Crime prevention and policing have been highly politicised in South Africa. This is largely because societies in transition from authoritarian to democratic rule often focus on establishing a moral foundation for the justice system inherited from the old order. The greatest challenge for the government now is dealing with competing discourses of popular justice that developed and gained legitimacy during the apartheid era. These include people’s courts, traditional authorities, and other forms of community-based anti-crime initiatives.

Vigilantism is one such form of popular justice in South Africa, as people seek alternative forms of recourse in the light of the perceived failure by government to protect its citizens against rising levels of crime. This article focuses on the state’s response to this phenomenon. Despite the fact that vigilante rhetoric bears violent results, and has the backing of a diverse range of people, government’s response to it has been at best ambivalent and, at worst, seems to embrace it. In the main, vigilante acts in South Africa share the following traits:

They are carried out in public.



The threat of violence and the actual violence is pervasive.



They generate fear and control through repression.



They are based on a model of instant, retributive justice and go against the rehabilitative method of due process as espoused by the South African criminal justice system.



They arise from a variety of causes such as the inefficiency of the criminal justice system.

Response to Mapogo

When People Against Gangsterism and Drugs (Pagad) was established in the Western Cape in 1995 it was embraced by the leadership of the Departments of Safety and Security and Justice as a positive crime-busting initiative. This was also the case with Mapogo a Mathamaga in the Northern Province. These two vigilante groups are the biggest in South Africa. However, both groups were later condemned by government for their unlawful activities and for terrorising the very communities they purported to protect against crime. But beyond these criticisms there has not been a coherent approach on the part of government to deal with vigilantism. There have been a few efforts but these did not do much to reduce the growth of this activity.

In an attempt to ameliorate the activities of Mapogo in the Northern Province the Department of Safety and Security formed a Mapogo Special Investigating Unit. This unit was intended to focus exclusively on cases that were reported against Mapogo. Table 1 below indicates the number of criminal investigations, arrests and court cases (and the outcome of these court cases) against Mapogo investigated by this unit.

To date there have been 118 criminal investigations launched against more than 600 Mapogo members. The criminal justice system is struggling to deal effectively with the illegal actions of the group. Investigations take too long and witness protection services are not utilised, resulting in witnesses often being reluctant to testify for fear of reprisals. Complainants are often not informed about the progress of their cases.

In the most high profile case to date, outspoken Mapogo leader John Magolego and 11 other members of Mapogo were cleared of murder and assault charges partly because witnesses were too frightened to testify against them. The fact that thus far there have only been 14 convictions against Mapogo members illustrates the difficulties in addressing vigilante activity.

This prompted the National Prosecuting Authority to declare its intentions to conduct a comprehensive probe of the group. In November 2000 the Northern Province’s most senior prosecutor, Dr Silas Ramatle, announced that his office would be setting up a special task team to tackle the hundreds of unresolved cases pending against Mapogo. To date, the progress of this investigation has not been made publicly known.

As an organisation, Mapogo has hardly been affected by these law enforcement efforts. Mapogo (perhaps unlike Pagad) has grown in leaps and bounds and today boasts a membership of over 40000 people. Much to the chagrin of some government officials Mapogo Security Company has in fact been guarding some government properties.

Response to Pagad

As in the case of Mapogo, government changed its attitude towards Pagad as the organisation evolved from a popular movement into an urban terror organisation. However, government’s underlying strategic approach to the problems of gangsterism and drugs remained unchanged — and hence these problems continue in the Western Cape.

Government’s approach to dealing with Pagad has however not been very different from the strategies employed during apartheid to deal with subversion. Some senior security personnel have proclaimed Pagad as a front for Muslim fundamentalism, in much the same way as the organs of the apartheid state portrayed the ANC as a puppet of international communism.

In addition, there have also been divisions within the state on how best to deal with Pagad, for example between investigators and intelligence operatives. The latter emphasise the assessment and minimisation of risk, while investigators seek the apprehension, conviction and punishment of guilty parties. Intelligence wants to anticipate and prevent crime; the investigator responds to cases that have already happened. These differences tend to produce mutually incompatible methods of operation.

As if all these internal contradictions were not enough, the state established yet another specialised unit to deal specifically with Pagad. Some of the cases laid against Pagad are dealt with by the Crime Against the State Unit, as well as by the Scorpions from the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA). The Pagad unit was unable to make any meaningful progress with its investigations and was in fact disbanded before it was fully functional.

Need for a strategy

What is lacking is some central co-ordination of these disjointed efforts. Although a wide range of security and justice agencies were involved in anti-Pagad efforts, such as Operation Good Hope, it is unclear whether these joint efforts have always been effective. Since Operation Good Hope the security situation in the Western Cape has stabilised and the Pagad leadership has been forced into inactivity. However, once the security forces scale down their activities, Pagad’s criminal action could resume. Available statistics indicate that few people have been convicted of Pagad-related crimes. Between 1996 and 1997 there were 296 recorded cases against Pagad and 153 arrests made. By October 2000 14 were acquitted and only 16 were convicted.

Providing a coordinated response has also been made difficult by other factors, such as limited resources and the challenges of policing in a democratic South Africa.

The problem is that the police often know what not to do, but are unsure of exactly what constitutes legal police action that is in line with the rights enshrined in the Bill of Rights. This is not made any easier by some of the messages communicated by political leaders about crime fighting. These often contradict the human rights emphasis of the constitution and legitimise violence as a form of resolving disputes. These messages are reflected in words of aggression such as a 1999 Sunday Times article with the headline ‘Tshwete threatening to unleash a bulldog and Maduna chastising a lazy judiciary’.

Traggy Maepa
Institute for Security Studies

Source documents:

Antina von Schnitzler, Traggy Maepa et al (2001): Guardian or Gangster? Mapogo A Mathamaga case study. Violence in Transition Series Vol. 3, CSVR

Bill Dixon and Lisa Marie Johns (2001): Gangs, Pagad & the State: Vigilantism and revenge violence in the Western Cape. Violence in Transition Series Vol. 2, CSVR

Bronwyn Harris (2001): Vigilante violence during South Africa’s period of transition. Violence in Transition Series, Vol.1, CSVR