved into chronic anarchy, a phenomenon which the ANC regime either does not understand or ignores outright because they do not have the skills and ability to address it. This opinion is strengthened by the ANC’s poor fighting of criminality since 1994 and encouragement to engage in serious crime that the greater society may draw, given the bad example set by the ANC’s own law-makers, some of whom some were jailed for serious offences. Many other ANC law-makers and politicians are serious offenders too, but find themselves still outside jail because they have so far not been prosecuted by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).17,19
The fact that the ANC never took the Cape Flats crime issue seriously, is becoming more and more evident because it is a regime that still lives inside its old culture of lawlessness and disorder, coming from its pre-1994 days as a terrorist-revolutionary organisation. Ritchie19 aptly named it “real-politik at play”. Ritchie19 and Fokazi29 mention that, in light of the ANC’s neglect of the Cape Flats crime issue and their failure to do an in-depth analysis of the causes and to implement prevention and healing, the warning signs are there that Cape Town risks becoming the world’s most dangerous city.19,20
Hyman21 postulates that in reality Cape Town is already the world’s most dangerous city when he aligned its statistics with the world’s — until recently — most dangerous city: Caracas in Venezuela. The same author21 mentions that according to the Cape’s Citizen Council for Public Safety and Criminal Justice, which compiled a listing from official global statistics, Caracas was in 2017 the world’s murder capital with 3 387 murders. Hereto Cape Town’s death-by-murder rate rose from the 15th place in 2017 to the 11th place (with a growth of 15%) in 2018. Now, in 2019, if the body count is maintained in Cape Town with 3 900, Caracas is left far behind. Looking at the analysis of murders per 100 000 people, the rate for Cape Town of approximately 97.3 per 100 000 so far for the first four months of 2019, would propel it into the fourth place for 2018 on the global list where all the top cities in the top 10 are situated in Mexico, Venezuela and Brazil which are all at the centre of the international drug trade, reports Hyman21. A short analysis for 2019 for Cape Town by Hyman21 shows that the murders in the first four months of 2019 were 10.66 per day, while the number of murders between the three days of June 1 and June 3 were 62. The percentage rise in admissions of murdered victims to the Salt River mortuary so far this year has been 46%, while the projected murders for 2019 is 3 893 if the rate of killings continues.21
Other statistics are there to confirm Hyman’s21 labelling of Cape Town as the “World’s most dangerous city”. In May 2019 there were 331 murders in the Western Cape; in the month of June 2019 there were 448 murders in Cape Town (against the 344 murders of June 2018); in the first week of June 2019, 14 people were shot dead within 24 hours in Delft; on 5 July 2019 six women were shot and killed in the Marcus Garvey areas of Philippi in Cape Town, while on 6 July 2019 five men were also killed in the same area. On the weekend of 5 to 7 July 2019, 55 people were murdered in the greater Cape Town area. This year (over the last six months), 2 000 people have been killed so far in gang-related incidents in the Cape. Between January and June 2019 (six months) more than 44 people were killed in Bonteheuwel. The 2018/2019 SAPS report shows that in Nyanga, 289 people were murdered, followed by Delft with 247 murders and Khayelitsha with 221 murders.14,18-24
What the Cape Flats saga further reflects is the killing of persons under 30 years of age mainly, prompting Pinnock15 to call it “a war against young people”. What has been overlooked by the ANC’s bigwigs since their taking political power in 1994, is that most of the youth in the Cape Flats (as in most of the other socio-economically disturbed South African areas) grew up without supportive families, with poor education and no formal employment prospects (there are more or less 350 000 young people under 25 years outside education in the Cape). Many are adolescents who are victims of complex historical conditions, not of their own making, which are mixed into an inflammatory setup wherein Apartheid’s relocations, present-day migration and high levels of alcohol and drug abuse, play a prominent role.15
Looking at the monthly crime statistics, one finds that almost 1 300 murder victims arrived at the Cape Town mortuaries between January and April 2019, while between 1 November 2018 and 30 April 2019 (six months) a total of 1 875 people were murdered in the greater Western Cape. According to figures from Professor Lorna Martin20, head of forensic pathology in the Western Cape, by the end of April 2019 the city’s mortuaries in Tygerberg and Salt River handled 1 280 murder victims, with more than 50% having been shot. Martin20 states to Fokazi20 of the Sowetan that the region’s mortuaries (which can already not cope with the inflow of bodies — in such a way that bodies have to be stored in refrigerator shipping containers) are further overstretched by the storage of more incoming murdered bodies.14,19,20
Martin20, on the undercapacity of the mortuaries, responds as follows20:6: “Even though this is new [the R281-million Observatory mortuary] and we are moving in, it’s already not big enough. With the increase [in the amount of murders] that we’ve had lately, I don’t think we will cope.”
The names of Delft’s so-called “townships” (consisting in total of 500 000 residents), varying from “Blikkiesdorp”, “Tin-Can Town”, the “Hague” (the so-called “Bishopscourt” of Delft) to “Symphony Way” (where most of the evicted people find a “home”), reflect well the criminal and social disorder there. When Hyman25 writes as follows of “Symphony Way”, his description is fully applicable to all of the many “camps” around Cape Town where the city’s outcasts are forced to live and hope not to get murdered25:6:

It’s a place of constant waiting. An internment camp that represents the worst of apartheid’s legacy and the failure of the new governments to deal with it.

Pastor Ray McCauley26, president of the Rhema Family Churches and co-chair of the National Religious Leaders Council, put the situation as follows26:6: “Residents say enough is enough”. He said that 308 people were killed in June 2019 at the Cape of which 139 were shot and 118 stabbed.
In this regard, the editor18 of the Sowetan writes on the nonchalant attitude and lack of concern of South Africans as to what has happened concerning the number of murders at the Cape Flats over the last six months (with 1 875 murders) and the presence of immense crime and violence all over South Africa18:12:

That is a huge number of deaths in just six months but there was no outrage in SA, we carried on with our lives as if nothing had happened. This is the kind of news that would have made headlines every day in other countries until police were seen to be doing something to ensure the safety of innocent citizens.

The essentially permanent breakdown of law and order in the so-called “Cape Flats”, which Ritchie19 describes appositely as “a war zone run by crooks and murderers”, is primarily because the ANC regime failed to bring prosperity to the inhabitants in the form of good training, work opportunities and a safe environment. Instead, they have left the area on its own to struggle on haphazardly. This is a situation which Ritchie19 summarises as follows19:8: “What is happening in Cape Town, what has been allowed to develop on the forgotten and dumped communities of the Cape Flats, has to be a crime against humanity.” How much the ANC failed in the Cape Flats to bring prosperity to the citizens and how the present setup was allowed to deteriorate as a result of the ANC’s poor policing and law-enforcement, as well as corruption in the SAPS, is described by Watson17 as follows17:4: “Gangsters there are unafraid of fighting back as evidenced by the shooting of six police anti-gang unit members in June [2019].”

3.2.1.2. Violence is countrywide

But we must not be fooled to think that the Cape Flats represents an extraordinary, singular “bad” situation and place. Countrywide, crime has been created and maintained by the ANC regime’s poor governance since 1994. Just listen to Cyril Ramaphosa’s own confession in his speech during the state of the nation debate in June 2019 when he mentioned that the anti-gang unit was transferred to national control by police minister Bheki Cele because “hooliganism (gangsterism) is spreading across the country”.
McCauley26 describes the chaos of the constant murder-spree in South Africa at present well when he writes26:6:

The Western Cape is not the only province suffering from the violence. Throughout the country we are hearing of horrific stories where people are hijacked or robbed at gunpoint and their possessions taken.
According to the SAPS, there were 20 336 murders in South Africa, between April 2017 and March 2018, showing a 7% increase from the previous year.
This puts the country’s murder rate at close 36 people murdered per 100 000 of the population – with Cele [Minister of Police Bheki Cele] noting that 57 people are being murdered each day.

Crime in all its forms are indeed present and very active in the country, reflecting a country spinning out of control under the ANC regime. During its reign it has failed to improve the country’s infrastructure, economy and law and order, besides responding time after time by only implementing short-term crime interventions. The overview of Makhetha23 and Marupeng23 of an overwhelmingly crime-beset South Africa, based on the SAPS report for 2018/2019, is very informative, but shocking. They pinpointed Gauteng as a specific point of concern and write that the area of Ivory Park outside Tembisa remains one of the most dangerous areas in South Africa to live in: it recorded the highest number of house robberies with 373 (an increase of 52). The second was the Honeydew area (consisting of Northriding, Strydom Park and Randpark Ridge) with 329 house robberies (a decrease of 31), while Orange Farm (south of Johannesburg) reflects the highest number of rapes, 226. This statistic makes it the most dangerous area for women in the country. Regarding the number of murders committed, Johannesburg Central and its immediate surroundings areas remained the top murdering spot: 123 murders for 2019 against the 93 of 2018 (an increase of 30). In the second spot for high-murder areas are respectively Hillbrow and Jeppe with 111 cases each.23,24
The violent-crime behaviour and other disorders in the northern areas of Port Elizabeth which include Bethelsdorp, have been many years in the making. It has been, like most other crime-infected areas in the country, left essentially unattended by the ANC regime since 1994. In 2018, there was an SAPS intervention, but it was withdrawn later. On the prevalence of the uncontrolled murdering and other serious violent crimes in this area, Sain27 reports that with the SAPS intervention some results were obtained for a short while. Since May 2019 it has started to escalate again, leaving so far this year already 117 people murdered.27 This chaos, or lack of law and order, is well described by Sain27 when he writes27:8: “Impeccable sources say that in the last five months the Gelvandale Mortuary has recorded more than 100 gunshot wound related deaths.” The situation is now so serious that the inhabitants of the northern areas of Port Elizabeth have also started to plead for SADF intervention to safeguard them in some way.27
The presence of serious violent crimes countrywide is also reflected by the murder statistics showing the highest number of murders recorded at the top-30 police stations: Western Cape occupied 10 spots, Gauteng had eight spots and KwaZulu-Natal six spots.24
The 2018/2019 SAPS data28 reveal the following crime statistics countrywide: 21 022 murders (686 more than 2018 or a 3.4% increase), sexual offences increased by 4.6% (2 312 cases, bringing them to a total of 52 420), attempted murder increased by 4.1% (747cases) with 18 980 cases for 2019, common robbery increased by 2% to 51 765 reported cases and farm murders declined from 62 in 2018 to 47 in 2019.28
The latest SAPS statistics (2018/2019) reflects a rise in the reporting of crimes against women from 172 961 to 177 620, with a decline of 5.4% in the murders of women: 2 930 to 2 771. Regarding the reporting of crimes against children, the crimes decline from 43 842 to 43 540.  In this regard, 1 014 children were murdered, reflecting an increase from 985. The rate of sexual offences against women decreased by 0.4% to 36 597. There was an increase in sexual offences against children: 3.8%, to reflect 24 387 children affected. In total, general sexual offences has increased by 4.6 % to reach 52 420 offences (2 312 more). Sexual offences have reduced by over 10 000 cases since the 2009/2010 reporting year. On official rape-reporting stats, Gareth Newham30, head of the Justice and Violence Prevention programme at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), said that on average only one out of nine rape cases is reported, while in some communities it can be as low as one out of 22. Only between 4% and 8% of all rape reporting leads to sentencing).29-31
These SAPS statistics reports that children, affected by their daily lived environment of crime,  themselves joined the stream of murderers: out of 21 022 murders as many as 736 people were killed by children (Eastern Cape : 231, Western Cape: 170), while many of the children killed were victims of other children. In the same way, 4 196 common assaults were committed by  children.24,30,32
The ubiquitous presence of uncontrolled violent crime, intertwined with the constant growth of broad criminality in South Africa, is also evidenced by the call on 19 July 2019 by the DA for more specialised anti-gang units in the Gauteng Province. the presence of uncontrolled gang violence in the province was revealed in the research report of GIATOC, namely Ending the Cycles of Violence, which was focussed on the two areas, Westbury and Eldorado Park. John Moodley33 of the DA emphasised that the ANC regime’s general failure to ensure good law and order via the SAPS in Gauteng, engendered the same kind of chaos through gang violence as in the Cape Flats and had led directly to the undermining of job creation, schooling, youth and community development, further exacerbating the incidence of violent crimes.33
Violent crimes and the breakdown of law and order countrywide, including property crime, are doing one main thing: limiting the growth of prosperity. Until now, it does not seem to be a negative phenomenon for the ANC regime.
A specific category of violent crime which is growing countrywide is kidnapping. The Gauteng annual provincial crime statistics revealed that 125 cases of kidnapping were reported in Kempton Park, reflecting a 14.7% increase (making it the kidnapping capital of South Africa) for the period 2018/2019. In total there were 530 cases of kidnapping in Gauteng, with Free State 511, Eastern Cape 468 and Western Cape 458. Statistics revealed that the predominant motives for kidnappings were for robbery, rape or sexual assault, hijacking, domestic violence and for ransom.30,34
The 2018/2019 statistics show that another category of violent crime that reflects an increase is robbery. Robbery with aggravating circumstances has increased by 1.2% to 140 032 cases (meaning 1 668 more) countrywide. (In this category is included hijackings, cash-in-transit robberies and robberies at commercial and residential properties). Common robbery increased by 2% to 51 765 cases and arson by 5.5% to 4 083 cases (with an increase of 214). There were 113 089 cases of malicious damage to property, reflecting an increase of 1.4% (1 597 cases). In total the contact crimes with a violent element, as listed above, increased by 2.6%.30,34
Gareth Newham30, who made the shocking revelation about the 2018/2019 SAPS report, said that these statistics were almost six months out of date (closing on March 31, 2019) and did not reflect the current spate of high-profile violent crimes reported since 1 April in the media. This means the picture on all kinds of crimes, included violence, can be much worse.30

3.3.1.2.1. Highway violence

Another confirmation that the ANC regime’s maintenance of law and order collapsed, is the overtaking of violent gangsterism of the country’s roads and highways.35,36 On 9 June 2019 Hosken and Singh35 wrote in the Sunday Times35:2: “Motorists have been warned to stay off the N3 between Johannesburg and Durban after dark”.
Why this warning? Because the deadly attacks on foreign truck drivers, which started more than a year ago, are surging.
Hosken and Singh35 report that according to the Police 74 trucks were burnt and damaged, with 50 vehicles torched on the highway since April 2018. In the past year 213 truck drivers were killed of whom 12 were foreigners. The financial loss of cargo and trucks amounts to R1.2-billion. Towhat extent the government failed to protect not only the life of citizens, but the economy, is well described by the CEO of the Road Freight Association (RFA), Gavin Kelly35, when he says35:2: “If the government doesn’t act swiftly against this anarchy, which has increased over the past seven months, with 40 trucks torched in three weeks, RFA will consider taking action, including stopping deliveries across the country.”
How extensive these N2, N3, N7 and other road anarchies have become (in some way equal in seriousness to the chronic anarchy and lawlessness on the Cape Flats), is the control by gangs of the roads by blocking them for up to a day without any intervention by the security services. The ANC regime is utterly silent on the matter.35,37 Hosken and Singh35 report on these various occasions when gangsters took over the roads, as follows35:2:

Between Sunday and Tuesday [beginning of June 2019], gangs searching for foreign truck drivers besieged towns across KwaZulu-Natal  and Mpumalanga , pulling vehicles off the roads in Ermelo, Piet Retief, Newcastle, Amsterdam and Bethal. Foreign drivers were forced to surrender their cargo and vehicles.
An Ermelo truck-stop owner, who asked not to be named as he feared further attacks, said 500 trucks had been ‘held hostage’ at the stopover by the All Truck Drivers Association (ATDA).

Slabbert36 and others37 listed the other roads under attack and described as dangerous, besides the N3, as the R59, R550, R101, N1, N2 and N7.36,37
The permitted anarchic blockade of trucks on the highways without formal police intervention and interference is reflected by the fact that one of the blockades at Van Reenen Pass lasted undisturbed for 24 hours. This result has led with good reason to speculation and allegations of a conspiracy between the truck-blockers and the ANC regime and its law-enforcement institutions. The spread of anarchy as alleged to be perpetrated by the ATDA and other so-called anti-foreign-truck-drivers groups, with very little response to these events by the ANC regime still propagating its illusory policy of South African Prosperity, is further confirmed by Hestony’s managing director, Etuan van der Westhuizen35, who reported six trucks burnt at the beginning of June 2019 in Johannesburg and Cato Manor. Trucking company owner Barend Groenewald was in ICU at the Worcester Mediclinic after his truck was set alight in Touws River in the Western Cape in May 2019. More informative on this road anarchy is the testimony of Claudia Carvalho35, the owner of Hawkeye Trucker Association (HTA) which safeguards trucks on roads with armed escorts. Carvalho35 called it the “Wild West” and said35:2: “…it was ‘complete madness’ on the N3. ‘The situation, which began to develop a year ago, was largely ignored and is now totally out of control’.
Advocate Pria Hassan38, spokesperson of the Positive Freight Solutions Forum, who took a strong stand against the ongoing truck violence, was forced to take safety measures to guard her and her family after serious threats. She reports38:1:

Ons lewe nou elke dag in vrees. Dit is ‘n nuwe soort wetteloosheid wat kan oorspoel na ander bedrywe as die regering nie dringend en daadwerklik ingryp om dit te voorkom nie.

But this truck anarchy is at present going on, intensified and is spreading out westwards from the Cape to attacks on the N7 near Piketberg, Moorreesburg and Piekenierskloofpas, while an attack was recently reported on the N2 near the Strand too. The Cape provincial spokesperson Kenny Africa37 said on the ongoing and intensified truck anarchy which the ANC regime clearly failed to curb37:9: “This can’t keep happening. It’s bad at the moment”. A response or statement of action by the ANC regime’s Transport minister Fikile Mbalula still outstanding.37
Looking at the passive reaction of the ANC-regime on the road anarchy so far, which puts union interests first above those of the country (as enforced by the unions’ seat in the tripartite government alliance), it seems that the ANC regime wants to solve the matter solely as a workplace issue (wherein the appointment of foreign drivers, amounting to only 15% of the total drivers occupies a central position), rather than taking criminal steps against the perpetrators for robbery and murder. The rule of law seems to be placed second to the importance of ongoing anarchy, racism and ethnicity, taking at face value the words of the Police-ministerial spokesperson, Reneliwe Sereo35, when he says35:2: “A workplace joint inspection task team, which is coordinated by the labour department and which consists of various government departments including the police, has been established.”
The extent of anarchy on the roads against specifically foreign truck drivers (motivated by xenophobia, but which the ANC regime sees as criminality, free from racism or ethnicity), and the SAPS’s passivity in intervening, is well illustrated by Du Plessis38 when he writes38:1: “Die polisie het in die verlede magteloos toegekyk terwyl vragmotors beskadig word.”
Again, featuring prominently, is the lack of any official announcement of danger to the general public and anarchy lurking, or the assurance that drastic law enforcement and pertinent policing will be introduced, or the offering of NPA results in the arrest and punishment of the culprits concerned. There is no sign of the constructive cleansing of the criminals from the country’s roads. What is clear, however, is a regime not in control of the country; a regime which is allowing the murderers of  213 truck drivers and the crooks who burnt 74 trucks and did damages to the amount to R1.2-billion, to get off the hook, in the same as the perpetrators of state captue did not get punished and got away with their stolen billions of rand. Further confirming this open tolerance of anarchy, racism, ethnicity, xenophobia and murder by the ANC regime without punishing the criminals, and thus a further reaffirmation that South Africa has an impotent regime in Parliament, unable to safeguard its citizens’ rights and safety, is the arrogant and challenging utterance by the head of ATDA, Sipho Zungu35, when he allegedly said to Hosken and Singh35:2:

We have no problem with foreign trucks coming to SA, rather with foreigners driving for South African companies. South African drivers and their families are starving. Children cannot be sent to school. South Africans are losing jobs to foreigners, who don’t only take our jobs but also our rights to protect jobs.

Slabbert36 points out the “political empowerment” and hostility of ATDA, as reflected by their demand that in future only ATDA members should be appointed as drivers and that foreigners should be fired and that truck owners must pay R350 per month to ATDA for each of its members employed. Slabbert36 writes on the masked threat to companies which dare to “disobey” the ATDA’s demands and extortion36:8: “Maatskappye wat nie hieraan voldoen nie, word gedreig met weerwraak en dat hul voertuie aan die brand gesteek sal word.”
The endangering of the drivers’ lives went so far that a truck company was forced to obtain a court order on 31 May 2019 in the High Court of KwaZulu-Natal which forbade the ATDA to attack or threaten its members. But as the recent attacks at the beginning of September 2019 confirm, the violence is continuing, more intense than ever and spreading all over the country.36,37
The above kind of remarks against the truck drivers and their employers by unions reflect racism, ethnicity, xenophobia and the sanctioning of the murder against foreigners, as well as wreaking massive damage on trucking firms. They are remarks which should be brought under the attention of the Council for Human Rights, as well as the SAPS and the NPA for drastic action.  The passivity of the ANC regime can rightfully be seen as in some way allowing or even supporting such crimes.39
Secondly, in addition, we find the remark of the secretary general of the National Truck Drivers Federation, Siphesihle Muthwa35, to Hosken and Singh35 when he said35:2: “…the issue would go away if ‘employers did the right thing’.” This is undoubtedly an open threat to the lives and property of truck owners which again needs the attention of the SAPS and the NPA to enforce the law.35
The anarchy in the long-distance trucking industry has another aspect, confirming again the lack of a stable government to ensure law and order. This entails robbing trucks of their valuable loads, as well as open theft from trucks on our roads. Slabbert36 reports36:8: “…op die N2-hoofweg tussen Oos-Londen en Kokstad waar vragmotors weens die kronkelende en heuwelagtige paaie so stadig as soos 30km/h ry, spring misdadigers op die vragmotors, sny die seile wat die vrag bedek oop en gooi die vrag af; 36:8: “… in Beaufort-Wes gebeur dit [stropery] sommer by die verkeersligte”; en36:8: “Belhamels gooi rotse van brûe op voertuie om hul tot stilstand te dwing sodat hulle die vrag kan steel”.
The utter failure of the ANC to instill law and order on the roads and the comprehensiveness and seriousness of the problem which is simply being ignored by the ANC leaders is described by Ehlers40 as follows40:10: “The shocking statistics regarding trucks and cargoes burnt within the past 12 months should long ago have been addressed as a national problem bordering on civil war.”
Looking at the chaos and anarchy in the trucking industry created by crooks and murderers, it must be clear for Ehlers40 that we do not have a national government to combat the country’s massive crime, especially violence. We have again been captured by a new kind of “Zuptas of the road”.

3.3.1.2.2. Railway anarchy and violence

The above road anarchy and violence are echoed by the similar railway anarchy and violence. South Africa has suffered many arson attacks on the rail system over many years. It specifically started in the Western Cape and has spread gradually to become a countrywide phenomenon. It  cost the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) and Transnet  close to a billion rand, with 1 496 rail carriages destroyed. Virtually not a single arrest for the 2017/2018 financial year of the was made by the SAPS.41,42
Pijoos43 refers to the chaotic conditions pertaining to the country’s railway system, on which millions of the poor are dependent for their daily travel to work, schools, shops, hospitals, etc., as43:9: “Stranded commuters, lengthy delays, stolen railway tracks, deadly train crashes and burning coaches — this the state of the country’s railway system”.
Including in this failure is the railway infrastructure, which is itself broken. Besides arson, there is immense vandalism of railway property. A recent cellphone video showed the George Goch station in Johannesburg being stripped of copper cables, windows, doors and even the roof covering within two days during a strike of railway policement. It seems, as with all the other schemes of the ANC regime that have collapsed, that it does not have a long-term solution. On the whole, it does not seem as if the ANC regime cares about the deterioration of South Africa’s railway infrastructure. When it becomes a headache, the ANC-regime, through sporadic, insignificant efforts, addresses the chaos it created by means of a superficial short-term approach, treating the “symptoms without the underlying causes”. For instance, in an effort to “handle” the violence and arson on their trains, Prasa’s short-term solution was the launching of the so-called “railway enforcement unit” whereby about 100 officers were deployed to ensure the safety of trains in the Cape Town area. The input was insignificant and nothing else than political window-dressing: it was only a trickle to rescue the railways.43
How serious the situation is for Prasa (Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa), seen from an economic viewpoint, is reflected by its 2017-2018 annual report. Pijoos43, after studying the report, warns on 10 July 2019 that the long-distance passenger train service of Prasa was declining to lower than acceptable levels. Pijoos43 reflects on the Prasa-report as follows43:9:

Passengers have dropped from 2.8-million in 2009-2010 to 465,647 [19%] in 2017-2018, while trains run have dropped from 6,604 to 1,770 [30%]. Both trains run and passenger patronage have dropped drastically at a rate indicative of a service that has totally collapsed.

3.3.1.3. Extraordinary violent crimes

More recently two further forms of violent crime have broken out country-wide, namely 1) violence against women and children (gender violence); and 2) violent crime against foreigners (xenophobia). Because of the comprehensive attention offered by the media, the public and especially the Ramaphosa regime to it and the outright political opportunism around the two forms of violence, they need to be evaluated and discussed in depth. These two issues are indeed part of the greater crime culture, or better: the crime mentality of many South Africans. To understand it, will help us to understand better the already discussed violence in the Western Cape as well as the epidemic of violent crime in the whole country.

3.3.1.3.1. Gender violence

Regarding another recent tragic phenomenon connected to crime, is the alleged appalling and often brutal way men treat women and children in South Africa. This is being seen in some way as having triggered a nationwide uprising to combat the evil, and described by some in the media as one of the most tumultuous and emotional episodes in our country’s history, the editor44 of the Sunday Times wrote recently. Indeed, the seemingly sudden rise in gender-violent crimes invoked promises of punishment of the male culprits by the ANC’s top leadership, even a presidential promise which reads44:3:

I will propose to cabinet that all crimes against women and children should attract harsher minimum sentences. We agree with the women of the country that the state should oppose bail and parole for perpetrators of rape and murder against women and children.

The minister of justice, Ronald Lamola45, continued where Ramaphosa stopped by saying that the cabinet would consider requests for a referendum on the issue, while the president of the ANC Women’s League, Bathabile Dlamini45, asked for a law to forbid bail for persons accused of violence against women.45
Supporting these “ANC royals” in their “revenge seeking and taking” is the opinion and standpoint of the “Zulu royal”, King Goodwill Zwelithini46 whor recently during Umkhosi weLembe (Shaka Day), addressing hundreds of his subjects, said46:24:

…maybe it would be better if once a man was found to have rape, he should be handed to ‘men like us’ to cut off his manhood. This would end this thing(rape), this should be done in a way that would show the world that the Zulu nation does not tolerate this shame.

Palesa Lebitse47 also brings the present shocking state of rape and gender-based violence to our attention by pointing out that the chief justice Mogoeng Mogoeng recently reflected on the complexity of  rape and gender-based violence by showing that we are not confronted here with a sudden pathological surge of evil-doing men, but a deep-rooted problem which has been a long time coming. For Lebitse47, the so-called “phenomenon” of gender-based violence in 2019 is due to the long-term neglect and the “untouchability” of the problem by the various authorities within the ANC government, specifically the Department of Women, the SAPS and the NPA.47,48
To argue, as do Ramaphosa44 and Lamola45 and others inside the ANC circle, that present legislation on gender violence is insufficient, reflect a lack of knowledge by them of the country’s battery of laws on this issue. Indeed, effective legislation exists to tackle and solve the problems.  What is missing is an effective government to govern and which is able to effectively use  the existing laws to address and solve the matters. We will hear for a long time in future horrifying stories of the maltreatment of women and children — as we are constantly hearing the ongoing shocking testimonies before the Zondo and other commissions on state corruption — but both approaches to the offering of “confessions” will bring nothing constructive in the end. Results such as prosecutions will stay absent. Regarding gender-based violence, short-term rhetoric by the ANC’s leaders are being heard daily, exclusively for the opportunistic gains of the ANC and support for the ANC’s calculated diverting of attention away from their regime’s corruption and dishonesty since 1994.31,49-51
The minister of Justice and Correctional Services, Ronald Lamola52, is treading water when he reflects on the recent prominence of gender violence by saying it52:2: “…remains a sore point and requires all of us to do our bit to curb this scourge”, and that52:2: “…establishing more sexual offences courts remained an important step in ‘their quest to eradicate gender-based violence and femicide’.” In this context he further states52:2: “…an additional 15 courts rooms were adapted in line with the sexual offences model and this brought the total number of courtrooms adapted to 90. We are planning a further 11 courtrooms in the current financial year”.
What Lamola52 did not say loudly was that these courts have gathered dust since there establishment, because they are under-used, primarily because the promulgated laws to curb these kinds of crimes are not effectively used and the NPA lacks capable staff while the SAPS fails the people in combatting crime. This makes all the loud talk of Lamola, together with that of Ramaphosa on their supposed fight against gender violence, just hot air, once more.39,53,54
How much Ramaphosa and his ministers are confused and uninformed about the established and appropriate legislation already in place to fight and punish all kinds of crimes against women and children — but also seemingly taken up emotionally by the present protests and apparently orientated to use the situation opportunistically — is evidenced by Versluis31. She writes31:6:

Die minimum vonnisse is reeds jare lank lewenslank vir moord met voorbedagte rade, verkragting wat met roof of aanranding gepaardgaan, ‘n verkragting van ‘n kind, groepverkragting of meer as een verkragting. Vir die meeste ander seksmisdade, roof met verswarende omstandighede, asook moord sonder voorbedagte rade is die minimum vonnis 15 jaar vir ‘n eerste oortreding.

A further contradiction in Ramaphosa and his ministers’ opportunistic power-play that the present crimes against women and children are abnormally high and increasing all over the country, is the evidence that although the total cases in 2019 stand at 52 420 sexual offences, the peak before 2019 was higher and the 2019 number represents a reduction of over 10 000 cases since 2010. The latest SAPS statistics (2018/2019) reflects a decline of 5.4% in the murders on women: 2 930 to 2 771, the crimes against children declined from 43 842 to 43 540 and sexual offences against women decreased by 0.4% to 36 597.29,31,55
In regard to Ramaphosa’s hypocrisy to “commit” the ANC regime to rectify the maltreatment of children that suddenly “emerged” in 2019, it is important to emphasise (on paper at least), that South African legislation already protects and cares for the country’s children through the Children Act which was promulgated by the ANC regime itself in 2005.56 Pearl Boshomane Tsotetsi56, a freelance writer, states that the Act demands that parents ensure their children are financially supported and taken care of, but it is clear for her that the socio-economics under the present regime nullifies the fulfilment of this parental duty, primarily because of the parents’ growing poverty, leaving them destitute and unable to afford the necessities of life for their children. She writes56:20:

…the problem is that ours isn’t a country that encourages poor parents to be self-sufficient, and in turn to effectively take care of their offspring. With such a high rate of unemployable people and the economy in the gutter, how are parents meant to financially support their children when they can’t even support themselves?

On the ANC regime’s failed economics, which are creating only poverty and unemployment for the country’s citizens, Tsotesti56 points out firstly that the R430-a-month social grant for a child is totally insufficient. Secondly, she shows the frightening numbers of the poor who are suffering of hunger, indicating that among pregnant woman aged 12 to 50 as much as 16.3% lived in households where children or adults suffered from hunger because there was not enough food, and that 35% were living in households that ran out of money to buy food for five or more days a month. In this context, there is the bleakness of poverty that makes it difficult for people to better themselves or to ever escape poverty. A permanent culture of poverty and despair plays a role in causing poor mental health and depression, which could have explained why a mother recently killed her four children with rat poison. It is clear that, notwithstanding how much the country, especially the leadership of the ANC-regime were “shocked” by the gender violence in 2019, there is a lack of focus by the media and the public on the specific role of the failed government in these kinds of tragedies around children, primarily because of its outright lack of financial support and provision of a mental help service for struggling mothers. At the moment, as with the “maltreatment of women issue”, the ANC regime of Ramaphosa is fleeing from its direct responsibility to children by their efforts to cast it as a non-political issue, while in reality they stand accused of the tragedies which their failed politics have caused in 2019.56 Tsotesti56 points to the ANC regime’s failure (and their present political opportunism)  when she writes56:20: “Lack of resources, lack of effective politicking and a lack of social workers (while thousands of social work graduates are unemployed) mean single mothers are left to fend for themselves in untenable situations that are not of their own making.
The poverty of women is strongly related to gender violence, especially those women who are single mothers and must care for children on their own. Busi Mavuso57, CEO of Business Leadership SA, points to the presence in the country of an all-over gender inequality which she believes contributes to engendering the suppression of the female and triggering gender violence. Mavuso said that there was a growing crisis in the social construction of the South African society: South African women who are permanently employed earn 22.7% less than men, and the country’s mothers, wives and daughters face a future where their work will be less remunerated than that of their male counterparts. There has been an entrenched lack of equality under the ANC regime since 1994 (for which they now cry foul as part of the mistreatment of women), placing the female in the traditional men’s world, together with female inequality inserted as part of a wider process whereby certain social and racial groups are neglected or discriminated against, the perpetuation of which the ANC regime makes itself guilty. Mavuso writes57:26:

The lack of equality in our own private rooms in a climate of low growth and confidence levels played itself out in a rising tide of femicide, which our country’s statistical agency calls the intentional killing of females because they are females.
The problems of patriarchy, some of whose norms and standards are inherited from our colonial past and some of which come from our different cultural influences, need to be addressed. All of us – the government, business and civil society – need to find common purpose on just how we start to deal with a system that goes against equality.

Professor William Gumede58 of the School of Governance, Wits University, offers Mavuso57 a clear picture of the many wrongs of cultural influences, inherent to the country’s patriarchy which is directly responsible for gender violence. For Gumede58 these aberrations must go first before the ANC regime may dare to speak further of a “sudden” rise in 2019 of gender violence and the “urgent need” for legislation to combat it. He writes58:26:

Patriarchy, which informs most South African cultural, social and religious traditions, is at the root of violence against women.  To end this scourge, any cultural belief, custom or practice that encourages inequality between men and women must be made illegal; all traditions and social practices must be democratised.

Gumede58 enumerates the following cultural beliefs, customs and practices, which have all been supported and maintained by the ANC regime since 1994, notwithstanding the party’s condemnation of gender violence, that should be abolished, erased and nullified58:26:

  • Customary law that made women defer to men and preclude them from inheriting property or becoming traditional leaders;
  • Initiation schools encourage patriarchy, aggressive masculinity and a violent response rejection;
  • Patriarchal traditions such as lobola;
  • The reed-dance ceremonies that objectivise women;
  • Religious practices which undermine the rights of women;
  • Improper school curriculum.

The editor59 of the Sunday Times also shoved the role of established cultural beliefs, customs and practices in triggering gender violence into the lime-light by pointing out our two-tier legal system which is forcing discrimination on the poor and rural Black women with little access to justice. Pertinent here is the ANC regime’s direct contribution to the abuse of the women in society over many years as “good”, which has now been re-established by the Traditional Courts Bill. This Bill was passed at the end of the fifth Parliament, supported by the majority of MPs during which the assenting votes by the ANC MPs including ANC women MPs, were prominent. These MPs also specifically voted to remove a crucial so-called “opt out” clause which would allow rural women to opt out of matters before the traditional courts in order to seek justice in statutory courts. There is further evidence that some women, appearing before traditional courts presided over by male traditional leaders, are sometimes not allowed to attend the proceedings simply because they are women. In other cases where they are allowed to attend, they are not allowed to speak, while the testimonies offered by women were belittled. The Bill, making Ramaphosa’s presidential promises that the ANC regime was going to fight the abuse of women simple hypocrisy, was passed despite a legal guideline that it was unconstitutional. It is now before the National Council of Provinces. [Note: Traditional courts are empowered to adjudicate matters including theft, malicious damage to property, burglary, crimen injuria and other matters in which women frequently experience forms of discrimination such as in a customary-law marriage, guardianship of children and inheritance matters].59
The criminologist, Professor Christian Bezuidenhout31 reflects on the chaos of the present social system in South Africa which the ANC now wants to solve bye means of a quick and easy solution in the form of new laws and new kinds of judicial punishments, notwithstanding the fact that the problem has been created and nurtured over 25 years of rule by the ANC itself.  He postulates31:6:

Dit spruit uit ’n komplekse wisselwerking tussen omgewingsfaktore en die genetiese material van die individu [geslagsgeweld is ‘n ekspressiewe misdaad met ‘n sterk emosionele motivering].
Die probleem in Suid-Afrika is dat kinders in ‘n groot deel van die samelewing konstant aan geweld blootgestel word.
In sommige gemeenskappe word geweld beskou as die medium tot sukses.
Dié tipe misdade is die moeilikste om af te skrik. Dit gebeur ook gewoonlik in die privaatheid van die huis.
Meer polisie of swaarder strawwe gaan nie help nie.

The opportunism of the Ramaphosa regime to misuse the issue of the current gender violence to score political points is proven over and over by supporting evidence. The extreme opportunism of the Department of Women — established as the sole, exclusive government vehicle to better and to safeguard the rights of women and children — is increasingly coming under the spotlight. The question strongly arises as to why the department has not executed on its mandate since its creation, already turning Ramaphosa’s recent presidential promise into reality? It can rightly be asked further which constructive legislation on the rights of women and children has it propagated and promulgated, and what evidence there is to reflect that it is engaged in a comprehensive team effort with the NPA and the SAPS to improve the life circumstances of women and children? Why has there been such a “sudden and immense” rise in crimes related to women and children over the last two years if the department had been doing its utmost to curtail such violence and violations of women’s and children’s rights?60,61
Most importantly, why has the Department of Women not taken the SAPS to the ConCourt on neglect of duty when women accused the SAPS that rape victims had to face uncaring cops who fobbed them off with callous remarks when the wanted to lay charges? Fokazi48 writes in a very focussed manner on these accusations against the SAPS, reflecting the description of the head of the Western Cape’s Thuthuzela Care Centre regarding some of the phrases women often hear when they try to report rape to police48:4:

  • Go home, don’t bathe or wash your underwear for the next few days, and come back on Monday.
  • He only used his finger to penetrate you, it’s no big deal.
  • This case is weak, do you really want to put yourself through this?

It is thus of great importance to consider the actions of the Department of Women to make an evaluation of the ANC regime’s intentions and actions since 1994 around women and child welfare and care. This can also give us an indication if Ramaphosa’s presidential promise on rectifying the affairs of women and children may be taken seriously, in the same vein as all of his political promises made in the May-2019 election and his many other post-May 2019 promises on job creation, an end to crime and invigorated economic growth. As a guideline for evaluating ANC policies on the importance of women and children, as represented by the Department of Women’s actions, one may consult Katharine Child’s61:4 recent article in the Sunday Times of the 8 September 2019, very descriptively entitles: “Plenty of pricey talk, no action”.
Child61 depicts a failed and incapable ANC Department of Women under the leadership of its ministers Bathabile Dlamini and Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, including many highly-paid officials, who were supposed to implement their official duty directive, which reads61:4: “…the custodian of the promotion and advancement of gender quality and the empowerment of women”. Child61 makes it very understandable why the publicly expressed outrage at the high rate of murder and rape of women takes place without the truth behind this chaos. Clichés by the department’s present minister, Mate Nkoana-Mashabane, have dealt with the “ideal man-woman relationship in South Africa”, and she has also said that61:4: “We [women] cannot continue to live lives that are constantly under siege and where we are not all enjoying the fruits of our constitutional democracy. Enough is enough, we need justice”. This is hypocrisy of the highest order. It is at the same time an excellent example of how the ANC’s leadership, specifically that of the Ramaphosa regime, directs the people’s attention away from the real culprits that have abandoned women and children since 1994 with their corrupt governance: the ANC leadership itself.61
It is by no means an exaggeration to say that the Department of Women has constantly failed to address gender-based violence. It has indeed itself acknowledged that it never meets its prescribed targets but “only held dialogues with women” with useless travelling around the country and the world to promote these so-called departmental dialogues to “better” the position of women and children. There were no constructive and concrete outcomes confirmed by the Department of Women in its annual performance indicator which requires true “interventions to enhance prevention and elimination of violence against women and children”. It is amid this chaos (mostly unknown to the public) that Ramaphosa is now shamelessly trying to capitalise on the gender-based violence issue with his sudden so-called “judicial intervention and interference in the acts of criminal men”, while he stays silent on his government’s failed Department of Women.60-62
Child61 gives an in-depth description of the Department of Women’s lack of fulfilling its annual performance indicator. She states that when the Parliamentary oversight committee listened to the Department of Women’s annual performance plan in July 2019, its members were unimpressed. Indeed, in a statement afterwards the committee said61:4: “…it could not understand the issues the department is working on as there is no visible community outreach and it did not see tangible achievements”, writes Child61. The parliamentary researcher Kashiefa Abrahams,61 after studying the most recent report of the Department of Women, describes the official explanations by the leadership of the Department about its “national dialogues” held, which allegedly were set up to discuss gender violence, as “incoherent”.61
To give insight into the failed performance of the Department of Women — confirming also the failed performance of the ANC-regime starting from 1994 and telling us in some way again of the immense state capture between 2008 and 2017 — it is of great value to read Child’s61 summary of the Department’s recent annual report.61 Child61:4 writes that of the department’s R244m budget in 2017/2018 about R80m was allocated to the Commission for Gender Equality, lacking a declaration for how and why the R80 million was used. Of the rest, the lion’s share — R72.4m — went to salaries for the 101 staff members. In addition to these salaries, R13m was spent on travel and subsistence, R11.5m on “property managers” and R6.3m on consultants [with R1.2m last year on consultants to investigate the distribution of free “sanitary dignity products”. This last-mentioned  project has after two years still not been finalised].61
Child61 also mentions that the report stated that staff members went on four official overseas trips (without reporting how many staff went on the trips) which the Department recorded as “achievement”! Of the R13m spent on travel, R4m was for overseas travel to destinations such as New York to attend the UN Commission on the Status of Women conference in 2017. Further there were a three-day meeting of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in Swaziland and a five-day AU meeting in Ethiopia. There was again a SADC meeting in Ethiopia to prepare for the next UN Commission on the Status of Women conference in New York in 2018. Moreover, under the category “achievements” listed in the report was attendance at a “moral regeneration movement” meeting in Kimberley in 2017, a Women’s Day celebration on 9 August last year in Kimberley, an interdenominational meeting on gender-based violence in Upington, a “cancer-awareness-raising imbizo”, the launch of the 16 days of activism campaign and a men’s meeting in Port Elizabeth. It also became clear that of the 101 staff 47 were in senior positions, with annual salaries averaging R1 million each. This “salary capture” prompted the IFP MP, Liezl van der Merwe61, to call the Department of Women in Parliament an “employment agency”, asking questions about the need for consultants [with a R6.3m budget] when most of its staff had seemingly high training as reflected by their high salaries.61
Another issue pointing to the failure of the Department of Women under Mate Nkoana-Mashabane to govern properly on behalf of the ANC cabinet the affairs of women and children, is the nonperformance by other ultra-motivated women’s rights fighters, such as  Dlamini, Goodwill Zwelithini, Cele, and other top executives of the ANC regime in addressing crimes against LGBTQ+ people. This passivity of specific politicians undoubtedly led thereto that in the first place there are blind spots in South African data on the crimes against the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community, wrote Hlatshaneni63 recently. This makes SAPS data unreliable and sub-standard while the pending legislation on hate crimes initiated by the ANC regime is blocking data collection on LGBTQ+ crimes. There is not any official effort to calculate the true presence of gender-based violence by trying to establish the incidence of unreported gender violence. Lisa Vetten63, a gender activist and researcher reports that the last official report on the rate of unreported cases of gender-based violence was released 22 years ago.  But from the statistics (starting in 2009), emanating from nongovernmental organisations and their investigations of LGBTQ+ crimes, the presence of these crimes is high (profiled as unreported or unrecorded cases). It has shown a strong upwards trajectory from 2011, writes Vetten63. For a person who has declared him on the side of the victims of gender violence, Ramaphosa has shown ignorance of these LGBTQ+ crimes which may be seen as a selective escape from a kind of gender-based crime which is politically, socially, culturally and religiously controversial, as well as pertaining to a specific lifestyle not accepted by the greater society of patriarchy.57,58,63
The LGBTQ+ crimes are, as a part of gender violence and thus of the same importance, by and large totally ignored by the ANC regime. Ramaphosa’s silence here seems significant. Letsike63, director of Access Chapter 22, writes that LGBTQ+ crimes have occurred in South Africa for decades, forming an important element of gender-based violence, but are completely ignored by the ANC as not having any importance.  There are some shocking cases of SAPS discrimination when it comes such gender cases shocking, especially because it has been tolerated by the ANC regime during its failed crime-prevention programme to eliminate xenophobia and gender violence since 1994. Letsike63 reflects on the discriminatory behaviour of the SAPS against the LGBTQ+ gender group as follows63:2:

We have actually seen research that showed that 88% of crimes against the LGBTQ+ community go unreported or unrecorded.
One of the reasons for this is when investigating officers do not look at hate or bias as possible motive if the person’s gender identity or sexual orientation is known.

Letsiko63 elaborates further63:2:

Another reason the stories of hate crimes against this community went untold was that the criminal justice system still harboured bias against complainants from the LGBTQ+ community.
We still have a very high level of secondary victimisation where police themselves will victim-blame or intimidate a person for instance, and ask “are you a boy or a girl?” These are the things that discourage victims from reporting these cases”.

Lebitsi47 places the ANC’s outright failure over years to safeguard persons through its judicial arms, the SAPS and the NPA, against gender violence, prominently in focus. His analysis again confirms Ramaphosa and his regime’s opportunism in their misuse of the so-called “2019 gender violence”. Lebitsi writes47:13:

And in interrogating issues around cases involving sexual abuse and gender-based violence, I pondered about the National Prosecuting Authority and its role in ensuring that it too interrogates these issues.
I ended up asking myself: where is the national director of public prosecutions, Shamila Batohi, given the gravity of sexual abuse? But I remembered that Batohi has not even uttered a single word about the calamity of sexual abuse.
I did however remember how a friend of mine once told me about a joke at the NPA about certain rape cases: “at the tavern, to the tavern, from the tavern – no prosecution”.
The bottom line is that the way the NPA treats cases may be a major contributor to this national crisis and may also perpetuating rape myths that plague our society.

Giving us another glimpse into previous official promises by the ANC regime which were made to women and children, similar to the one of Ramaphosa, to “wipe out gender violence by the law” which never went further than mere utterances, is that of the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) a year ago. In June 2018 the newly appointed chairperson of Prasa, Khanyisile Kweyama64, promised to set aside women-and-children-only train carriages on Cape Town‘s Metrorail when she said64:7: “In Women’s month, we will assign terms of reference on how we are going to proceed to implement it”.
A month later in 2018 she apparently made the same commitment to the civil society group #UniteBehind, namely to personally oversee the implementation of the new carriages by August 2018. When #UniteBehind sent a letter with  updates to her in August, it received no response. Further enquiries at Prasa tell another story as to the initial promise of Kweyama: the excuse was that there were other more important issues than the women-and children-only train carriages. Prasa further states that there was a shortage of usable train carriages as well as a lack of security guards available to guard the women and children. So far, until September 2019, requests for updates from #UniteBehind were ignored by Prasa. The official Prasa promise stays just a promise, ignoring the safety of women and children on the Cape Town Metrorail, a negative situation which has now been continuing for years under the ANC regime.44,64
It seems as if the Department of Women is untouchable when it comes to being called to account inside the ANC regime which is characterised by ongoing poor performances and failure. This untouchability is well revealed by Child61,62 when she recounts that when she asked the Department to answer certain questions regarding its 2017/2018 annual report and actions, its spokesperson, Shalen Gajadhar’s only reaction was to send copies of seven speeches made by the Department’s staff! 61,62
It is important to consider, in terms of Ramaphosa’s promise to introduce “extreme laws” to punish men treating women “badly”, that he seemingly lacks an in-depth understanding that South Africa is not only a violent country for women, but also for men. Ramaphosa’s “women’s promise” fails as such to imply an improvement of our failed criminal justice system to serve both gender victims of violence, meaning also men. Moreover: Ramaphosa should have said that South Africa was a violent land for women and men, but he ignored the matter as his regime has been turning a blind eye since 1994 to the violent Western Cape. Lisa Vetten66 of Wits University states in this context that police murder statistics showed that a man was 5.6 times more likely to be murdered than a woman in South Africa. This avoidance in addressing violence against men again highlights the political opportunism of Ramaphosa with his “suddenly selecting and addressing” of the so-called “women’s issue”. He knows well that the chances at this moment of bringing lasting and comprehensive changes to the maltreatment of woman and children are zero. It is a tragic situation which has developed strongly after 1994 under the ANC regime. Evidence shows that the ANC regime can do nothing constructive to the matter. Promises like that of Ramaphosa are all that the ANC can offer South Africans.61,62,65,66 It is a standard part of the ANC’s well-known political practice, what Melody Emmett65;15 referred to as the phenomenon of “lies, lies and more lies” and Child describes as61:4: “Plenty of pricey talk, no action”.
Real evidence contradicts the apparent stereotyping by the ANC leadership of all men as beasts — the “exclusively male transgressors of gender violence” (excluding of course the ANC leadership!) who suddenly arrived in 2019 in South Africa. This profiling of all men as psychopathic characters reflects thankfully only one clear meaning after it was stripped of its emotional and political posturing: an utterly sick political opportunism in the mindset of the ANC.52,67 The author Azille Coetzee’s67 argues that all men are undoubtedly not bad and have not suddenly become perpetrators of gender violence. For her, there is a gender-violence problem, but it is a chronic problem, extending back in the post and in which the behaviour of the ANC and its members also stand accused.52,67
Finally, the question is why the so-called “appalling and often brutal way men treat women in South Africa” was only suddenly recognised in 2019, positioned, and undertaken to be addressed by the ANC regime’s leadership after 25 years of their failed governance. Never in the ANC’s previous elections promises was the matter brought up or recommendations made to rectify it. It is clear that the ANC’s 25 years of poor rule has discredited it on all the levels associated with good governance and excellent leadership. It is forcing Ramaphosa to misuse any emotional and political issue that distracts the attention from the ANC’s delinquent rule and which can easily be used to put him in the lime-light again as the so-called “good” leader after his presidency had started to falter from June 2019. Opportunism seems to be strongly present in the ANC regime nowadays60:4: “…sincerely striving to better the lives of women and children”.
The current one-sided, exclusive over-emphasis of the maltreating of women and children  by the pro-Ramaphosa media and the ANC itself, stands totally in contrast with their ignoring of gang and taxi violence where the gangsters and the taxi bosses and drivers are apparently above the law and the lot of the innocent, suffering people around them deemed insignificant. The ANC fails in this context to issue a similarly public “Ramaphosa empathy” at the individual level to citizens who have been flagrantly abused by public officials by successive ANC regimes. Gumede49 sees a syndrome of “little empathy of Ramaphosa for the mass of victims gripped and suffering in the observable political disorder of the country”. This obvious passivity, observable in the crisis on crimes committed against women, is similar to the passivity that the government shows on crime in general committed against the individual citizen, as well as the passivity recently showed during the crimes perpetrated against foreigners.68-71
The opportunistic effort by the ANC regime and Ramaphosa to reverse the ANC’s present political turmoil by misusing the maltreatment of women and children is wrong. Notwithstanding the tragedy around the abuse of women, children and foreigners, it is a secondary matter when viewed against the total criminal mess the country finds itself in. The main reason for these criminal outcomes is the crooked ANC which created and nurtured these crimes over the past 25 years. To eliminate these crimes, it is also needed to eliminate the ANC as a regime because it fails to practise law enforcement within the existing legal framework, besides their own political and legal transgressions, as well as their lack of taking responsibility for their extensive delinquencies. Pelser45 is very much here correct in emphasising the right of the innocent citizens (including the mass of innocent men) to defend their civil rights, when he writes45:6:

As ons gaan toelaat dat die demone van eiereg, wraaksug en growwe veralgemenings oor mans of buitelanders uit hul hokke kom, om van die soeke na nuwe sondebokke nie te praat nie, gaan ons problem as nasie vererger. Wetstoepassing is die sekerste manier vorentoe.
Hierdie regering gee die barbare in die samelewing al so lank vrypas om te steel en te verkrag en te moor, soms met opset en soms uit blote onbevoegdheid, dat niemand meer die staat se waarborge glo dat reg en orde weer afgedwing kan word nie.

Gumede72 brings a reality to the crimes against women, a matter which the ANC regime has carefully tried to sweep under the carpet for a long time in their frenzied political opportunism, when he writes72:22:

What appears to be a sudden alarming rise in violence against women is in fact the continuation of a rape culture that has been with us since the apartheid dispensation, but which has not been spoken about loudly before, the victims shamed or feared into silence or a stubborn denial of the enormity of the crisis.
What is new, though, is that the spells of silence about the extent of SA’s rape culture – rape, sexual harassment and violence – has finally been broken, and the scourge is now discussed in social, family and public spaces.
This culture has been normalised within social institutions, communities and families.
Even in the military camps of the ANC and PAC, rape culture was pervasive but cloaked in silence. And it also existed within the associated anti-apartheid civil society organisations, including the trade unions and student and youth movements.
It is important for the ANC leadership to own up to the sexual violence that happened within the liberation movement during the struggle against apartheid. Such a move would be an important act of acknowledgment to victims but may also help to bring about a culture change in our present time.
The tragedy was that, for the victims at that time, to accuse liberation leaders of sexual violence was seen as a “betrayal” of the liberation movement, undermining the cause of the struggle and strengthening the hand of the apartheid forces.
Because rape culture is so pervasive, an integrated strategy will be needed to tackle it, focusing on changing the cultural, social and political acceptance of what is “normal”.

3.3.1.3.2. Xenophobic violence

The outbreak of xenophobia is a matter that the ANC regime clearly tries hard to play down as general crime committed by some members of communities in their revenge taken on particular foreigners for their alleged criminal acts, either on their own or as part of local South African crime syndicates as well as foreigner syndicates against so-called “innocent” local South Africans. Another element is that those local South Africans, who are involved in vengeful attacks on foreigners, have been described by the ANC regime specifically as criminals who are attacking small groups of foreigners (on the same basis as if they were attacking  other South Africans) only for opportunistic and self-enriching reasons. The ANC regime does not discern any sign or intention of xenophobia in these attacks: as said, the same kind of attack by the local criminals is directed against other South Africans, as seemingly evidenced by the Western Cape violence. Ramaphosa too, has carefully avoided both the term and the subject of xenophobia in his responses to foreign governments. A case in point was his recent public statement to Nigeria’s envoy, Ahmed Rufal Abubakar, in an effort to calm down the recent conflict between Nigeria and South Africa around the attacks on the lives and property of Nigerians, that these attacks are not xenophobia, but solely the delinquent actions of local criminals against criminal Nigerians for their specific transgressions. Central to the South African-Nigerian conflict was the death of eight South Africans who had allegedly been killed by criminal Nigerians and thus sparked the reaction against  Nigerians which came to be known as xenophobia, worldwide . On the incidence of criminality as a characteristic of a certain group of Nigerians — isolating them as crooks but not as “foreigners”— it is reported that Ramaphosa, stating that South Africans were innocent of any discrimination against any Nigerians or harbouring any xenophobia against them, put forward “justified” actions by the locals to rid the country of crime and criminals (which seems in this case to be sometimes, accidentally, Nigerians!). On the existence of such foreign criminals in South Africa, igniting the recent violence, Ramaphosa even called on Nigeria to assist him with the deportation of some of its citizens who were committing crimes in South Africa and were in the country illegally.68-71
In response to Nigeria’s demand that South Africa compensates the losses of Nigerians here in the unrest (which the Nigerian government sees as xenophobia), South Africa took a hard line of not being guilty of any xenophobia or committing crime against any Nigerians and stated that it would only assist and compensate damaged Nigerian businesses here that where legitimately registered in the country and had their affairs in order with the South African Revenue Service, writes Hunter70. But Hunter70 reports that this “foreign-policy profile” projected on the ethnic unrest involving Nigerians in South Africa, differs from the ANC regime’s local “self-confession” on xenophobia. Hunter70, on the seeming arrogance and deception of Ramphosa in his double-talk with Abubakaro, writes70:1,7: “This was despite Ramaphosa’s acknowledgement of the existence of xenophobia in SA in his address to the nation on Tuesday evening [5th September] in which he condemned the violence and looting”.
That there is no doubt in most of the ANC’s leaders’ minds that xenophobia is real, is well confirmed by their orchestrated effort to lie about it to diplomats. Munusamy writes54:11:

The government has been flat-footed in countering the anti-SA sentiments. SA diplomats have been instructed to keep the line that the violence is as a result of criminality, not xenophobia.

Including in this denial of the presence of xenophobia was the violence against foreigners even relayed to so-called49:8: “conspiracy theories, claiming dark outside forces were ‘organising’ the xenophobic violence”, writes Gumede49. On the lack of an in-depth understanding of the true nature of xenophobia in the country by the ANC and thus to address it correctly, Gumede49 guides us well49:20: “Throughout all these crises, the ANC and government leadership appears to have been out of their depth, many not grasping the severity of the crisis the country is facing.4
It seems as if two ministers in the Ramaphosa regime accepted the reality of xenophobia, without saying it publicly or attributing it to the ANC’s failure to rule correctly and effectively. In avoiding the truth about the ANC’s direct role in the manifestation of xenophobia — as many members of the ANC’s elite mostly do when they are at the receiving end — they play the “blame game”. Other than Ramaphosa who confusingly blamed tribalism and nationalism as a possible reason, the Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande blamed capitalism, while the International Relations Minister Naledi Pandor attributed it to Apartheid.71
An interesting contradiction arising from the alleged xenophobia phenomenon and Ramaphosa’s view that Nigerians were responsible for committing crime against locals, is that it militates against the ANC’s traditional denial of tribalism and ethnicity in favour of the class struggle and other Marxist concepts of sociology and history. In their statements on the attacks against Nigerians and other foreigners, both Ramaphosa and Magashule therefore acknowledged the existence of ethnicity, a phenomenon which is anathema to the ANC’s revolutionary ideology (besides racism against the Whites as European “colonists” and hence the ANC’s intention to grab their land without compensation).70,71
Saunderson-Meyer71 points out that not only does Ace Magashule reaffirm that xenophobia is based on ethnicity but that the presence of xenophobia is also based on racism (and in September 2019 puts on record the ANC’s most recent official standpoint on Whites). Saunderson-Meyer71 refers to Magashule’s racial and anti-White stand (which can be seen undoubtedly as the open instigation of racial violence), as follows71:12: “Last week Magashule had expressed regret that the violence was being directed at ‘people who have the same skin colour as us’, rather than those many others with a whitish colour’…[who] have never been attacked, because they are also so-called foreigners”. Pelser45 reports on this alleged White racism by Magashule as follows45:6: ““Ace Magashule, sekretaris-generaal  van die ANC, maan swart Suid-Afrikaners om hul woede nie uit te haal op swart mense nie — hulle moet liewer wit mense teiken”.
Also Munusamy50 shows that Julius Malema, the leader of the EFF, tried to refocus the violence against White people rather than foreign nationalists. Referring to this, Pelser45, quoting Malema, writes45:6: “‘Ons woede is op die verkeerde mense gerig. Soos ons almal, verkoop ons Afrika-broers en susters hul arbeid teen ‘n lae prys om te oorleef. Die eienaars van ons welvaart is witmonopoliekapitaal; hul weier om dit met ons te deel’.”
On Ramaphosa’s reaction on the involvement of Nigerians in the latest so-called “crimes” in South Africa and the specific background to it, Hunter45, aligning Ramaphosa’s acknowledgement of tribalism with that of crimes as xenophobia and thus indeed that xenophobia springs from tribalism.  Hunter reports as follows45:1,7: “The president reasserted his publicly held view that rising nationalism globally is affecting the rise of tribalism on the continent”.
In this context Saunderson-Meyer71, on the official standpoint of the ANC on tribalism and thus also indirectly xenophobia, states71:12: “…tribalism is not acknowledged to be the cause of anything, implying as it would, ethnic cleavages within the Black South African society” and71:12: “…xenophobia, the x-word, has joined the k-word as unutterable in SA”.
Magashule, in line with Ramaphosa’s confusion on seemingly what the violence, tribalism and the xenophobia definitions mean, also opened the can further when he referred to some of the violence in which foreigners were involved recently as “tribal battles,” which expressly means ethnicity and xenophobia. These ANC references to tribalism, positioned suddenly by Ramaphosa and Magashule, also brought to the foreground the extreme presence of South African violent crimes in certain communities, such as gangsterism in many so-called exclusively “Coloured” Western Cape areas in South Africa. (As already discussed, the SADF was forced to intervene on the Cape Flats in a crime-prevention role because the SAPS utterly failed to do their job.)  It seems then that some issues are indeed “tribal-orientated” for the ANC’s top managers and thus the reason why the ANC-regime since 1994 has taken such a passive stance on this “Coloured problem” and had left it in the cold.70
Saunderson-Meyer71, on the supposed ANC revolutionaries’ traditional blindness to xenophobia and tribalism, further writes71:12:

While Ace should expect a chiding from the ANC’s political commissars for the little slip, xenophobia and tribal denialism is prevalent among black nationalists. It is simply inconceivable to admit that there is, indeed, a deep-seated antipathy among many black South Africans to their black ‘brothers and sisters’, both here and abroad.

Saunderson-Meyer71 reports that Ace Magashule’s explanation of his rejection of xenophobia, goes this way71:12: “What I know …is that our presidents, the presidents of Africa [Nigeria, Zambia and Rwanda] are talking, and they have analysed this correctly. It is not acts of xenophobia, it’s acts of criminality”.
The editor73 of the Sowetan, in an article dated 13 September 2019, reflects on how the blackjacks in the 1960s, harassing Africans found in urban areas without so-called “dompasses” by going from door to door to pull-out those considered to be “too Black and too different to belong to the other Blacks”. He states that on Wednesday, September 11 2019, in the supposed free South Africa, Blacks again knocked on doors73:14: “Open the door, we want to see your ID. The k-word of the apartheid-era is replaced by an equally derogatory k-word that they reserve for foreigners. …the reality is that there are a significant number of our citizens who are — and are engaging in acts of violence against those they deem foreign”.
If the above editorial description, read together with the descriptions by various local Blacks on the reason why they are burning trucks and killing truck drivers, are not true examples of the presence of extreme xenophobia, what kind of example do we need to offer which would convince the ANC leaders of it?35,36,73
Secondly, contradicting Ramaphosa and his cronies’ standpoint in their overseas rhetoric that xenophobia is purely criminal violence, is the prominent presence of foreigners (legal and illegal) in South Africa as so-called “culprits” in the reasons for the deaths of 11 persons in Gauteng.74,75 Hosken74 refers in this context to the “culprit” foreigners as to be exclusively people who many Blacks classed as persons74:2: “…endangering Black South Africans’ work opportunities, and to be people peddling drugs and committing crimes”.
The reporting of Hosken and Germaner75 of the mobilising in August 2019 of Black communities by the Sisonke People’s Forum, which had spurred locals into action against so-called “delinquent foreigners”, is very informative. Hosken and Germaner75 quoted the Forum chairman Zwelie Ndabe who allegedly said75:2:

Since 2016 our pleas to government have been ignored. We are tired of our kids dying from drugs sold by foreigners, South African business employing foreigners, and of foreigners hijacking buildings for human trafficking and prostitution. That’s why we mobilised. We didn’t expect people to be this angry, and the violence disturbs us. But we won’t stop mobilising.

In 2008 the nationwide so-called xenophobic attacks had claimed the lives of 56, to be followed by regular flare-ups of similar incidents. The deaths of foreigners over the period, from 1994 up to 2019, withing the category of “xenophobia (which is disavowed by the ANC regime), reflect that the ANC regime has no strategy and possibly no intention to stop foreign ethnic hate. This apathy about others’ lives must be read together with the delinquent acst of the police force under the ANC regime in the 2012 Marikana massacre which led to the death of 34 Black miners — which lacks any response seven years later of  a single police officer having been prosecuted or that the recommendations of the Farlam commission have been implemented. The presence of hatred for foreigners, from speaking, intentions and actions, hold serious consequences for the more or less 4 million foreigners living in South African.44,75
But the growing anti-foreigner sentiment (seen by many White South Africans as a masked anti-foreign sentiment of them also as so-called “colonists”), is for political analysts a possible sign that the historical Black tribal infighting (and Black genocide) of the 1800s between the Xhosa, the Zulu, the Tswana, etc., might be restarted as the tribal right to land and resources in the increasingly collapsing economy, as well as the dissolution of the South African state (and nation), become a reality.75
On foreigners, specifically so-called “bad persons, thieves”, etc., it is important to reflect the official ANC and ANC associates’ negative characterisation of foreigners, to see how in-depth xenophobia has become rooted in the psyche of South Africans. Here the KwaZulu-Natal House of Traditional Leaders represents a worrying phenomenon regarding ethnicity and foreigners, much in line with Ndabe’s view above. The remarks of the House’s chairperson, Inkosi Phathisizwe Chiliza76, are a classic case of xenophobe when he responds76:5:

Many foreigners did not respect SA traditions. When you get to those levels, they will tell you they are taking our jobs, the problem is they are here in big numbers and they don’t respect our traditions, and that is what needs to be fixed.

Even ANC ministers of the Ramaphosa cabinet were fast to capitalise on the “not fitting” into South Africa of Black foreign nationals (while at the same time involuntarily revealing their own ethnic mindset and inclination to xenophobia). Pelser reports45:6: “Thulas Nxesi, minister van arbeid en werkskepping, sê xenofobiese geweld is als die ‘elitistiese vryemarkstelsel” se skuld, wat buitelanders toelaat om hul arbeid teen minder as die minimum loon te verkoop”,  en45:6: “Ook David Makhura , premier van Gauteng, reik na populisme toe hy sê buitelanders moet verbied word om ‘sekere tipe sakeondernemings’ in townships te bedryf”.
But this false and ethnic categorisation of foreigners as “crooks” did not stop with Nxesi and Makhura’s negativity. The Gauteng ANC’s community safety MEC, Faith Mazibuko77, ventured77:16: “…we can’t govern with criminals, especially foreign nationals who want to turn our country into a lawless banana republic”.
In this context of “separating” Black foreigners from the Black South African society because “they take our people’s jobs and opportunities” — and thus seemingly: “they were killed in the past, are killed at present and can be killed in future”  for “understandable” reasons — Tony Leon77 points out that the ANC regime’s present ministerial viewpoint and guidance may be of the same dangerous ethnic hostility as that of Zwelie Ndabe and Inkosi Phathisizwe77, when he writes77:16: “According to the minister of justice, Ronald Lamola, the government is ‘developing legislation that will bar foreign nationals from operating in certain sectors of the economy’.”
This view of Lamola makes Ramaphosa’s agreement with the Nigerian government of a guaranteed balanced and good treatment of foreigners (Nigerians) in the future null and void. At the same time it is an early warning of the possible advent of the extreme ethnic politics of Robert Mugabe that led to the death of more than 20 000 Black Zimbabweans because they did not fit into his exclusively “Black Zimbabwe”. More than this: it spells out an ethnocentric South African Black-BEE policy which excludes certain other Black persons.78,79,80-82
There seems to be an encircling as well as an intertwining of the definitions xenophobia, crime, violence, which describe in some way the recent so-called “spree” of xenophobia (remember: in terms of the ANC regime’s view there exists the alleged exploitation by Black foreigners of Black South Africans), Hosken83 gives an excellent overview of the whole process as general criminality, based on South Africans’ internalised, ongoing and actively delinquent acts. It is for him a process wherein the presence of foreigners is only used as an excuse or as a distraction from the real reasons: exclusively looting from the easiest and most defenceless group of people, namely foreigners by some South Africans whose own lives have been degraded in only 25 years into a general life of crime under an equally disorderly and crime-orientated regime. Hosken83 in this context sums up the situation well when he writes83:2:

Looters, armed with guns and self-made weapons, stormed through a 2km stretch of Jules Street burning cars, torching buildings, ransacking businesses and terrorising people on Sunday night and throughout the week. In Alexandra, Crosby, Slove Park, Coronationville, KwaThema and Katlehong, looters turned on foreign-owned shops.
For Henry Mathe, who lives in Crosby’s povertry-stricken Slovo Park informal settlement, the looting was justified. “They killed two of us. It was only right that we went to the Somali and Pakistan shops and took what was theirs.
We just wanted them out. We were not burning or stealing their stuff. They were just told to get out because Solve Park does not need foreigners here. We waited until the cops were gone. We took groceries, cold drinks and Red Bulls. We took revenge, not because we were hungry. They provoked us by killing our people”.
Mathe claims that Isaac Sebeka, a South African who was killed in Coronationville, was shot when he was caught looting.

Hosken83 also describes the reaction of the medical doctor Samir Saha83, a Bangladeshi national who has been living in South Africa for 24 years, of which the last 10 was in Johannesburg. He lost all his assets in the recent “foreigner bashing” and had to flee for his life. Saha’s story contradicts totally Ndabe’s perceptions of the delinquent acts of so-called foreigners as always being wrongdoers against local Blacks or to be job-stealers, when he says83:2:

I have never experienced anything like this before. I am a doctor. I don’t run a spaza or a barber shop and even if I did, how would me running such shops rob South Africans of jobs? Saying I steal South Africans’ jobs is madness. In fact it is the opposite. I employ two South Africans, one as a secretary and the other as my medical assistant.

The above various outcomes show that the execution of violence (undoubtedly driven by internalised aggression and hostility in their mindsets, as well as by the immense poverty of some Black South Africans), which had become focussed on foreigners, is now affecting not only the individual innocent foreigner, but also any innocent South African businessman who dares to employ a single foreigner. This tragic outcome is well confirmed by the already mentioned, recent attacks on South African companies’ transport trucks (which led directly to the murder of various foreign drivers) on our highways and other routes which employ foreigners.
Misago75, quoting the senior researcher Jean-Pierre of the Wits Centre for Migration, says South Africa is becoming a pariah state. Hosken and Germaner75 bring into focus the ANC’s failed crime-prevention capability as a regime and allowing uncontrolled crime to develop and to get internalised in a great part of the society’s mindset as a “normal” condition. Secondly, Hosken and Germaner75 show just how dysfunctional the ANC regime is, including the ANC’s ambivalent thinking on the foreigner issue and the regime’s failed intention and capacity to eliminate violence and crime or at least to handle it from day to day. Misago states75:2: “The situation is complicated by the lack of governance and the delayed reaction to violence. Despite repeated warnings of violence, police were seemingly slow to respond”.
In this context of failed police oversight and a descent by the ANC regime into disorder, crime and violence, the potential that the so-called xenophobia may be transformed into anarchy and even as part of the start of a people’s revolution, Misago75 reflects further75:2: “What happens when those attacks shift to universities, medical institutions and international agencies employing migrants? 
Dr Franz Fanon84, a psychiatrist, who also turned political analyst, confronted us for the first time with one of the main reasons for unrest, crime, violence and xenophobia captured in the mindsets and actions of the poor and side-lined people of the slums, the informal settlements and lower socio-economical townships and parts of towns and cities: the utterly cold-blooded abuse and extremely opportunistic exploitation of the poor, mostly by their own race’s leaders (elite). The end result is violent reactions to all of those that seem to be better off than they the poor or who are assumed to be the cause for their chaotic lives. Fanon84 based his experience on the liberation of Algeria from France, specifically on the immediate outer and inner circle around the origin of violence as xenophobia. He shows that it is an international phenomenon which reflects extreme nationalism, driven by political opportunists without caring for the poor or the minority — essentially for anyone besides themselves. Violence against the foreigner is tacitly encouraged by the elite of the ruling party whose only interest is self-enrichment and political power to keep up their human exploitation. He precisely brought for us the story of South Africa’s economic, political and social failure under the extreme, Marxist-Leninist ANC. Moreover, Fanon84 tells us that our country is on the brink of collapse and why: Because of the ANC elite’s exploitation of Black politics by an exclusive but useless Black African nationalism for 25 years.84
This preaching of nationalism by the ANC’s elite was heard clearly around the xenophobia matter wherein the poor Black people’s violent behaviour against the vulnerable foreigners was justified, albeit in a masked manner. The South African mass of poor, absolutely unhappy and dissatisfied with their chaotic lifestyle, cannot take on their oppressor: the ANC’s elite. Here, as happens worldwide where the masses are exploited by their own people, they turn almost immediately their dissent into direct revenge, focussed on the easiest and most available target without fear for mass counter-revenge. Foreigners, migrants and other poor people stand out as targets because they are extremely vulnerable as a result of their isolation from their fatherland, poor political empowerment and a lack of recognition as a local. Only after the process of the elimination of the migrants is completed, will the poor masses turn with much effort to their real exploiters and oppressors. However, it will mostly be too late because of the immense power build-up by the regime to squash any revolt besides allowing chronic unrest and violence by the poor on the poor, and xenophobia. Buccus84, quoting Fanon84, writes as follows84:19:

Xenophobic violence, often tacitly encouraged by elite figures, has become an omnipresent reality.
Because the national elite “is preoccupied with filling its pocket as rapidly as possible…the country sinks all the more deeply into stagnation”. But, as “the people stagnate deplorably in unbearable poverty, slowly they awaken to the unutterable treason of their leaders”.

Fanon’s84 enlightening view of xenophobia as primarily a people’s unrest against the regime and not really the foreigner (which firstly must be read also in the presence of the immense violent crime in the Western Cape and other parts of the country, and secondly as a sign of a revolution from within) is supported in some way by seasoned local political analysts.
Fred Khumalo85, a seasoned journalist and political analyst writes in this context that inside the so-called xenophobia-violence-crime crisis there is far more negative energy to be read: the simple fact is that the country is teetering on the brink of an abyss because of the wrongdoing and failure of the ANC regime as result of its elite’s self-orientation. Removing the so-called (Black) foreigners will not solve the violence. Buccus84 too, points out that the xenophobic violence is the primary reaction of the mass caught up in poverty, which was solely a process activated by the ANC elite’s capturing of the country, its resources and richness for their self-enrichment and -empowerment and upheld through various manipulations. These manipulations include unleashing a false Black-African nationalism and fictitious anti-colonialism, and then, as the government of the ANC elite started to lose their power over the masses, slowly moving into a process of anti-democracy and the capturing and management of the political, social and economic empowerment of the mass of poor. At the end of this process, the poor will become conscious of their betrayal by their opportunistic revolutionary leaders, commencing in 1994 as the “fathers” of the Black nation. Unrest, crime, violence and pertinent xenophobia are the middle-stage behaviour of the poor masses.84,85

3.3.1.4. ANC as a failed regime inside a constitutional state

Many writings75,83-85 are loud and clear that there is such a thing as xenophobia in South Africa and that it can be practised because of some Black South Africans’ hostility against and hatred of foreign nationals. They also tell us that there are crimes as the ubiquitous violence in the country is channelled into xenophobia because of the internalisation over years of criminality in the psyche of some South Africans. The foreigner falls prey because of he/she has poor defence and is thus vulnerable. These writings tell us also that crimes such as xenophobic violence and other violent behaviour are often committed out of jealousy, for self-enrichment and the inability of poor, undeveloped locals to compete with other people who are seemingly successful or are favoured in some way by the socio-economic and political system. Moreover: the writings tell us that most of these crimes are focussed on other citizens as a way of compensation in not being able to directly engage in crimes such as violence, theft, murder, etc., against the ruler of the country who is basically solely responsible for the poor people’s chaotic lives. The present mixing of xenophobia-crime-violence is very much similar to the crime and violence reflected by the Black masses who had risen against Apartheid and its unjust racial, economic, social and personal discrimination which had denied Blacks their citizenship in the country of their birth and which had reduced them to beggars.75,83-85 Today, postulates Khumalo85, the masses are rising again because our current crooked rulers — many of whom were inside the Struggle of the 1970s and 1980s with the now suppressed and poor Blacks — have lost contact with their own past as well as who the masses of poor and landless Blacks really are. These rulers have become drunk on corruption, insensitivity and self-enrichment.75,83-85
At the root of the current social chaos is a failed political system wherein most of the people are not developed, but are left to plan for their own for survival inside a collapsed socio-economic and political system where there is no law and order and where the criminal has become untouchable by the society and the prosecution institutions. We see it well in the Western Cape’s uncontrolled crimes like extreme violence and murder, and the ANC regime’s inability as well as unwillingness to address it since 1994.
The poor are today venting their anger on each other and those less fortunate than themselves, including the foreigners. Xenophobia, like all violence, exists but is mostly part of organised crime and power plays which the mass poor by times cannot control, nor understand. Their way and method of venting their anger were largely acquired and internalised in the 1970s as the only solution to get attention: the burning of buildings, homes and the destruction of essential structures. They mostly got attention and their way from the previously White rulers. These actions are repeated today, although sometimes in other manifestations.85
On the current social conditions, Khumalo85 comments on the unobserved, ignored and neglected grievances of the mass poor and their present hostile reactions to it, in the following way85:15:

People have come to realise that if you want to have a conversation with the authorities, you burn something down.
What has been happening in pockets here and there seems like a replay from the 1980s. Except that the rulers are no longer arrogant white Afrikaners. They are black like the masses who are rising. Which makes it even more palpable.
The masses can’t help but wonder: how can these people, our own people, act like the oppressors of yore, if not even worse?

The warnings in commentaries66,75 of more evil to can come through “national” violence with its origin in poverty and inequality — issues which the ANC have so far left unattended in their 25 years of rule, and which have in reality nothing to do with “genuine” xenophobia and ethnicity — is further brought into the lime-light by Runji66 in emphasising the immense presence of inequality and poverty. The primary reason for this negative outcome is the fight for primary resources such as water, food, accommodation (which has led over ages to many wars in the world). Firstly, there is the prominent fear by the present economic middle class who are living in areas bordering on poor townships and informal settlements (and who themselves have moved up over the past 25 years from the poor lower economic class), to be dragged down again by any socio-economic instability and new competitors. Competition may lead thereto that they lose their assets, privileges and benefits. In this setup, it is true that the competitors from the present lower economic classes are gunning especially for the middle class’s privileges and benefits, while the middle class is doing anything to stop movements endangering their benefits. The outcome is immense hostility and violence. On the other side one finds the ambitions and often successes by the poor lower economic class (people who are mostly unwillingly “locked up” by their unfortunate conditions in poor townships and informal settlements that are thoroughly affected by mostly established “national” violence), leading to a class restructuring inside the poor townships and informal settlements themselves, which in itself causes a constant strife and even fighting for resources, rights, privileges and benefits there. Instead of growth and improvement, because of the lack of government intervention, the direct outcome is mostly the creation of more inequality, greater competition and hostility between the competing groupings in the poor lower class, which turn into daily behaviour tending to do harm to anyone seen as a competitor, regardless of being a local or a foreigner.66,75
The conflict between local poor Blacks from the shanty towns and informal settlements with the better-off middle class of the suburbs, with inequality the pivot, is at present more than a looming phenomenon. Evidence confirms that this hostility has already transformed into open clashes, for instance the clashes in July 2019 between the better-off middle-class homeowners and the neighbouring lower-class shack dwellers in Ennersdale, Lawley and Lenasia, Gauteng, during which four persons were wounded86. Wicks86 described it as an “all-out war brewing”. It is clearly an issue triggered by the financial inequality of the mass of poor, lower-class Blacks making it impossible for them to own land, and this group objecting violently to the rights, privileges and wealth of the middle class.  This outcome is a clear result of the ANC regime’s empty promises to eliminate inequality since 1994 and to better every citizen’s lifestyle. Wicks writes86:5:

The clashes are the latest chapter in SA’s heated land problems. They come after Alexandra township was effectively shut down in June due to similar issues, with residents facing off against “invaders”. Unabated illegal building had seen structures erected on pavements and in people’s gardens.

An established home-owner of Ennersdale, guarding his property, describes the violent conditions (which have also nurtured the so-called xenophobia for some time) very appositely when he says86:5:

I carry this [knobkerrie] when I patrol. I have to because the fight is coming here. The way these people [illegal shack dwellers] are doing things is uncalled-for, but they are doing it because our government has failed.

In this context Gilad Isaacs86 of the National Minimum Wage Research Initiative at Wits University says the problem is the state’s housing policy86:5: “Forceful occupation is no-one’s first choice, and we have to ask why there is vacant land owned by the provincial government in the first place.”
Runji66 comments on the country’s immense social inequality and the enormous insecurity present in the middle class — “cancerous metastasis” — which have been left untreated for 25 years by the present-day government and is boiling and exploding in various crimes, as for instance violence, xenophobia, etc. She writes66:13:

SA is not a nation at peace with itself. And that peace has been difficult to forge because the rights to life, dignity and liberty that are enshrined in the constitution have failed to find practical expression in the daily experience of millions across the country.
The reality is that many of those who have benefited from the opportunities of social mobility in the last 25 years, who form part of the new middle class, are precarious.
Their economic position hinges on them retaining their employment. As such they are a few pay checks away from falling of that prized middle class rung of the ladder.
They don’t only carry themselves and their picture-perfect families but they provide the remittances which many other relatives rely on to survive — the so-called black tax.

Misago75 traces all these different forms of serious crimes such as violence and specifically the so-called xenophobic attacks, to three origins (which are fully in line with the origins of the deadly violence in the Western Cape). He writes75:2: “Government must act before it’s too late. Government must target the root causes, which are unemployment and poverty”.
Specifically on the  presence of unemployment and poverty, which often serve as primary stimulants in doing violence and attacking other people’s lifestyles and possessions, and which unfortunately also engulf foreigners living in these areas, making them falsely troubled xenophobic areas, Pheto87 gives us in-depth insight when she argues that the unrest-troubled Alexandra has among the highest unemployment rates in the Gauteng province with between 4 979 and 8 758 jobless people per square kilometre.
Misago’s75 view of the incompetent ANC regime’s failed role in putting an end to the violence is supported by Alan Mukoki88, the CEO of the South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Sacci).  He prominently blames88:7: “…a lawless environment in which people feel they can do what they like with impunity. The government needs to show that it is serious about law and order”.
Barron88 conveys Mukoki’s88 counter-description of the so-called exclusively “South African xenophobia” when he writes that Mukoki88 is of the opinion that the vast majority of South Africans are not xenophobic and that a few hundred people, engaging in racial and ethnic delinquencies, undoubtedly do not represent 60 million good people. The opinion of Mukoki88 is clearly that it is misleading and dangerous to label the present-day violent outbreaks as xenophobia, but that it is rooted in the results of a failed ANC regime. Barron88 reflects Mukoki’s88 words as follows88:7:

We cannot afford to politicise crime, to say that when people are committing crime they’re xenophobic. Deal with it as crime. When people steal goods and burn property it is crime. Xenophobia is used as a cover to commit crime.
For trust and confidence in SA to be restored, the government needs to demonstrate that it has the capacity and the will to take decisive action to contain violent outbreaks “before they get completely out of control”.
To have any hope of restoring the trust that is vital to investment, business people need a very clear plan from government about what it intends to do to deal with this issue in a way that is decisive.
The best answer to so-called xenophobia…is the “enforcement of existing laws, proper policies, proper leadership, proper values, proper service delivery”.

Ron Derby89 is looking from another angle at the unwelcome current hostility and violence aimed at foreigners (as well as South Africans on South Africans which forms the overwhelming violence in the country) by also putting the ANC regime, together with the various pre-1994 White regimes, in the accused box regarding such violence. Most of the violence now associated with the bad behaviour of foreigners, represents for him the negative outcomes of poor Black townships, the joblessness and poverty there, as well as the isolation from the greater economy of these people, whereby poor, destitute foreigners (fleeing sometimes much more chaos at home) are also forced to survive in an unfavourable living environment. Notwithstanding that these foreigners are forced to survive under equally poor local conditions (sometimes worse) as the local poor Blacks in the making of a living, their adaptable, practical styles of surviving (like doing various forms of trade) are often seen as faults by the locals, even as exploitation of the locals. Many of the politicians and policy-makers inside present South African politics show ignorance of the deeper drivers of violence, crime and thus the so-called xenophobia to which they have personally contributed through their poor governance.89 Derby writes89:9:

We’ve been exposed to some terrible economic planning [which led surely to poor townships, contaminated by joblessness and poverty], and it goes back to land legislation passed more than a century ago and apartheid laws a few decades later, and through the unintended consequences of the many plans for SA post 1994.
Amid this, we have a flood of migrants trying to make a living without the support of our government or their own.
Those of them who are merchants have priced their goods at levels so low that the Shoprites won’t try to match them, operating on margins so narrow that few average South African families would try to survive on them.
In this frustrating low-growth economic environment, immigrants are the easiest targets to blame for everything, from taking jobs to violence and crime.

At the centre of the ongoing violent outburst, Dr Kenosi Mosalakae90 reminds us, is the ANC’s inbred culture of revolutionary politics, wherein the obstruction of order is central and wherein every one of the present-day ANC top leaders had participated en masse in making the pre-1994 functioning systems ungovernable. This has led to an immense outlet of delinquent energy which is still steering the ANC clan on a daily basis in most of their actions. Mosalakae states90:14: “We are where we are because we have never forgotten to ‘render the country ungovernable’, we continue to do so whenever we have a grievance”.
The above established revolutionary culture of the ANC, inbred in its post-1980s members and constantly internalised in its post-1994 generation’s mindsets, has led thereto that lawlessness has almost become the norm, writes Mthombothi91. According to him91:25:

No demonstration or protest seems complete without a spate of violence or looting. There’s a bonfire somewhere every day of the week with the people protesting about one thing or the other. It started with unions trashing towns and cities during labour strikes. The government looked the other way because they were its allies. The students burnt books and buildings, including libraries, and were hailed as latter-day revolutionaries.

Looking critically at the various ANC regimes’ unwillingness and inability to stop and to eliminate prominent mass murdering since 1994, for instance in the Western Cape, and their lack of concern for the murders there (with a massive upswing the last five years or so), it seems wishful thinking to believe that the present Ramaphosa regime is going to do anything constructive to the present crime spree of violence;  it does not matter if it is called xenophobia or plain criminality. The deaths of fewer than 20 people in the context of so-called xenophobia in Gauteng this year are just too insignificant for the ANC mindset: the thousands of deaths by murder on the Cape Flats were seemingly not a real issue, until three months ago, so why really about a few more, newer murders?66,88,89
The ANC since 1994 has been “flying blind” when it came to assuring good governance, basically because its leadership is contaminated with the crooked mentality of revolutionary politics. Ramaphosa’s present actions to “make up” for instance to Nigeria about its citizens’ poor treatment here, will again be limited to the doing of talking but lacking the walking as the surge of conflict between foreign nationals and the SAPS in Cape Town at the end of October 2019 confirms. Criminality has overwhelmed the ANC’s top leadership, as the state capture and their many tainted members in the Parliament reflect. As leaders they are unable to be rehabilitated: they are blind to social disorder, especially inequality in wealth, social and personal status, such as that of the poor caught in the chaos of informal settlements and townships. Here the immense chaos is not limited to one specific informal settlement and township, but extend to the many around the country. The question may be asked with good reason if the ANC regime understands what is really going on in the townships where the poor are mostly forcefully channelled into an unstable and conflicting society. Comparing these problematic informal settlements and townships’ residents’ behaviour with that of residents in middle-class residenatial areas who are mostly stable and happy, the inequalities in wealth and class status reveal a stark picture which is a recipe for violence.66,68,69
Runji66 gives us an insight into the indecisiveness of the Ramaphosa regime when it comes to doing something constructive to mitigate inequality and to defuse violence. Runji postulates66:13:

Research shows that unequal societies tend to be the most violent. Therefore, what will Ramaphosa do to get SA closer to be a nation at peace with itself. He should apply his mind and provide definitive responses to these questions.

The first 100 days of a leader in office is the sole guide to give an indication of what the legacy of his five years in office will be. Looking at the comprehensive criticism of what has gone wrong in these 100 days, the indicator classes Ramaphosa as a failed leader.66,88,89
An intimate view of the life of most of the many people in the informal settlements and neglected townships are given by three testimonies. In the first of the testimonies, under the title: “Top dogs need to feel pain of poor”, the author93 writes93:13:

Millions of my compatriots live in squalid and unsanitary conditions, without electricity, running water and toilets.
So the time has come for a united front made up of the President Cyril Ramaphosa, Mmusi Maimane …and Julius Malema to hold court with the poorest of the poor and feel the pain, the suffering, the hunger pangs, the joblessness.
But, most of all, to feel what it is like to rise from your slumber, and use a “long drop” for relief – 200m away from your shack.
It will be tough to leave their luxurious surroundings, but such a night will re-programme their moral compass.

The second author94 writes94:18:

In this morass, Ramaphsa and his mavens think it is possible for society to gravitate towards a social compact. When people are living with raw sewage flowing down their streets, digging in rubbish bins for food and getting arrested in a police dragnet because they ‘smell Ethiopian’, it is quite difficult to embrace fanciful ideas of nationhood.

The third author95, under the title: “President Ramaphosa is living in dream land”, concludes as follows95:13:

A new day and another addition from the wish list of Cyril Ramaphosa who made a request which turned out to be similar to his “I have a dream of future cities on the clouds and bullet trains”.
Now the president encourages the public “to use public transport to foster social cohesion”.
Has he ever tried to take a ride on public transport? Oh yes, he did once and a 20 minutes ride took him three hours as there was a breakdown and he was fuming.
Has he taken the Metrobus service that only operates between strikes or taken a ride on one of the overloaded killing machines called minibus taxis? Of course not.
It seems he still didn’t learn a lesson and so he dreams and pontificates.
Has he considered as well the crime and thieving and killings on some of the modes of our transport? Definitely not.
That’s why it’s a bit rich coming from him.
Which planet do he and the rest of the clowns in his government come from when they endanger everyone’s lives with their blue light convoys which are screaming through our roads, but encourage everyone else to take public transport?

The fact that the ANC regime over 25 years failed to understand, to respect and to rectify the poor people’s circumstances, is the basis of not only of gangsterism and murder, but also xenophobia. Inequality in its broadest context, notwithstanding the consequences, must first be addressed as it was required to be addressed correctly over the last 25 years. The EFF MP Yoliswa Yako96, reflecting her own negative experience — varying from hope and excitement in 1994 to disappointment and despair in 2019 on the failed 1994 democracy and the comprehensive negative outcomes — tells us of the ongoing, devastating inequality and its many injustices which are gobbling up the South African nation, when she writes96:13:

I was a jovial 11-year-old in 1994. I have fond memories of how my mother proudly spoke of new hope, that everyone would own decent houses and how their children would go to any school of their choice.
She said working conditions would be incredibly better and opportunities would be afforded to all, in particular the previously disadvantage, without racial prejudice.
But all this excitement quickly turned into disdain as I watched my mother continue to toil like before. She continued to work as hard while our lives remained the same. Not much chanced and I grew up and I realised that this new democracy did not deliver on all its promises.

The ANC top leaders in the persons of Cyril Ramaphosa and Ace Magashule are too engaged in their own fighting over power within the present South African regime, making them disconnected with reality and in constant flight from taking responsibility for the massive wrongdoing perpetrated by the ANC since 1994 in the country. Munusamy54 illustrated this well by pointing out the failure of the two to meet the press together in person at Luthuli House (the ANC headquarters in Johannesburg) on 10 September to brief them on the current state of affairs in the country regarding unrest, gangsterism and undoubtedly the economy. The fact is that the two would have had to face a barrage of deep-cutting questions from journalists that would probably not only have exposed their failed leadership, but their lack of response to the multiple crises on their watch. On the present so-called xenophobia, gender and other kinds of violence, Munusamy54 writes that Magashule timidly  took the lead above Ramaphosa alone at the meeting, but  side-stepped his responsibility to the nation (and that of Ramaphosa and the ANC) as the ANC’s secretary general, by simply issuing a statement calling on government’s justice, peace and security cluster54:11: “…to establish the immediate causes of the violence and to identify those involved in fuelling it”. This statement, as expected, was of course never respected.
Of the immense gangsters’ threat to South Africa’s political setup, together with other forms of organised crime, the Deputy State Security Minister, Zizi Kodwa97, said recently that it indeed poses a danger to the legitimacy and stability of the South African state, reported The Citizen97 on 19 July 2019. The acting director general of state security of the ANC regime, Loyiso Jafta97, concurred, saying that there were already signs of erosion of the state by entrenched gangsterism [referring to additional crime, outside the crimes of state capture]. The Citizen of 19 July 2019 reports that Jafta97 stated97:6:

The truth is, and we have already seen elements of this, it does displace the formal structures of the state and once it happens, those who are benefitting, like getting healthcare, education, etc, will have a diminished view of the state, but those who are standing outside of it will also see a very, very weak state and therefore the legitimacy and the integrity of the state will severely subtracted from.
But further to that, if you allow it to mature then it starts corrupting law enforcement authorities, it starts corrupting the judiciary, it start s corrupting the legislature and before you know it, you have a complete narcoleptic state and once that happens it is very, very difficult to reverse the effects of that.

The presence of gangsterism, corruption, theft, state capture, murder and immense wrongdoing inside the South African state go deeper than only the endangering of the legitimacy and the stability of the South African state: it represents a symbol of how the political leadership in the country is wholly ineffectual and disconnected from reality, writes Munusamy54.  This results in a bad economy and a totally insecure citizenship ready to riot, with serious consequences already on view. Munusamy posits54:11: “The state of the economy creates the sense that life in our country is a constant fight for survival and that we are at war with each other”. 
Supporting Munusamy’s54 postulation, Dr Saths Cooper54, president of the International Union for Psychological Science and previously a prominent Anti-Apartheid activist, states that the country’s people are54:11: …“living in a state of psychic emergency and the presence of a sense of ‘deep insecurity’ stemming from the demise of law and order”. Referring to the flaming-up of violence in the middle of July to 16 September period of 2019, especially gender and xenophobic violence, he states54:11:

I don’t think the leadership [ANC] fully appreciates where we are right now. The past two weeks have been the worst psychological moment the country has experienced post-democracy. It is really a new low.
People are living with conditions of imminent emergency, crisis and fear. It is an all-pervasive fear. People are afraid to go out and common spaces are deemed to be unsafe.

Munusamy54, quoting Cooper’s standpoint, writes that for Cooper54 the underlying problem is deep public distrust of officials, either elected or appointed. In this context, she writes54:11:

People have lost confidence in those in positions of authority and we do not have the calibre of leadership to rally the nation; and: : “It is unclear what it would take for government and the ANC to realise that SA is at war with itself and the rest of the continent. While the ANC is hoping that a government that is ‘in touch’ and ‘responsive’ conjures itself out of thin air, people continue to lose confidence and feel under siege.

The economist Thabi Leoka54 is of the opinion that the present chaos in the country, especially the devastating violence, can be laid before the door of the government’s inaction to govern appropriately and effectively. She writes54:11: “The violence is how the poor is responding to the failure of leadership. That is the essence of what is happening”. Leoka54 describes this failed ANC leadership as follows54:11: “The lack of leadership appears almost as if this [the xenophobic attacks] is encouraged by SA’s politicians”.
On the failed ANC regime and the empty utterances and promises of its leader Cyril Ramaphosa who has a bag full of goodies for every South African post-2019, Munusamy50 postulates50:20:

Still, his [Ramaphosa] words and those of other party leaders failed to provide solace and direction. We are beyond the point of promises to fix the bureaucracy.
In a week of turmoil and despair, it was apparent more than ever that our country is surely in need of leadership and change but that it could not come from the president.
Ramaphosa does not seem to have the mettle to lead the way in a time of deep crisis. He does not have a team around him that can read the room, and is therefore constantly on the back foot and fighting fires. The government has no money and does not implement the measures he announces.

On the high level of crime in present-day South Africa there is much warning in the words of Gareth Newham55 of ISS regarding the presence of an incurable crime culture when he writes55:3: “South Africa’s high level of violence is rooted in its violent past and continues across generations”.
Indeed, South Africa seems to be lawless, leaderless and spiralling into the Armageddon of a failed state, notwithstanding that Ramaphosa is president and the ANC in government. The hungers of violence and crime are insatiable; they are busy gobbling up South Africa.

4. Conclusions

There are no signs that the pre-May 2019 election promises of Cyril Ramaphosa and his ANC regime have so far in any way been realised. The many ills of South Africa have still not been healed and there are even more ills. The economy is still in a dire state, while the ANC’s politics is indecisive. The country can indeed be described as being in a state of disparity and despondency. The presence of the Chávez-Madura-elite is also palpable here and the feeling of another Venezuela in the making, may be true.
Our law-enforcement institutions are in disrepair; they just do not have the ability and keenness to combat violence and crime.
Crime, as well as prominent violence in various forms, is well anchored in the South African culture. It is not new, but a phenomenon traceable to pre-1994. The 1994 New Dispensation, with its assumed and preached democracy, peace and justice for everyone, was supposed to erase it, but the internalised revolutionary mentality to destroy within the ANC seems to have aggravated the situation, creating more violence and crime.
The present-day South Africa as a failed constitutional state, masterly captured inside a culture of extreme violence and crime by the Marxist-Leninist ANC, is well summed up by Saunderson-Meyer41 when he writes41:12:

There is virtually not an international comparator that SA has not sagged against. There is not a moral or ethical standard that we have not betrayed. The country is literally grinding to a halt.

In full support of Saunderson-Meyer’s41 opinion Scott98:13 states:

The more one looks at the ANC, the more one can come to no other conclusion than that the only purpose it has is to complete the destruction of the country it claims to love. Everything it touches is destroyed.

South Africa is, as Myburgh claims in his book, a gangster state.5
Within the ganster state, there flickers the vague red light of a planned political-military coup in the making. The fact that the ANC has been ruling undemocratically with only 28% of the eligible voters on its side, reflecting that it is losing power and may lose the next national election, makes its agenda very dangerous. Political unrest, anarchy, but especially revolution, may be seen as the ideal opportunity for the Magashule-Mabuza-Zuma clan to interfere and intervene, and thus to grab the daily government under the pretext of restoring political order and the ANC’s policy of Marxism-Leninism.99-102
To terminate violence and crime, more is asked than just the reform of the ANC as a regime. It would need a total obliteration of the ANC from the country’s politics. To hang on to the ANC as a regime and to try to reform the party will only aggravate further our already uncontrolled violence and crime: Its Marxist-Leninist intentions will put the country on fire. The warning of Majoko103 is clear and precise103:12:  

Political expediency is bad for the overall health of the republic. No matter how badly one wants to deal with a festering wound, amputation of the whole appendage because it’s quicker only creates a bigger long-term problem.

Post-2019 spells chaos for South Africans if the ANC stays in power. Justice Edwin Cameron104 gives the ordinary citizen a warning when he says104:12: “Tough times lie ahead for those who are committed to democracy, governance under law and to social justice for all people in our country — not the enrichment of the inside elite.”
In the next (Article 14), entitled: “Critical evaluation of the three main political parties’ capability to steer successful land expropriation in post-2019 South Africa: Part 3-The ANC in perspective (14: Accountability)”, the ability of the ANC to take care of the land expropriation matter in terms of its mandate as ruler it received from the 8 May 2019 election, will be further evaluated.

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PEER REVIEW
Not commissioned; External peer-reviewed.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The author declares that he has no competing interest.
FUNDING
The research was funded by the Focus Area Social Transformation, Faculty of Humanities, Potchefstroom Campus, North-West University, South Africa.
UNSUITABLE TERMS AND INAPPROPRIATE WORDS
Please note that I, the author, is aware that the words Creole, Bantu, Kaffir, Native, Hottentots and Bushman are no longer suitable terms and are inappropriate (even criminal) for use in general speech and writing in South Africa (Even the words non-White and White are becoming controversial in the South African context). The terms do appear in dated documents and are used or translated as such in this article for the sake of historical accuracy. Their use is unavoidable within this context. It is important to retain their use in this article to reflect the racist thought, speech and writings of as recently as sixty years ago. These names form part of a collection of degrading names commonly used in historical writings during the heyday of apartheid and the British imperial time. In reflecting on the leaders and regimes of the past, it is important to foreground the racism, dehumanization and distancing involved by showing the language used to suppress and oppress. It also helps us to place leaders and their sentiments on a continuum of racism. These negative names do not represent my views and I distance myself from the use of such language for speaking and writing. In my other research on the South African populations and political history, I use Blacks, Whites, Xhosa, Zulu, Afrikaners, Coloureds, KhoiSan (Bushmen), KhoiKhoi (Hottentots) and Boers as applicable historically descriptive names