3 posts tagged “robbery”
South Africans have long known that crime in our country is out of control. Corruption and fraud are all around us, and every day there are numerous murders, rapes, robberies, burglaries, thefts, car hi-jackings and so on.
So it should not come as a surprise that Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change, and two MDC officials were robbed in Johannesburg.
According to the police, "The robbers stole the three men's bags, laptops, cellphones and an undisclosed amount of Zimbabwe dollars."
Now hold on a minute. Bags can be sold, laptops can be sold, and cellphones can be sold. Understandable. But Zimbabwe dollars?
The Zimbabwe dollar is so worthless that people don't even want it in Zimbabwe itself. That's why there is such a large black market for US dollars and South African rands in that country. The exchange rate is 30 000 Zimbabwe dollars to 1 US dollar, or 3 892 Zimbabwe dollars to the South African rand.
These robbers probably would not even be able to give that money away.
The case number we were allocated following the burglary shows how serious the degree of crime is in South Africa. Our case number means that our local police station had recorded more than 500 incidents in the first 12 days of this month.
Extrapolate that to the end of the month and it means more than 1 000 in a month. And that's only one police station! If that is an average across all police stations in the country, the implications are frightening.
A detective who came with the fingerprint people on Friday told me that it seems his life is spent on burglary and robbery. His parting comment: "The death penalty - they need to bring it back." For me, that's confirmation that the police cannot cope.
A South African diplomat has been given 28 days to leave Britain after his sons allegedly committed crimes there.
One son is reported to have taken part in an armed robbery two years ago, when a boy was forced at knifepoint to hand over a music player. Another, 12 years old, was arrested last year when he took a toy gun to school.
OK, perhaps the toy gun thing was an overreaction, but given the northern hemisphere's obsession with terrorism at the moment, it is understandable. But there is no excuse for armed robbery.
But that's not the real issue. The real issue is the diplomat's attitude.
In an interview with Afrikaans-language newspaper Beeld, the unnamed diplomat commented on his children's activities by saying: "Children will be children. They merely did things teenagers do."
I don't recall robbing someone at knifepoint as a teenager. Do you?
And if I had done something like that, I don't for one minute believe my parents would have shrugged and said: "Children will be children."
Read the full story here.
