Keith Blake, Ottery
This is an open letter to all my fellow brothers and sisters of the Western Cape who are crying out almost to the point of begging the national ministers of police and defence to unleash the mighty arm of the SA National Defence Force to support the hands of the police and other law enforcement agencies to combat the scourge of gangsterism.
I noted with interest how the powers that be in the Western Cape use political rallies to try and get the ruling party to get the army to assist SAPS in the Western Cape.
Now looking at the political agendas of our political parties and the looming of our next general election in 2019 then it is the worst strategy to make a political demand on the ruling party in opposition colours. If you apply the reasonable political point scoring vote seeking criteria then that political community demands will get a negative answer as has now recently been the case.
The strategy one and all must use in the call for the army to assist must be done in a people-orientated manner and not in a political manner.
The following strategy must really be considered by the people of the Western Cape. The community leaders and all who are affected by gangsterism must put away all the political identities
and their political emblems and political uniforms and as *
eople of the Western Cape, united by a common goal, ask the SAPS for the statistical numbers of citizens killed due to gangsterism.
Residents can then do what the SAPS did a few years ago to drive home the total amount of police officers killed. They went to a stadium and the number of police officers killed were represented by the same amount of police officers lying on the field and then one realised how many were killed and the numbers became a physical reality.
The community leaders should do this and invite the relevant ministers to see why the police needs the army as a backup.
At that same display, all affected people, not politicians, must relate what effect gangsterism has on the economy, freedom of religion and the communities in their daily lives.
This is then a people’s platform and not a political stage to change the mind-set of Minister Bheki Cele, our Minister of Police.