Police Brutality

Nowadays police brutality has become a daily bread, especially in the informal settlements. Whether you are a male or a female to the police it’s the same. I don’t know where did the police bury their conscience.

A time ago when you see the police van you felt that you are now safe, but now things have changed. In the Kennedy Road informal settlement they come when ever they want. They go door to door searching men, beating them without reason, making them to do ‘push ups’.

On the 19th March 2005 we were having a big march against our councillor. The police where there to play their role. They chased us with their vans and grabbed 14 comrades including 2 teenagers still schooling and pregnant woman. They took them to the police station and beat them. One of the teenagers they let the dog loose to bite her in the leg. That was abusive. Once again, above all that, they sent them to Westville prison. They were in that place for ten days. But ‘Our 14 Heroes’ won their case.

On 14 November 2005, we had a march from Foreman Road to the City Manager Mike Sutcliffe and the Mayor Obed Mlaba. Again the police come to show how brave they are when it comes to dealing with the poor. In that march I was in the front.

The police asked us to wait and we waited. They said they wanted to talk to our leaders. By the time we waited, we were singing our mzabalazo songs. Suddenly the police they took out their shields and guns and started to fight us – not fighting with us because we were defenceless. We didn’t fight them, they were only fighting us. I tried to run but one of the police pushed me and I fell on my knees. I tried to get up but he hit me very hard on the back of the head with something I didn’t see. I fell hard on my face on to the road and lost my front teeth.

They took us to the police station with other comrades while we were injured, just like that. Later they released us because they were done with us. We tried to open a case, but we were ignored, cause we are nothing to them.

Today when ever I see the police van I see no safety but enemies of the poor, bullies who do not have a conscience. The government is doing nothing about the police brutality in this country. If he can’t (or won’t) control the police as his own children then how can he meet the needs of the poor if he can’t even defend them, if he can’t even punish those cruel police? That’s why I see no freedom for us poor people, I see no justice, no equal rights but only oppression for us. This must end.

All the poor people must unite and fight back in a strategic way. We are not “punching bags” to be beaten by those downpressors. People united will never be defeated.

*System Cele is 26. She lives in the Kennedy Road settlement. She was a co-editor of the ‘Hear Our Cries Pamphlet’ which contains letters to the Mayor and the President from children living in Kennedy Road. She has been an uMhlali from the very beginning. She is now unemployed but at the time of the March 2005 road blockade she was working night shift as a cleaner at the Sugar Mill Casino. She says that the cameras in the casino are always watching the cleaners – making sure that they don’t steal, that they don’t talk to the gamblers, that they don’t dance a little bit if a song they like comes on. That morning she came straight from work under the camera to block the road with burning tyres – the action that lead to the formation of a movement with members from almost 40 settlements.