TOP STORY: IN THE WAKE OF APARTHEID: After the bloodshed, former South Africa enemies walk side by s

c. 1996 Religion News Service TOKOZA TOWNSHIP, South Africa (RNS)-Not long ago Wiseman Ndbele and Albert Mogaila came to Kumalo Street, in the center of this sprawling township east of Johannesburg, for only one reason: to try to kill each other. In the five years leading up to the country’s first multi-racial election in 1994, […]

c. 1996 Religion News Service

TOKOZA TOWNSHIP, South Africa (RNS)-Not long ago Wiseman Ndbele and Albert Mogaila came to Kumalo Street, in the center of this sprawling township east of Johannesburg, for only one reason: to try to kill each other.

In the five years leading up to the country’s first multi-racial election in 1994, these two men and thousands of others made this street the scene of some of the most vicious political violence this blood-soaked country has ever witnessed. Through their efforts, fighting in Tokoza and neighboring townships reached civil-war proportions. Police lost control of the situation and after a time could not even gain access to the area.


At the root of the problem was fighting between two groups, made up of thousands of militant unemployed youth, that broke down roughly along ethnic lines. One, the so-called Self Protection Units (SPUs), aligned themselves with the Zulu-based Inkata Freedom Party. The other group, the Self Defense Units (SDUs), made up mainly of Xhosa-speaking peoples, were loyal to Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress.

Today Ndbele, 29, a former SPU commander, and Mogaila, 27, an SDU member, stroll side by side along a quiet Kumalo Street, while sparse traffic darts by. Along the side of the divided road, owners of burned-out and damaged homes slowly rebuild, while a scattering of small shopkeepers do a brisk business.

The new peace in Tokoza and neighboring townships is owed to a program that dismantled the SPUs and SDUs by incorporating them into the mainstream. The effort, led by the Central Methodist Mission of Johannesburg, succeeded in finding jobs not only for Ndbele and Mogaila-who help run a community newspaper with 30 other former unit members-but for many of the most powerful unit leaders, who are employed with area commercial security firms. Younger members of the units have been sent for training in carpentry and brick-laying.

But the program that has made the greatest impact on the community was one initially dismissed by most here as ludicrous: to integrate unit members into the South African police. In other words, to make the perpetrators of crime and violence the forces of law and order.

Today 960 former SPU and SDU members patrol Tokoza and the adjoining townships of Katlehong and Vosloorus, collectively known as Kathorus, with an estimated population of 1.5 million. Although the members, known as Community Constables, receive lower pay than do the regular police and are not entitled to the same benefits, they do make arrests, carry officially issued sidearms, and have all other police powers. “For five years we were stagnant in Tokoza,”said Capt. Godfried Makhaya, second in command of Tokoza’s main police station.”Now things are pretty much under control but it is only because of this program. We simply don’t have the manpower to operate here without them,”he said.

Donald Nxusani, 21, a former SDU member who was on the forefront of the fighting but is now a community constable, said,”Without us the police would never be able to get into Tokoza. The people here don’t trust the police but they do trust us. We get the job done and we keep the peace. “We used to fight each other,”added Nxusani, a Xhosa (pronounced”kosa,”a member of the Bantu people).”Now we work with each other, working for the good of Tokoza.” One of his new colleagues is Victoria Mbatha, a 25-year-old former member of an Inkata Freedom Party-aligned SPU unit in Tokoza. Moving from the province of KwaZulu-Natal, Mbatha-a Zulu (another Bantu people)-found she was in dangerous territory and quickly joined an SPU for protection.

To Mbatha the constable program means a future for her but more importantly a return to normalcy in the township.”This program is working,”she said.”Now at last we can afford to sit down with each other and get something done. It just shows you what we can accomplish if we cooperate.” The church’s overall program in the area did not take long to show results.


Since 1994 Kathorus has seen a significant drop in crime. Reported murders were averaging 140 per month in 1993, but after the introduction of the program in 1994, murders fell to 23 a month in 1995. Similarly, the number of armed robberies fell from 197 a month in 1993 to 97 a month in 1995.

The model of the Kathorus program could be of particular importance to the government in its attempts to bring peace to the violence-strewn province of KwaZulu-Natal, an Inkata Freedom Party stronghold. No less than 14,000 people have died there in the past 10 years as a result of political violence, and the province has continued to claim victims in the run-up to the highly explosive local elections scheduled for the end of June.

The catalyst behind the program was the Rev. Mvume Dandala of Central Methodist. Dandala had gained fame in 1992 in his successful brokering of peace between African National Congress and Inkata Freedom Party gangs in the worker hostels of Johannesburg. The new government recognized that his skills might also be helpful in calming the situation in Kathorus.

Dandala took a look at the situation and came back with the controversial policing idea.”It took some convincing to get the police to go along with the idea,”said Dandala.”There was a lot of resistance, especially at the top.” The top brass, Dandala says, were hesitant to turn criminals into police officers.

But as Dandala saw it, the government had little choice because the SPUs and SDUs, not the police, ruled Kathorus.”The problem in Kathorus was extremely complicated,”said Dandala.”The hostels were easy compared to this problem. In Kathorus, we had thousands of very dangerous, militant, unemployed youths, and they all had guns.” In late 1994 the police finally agreed to the project, and the first of the unit members were sent for training.

The initially reluctant police now argue that Kathorus would be ungovernable without the constables. Makhaya says the constables often do a better job than his own men and that if the program were disbanded Kathorus, and particularly Tokoza, would again plunge into chaos.


Police here say the SPUs and SDUs know who the criminals are in the townships and have access to informants that the police cannot even approach. The former members are also known and respected in the areas where they operate.

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The program is not perfect. The constables are unhappy with the lower salary of 761 Rand a month (about $177) and want full integration into the police, a tough task many here say, since most lack a high school education, a requirement to enter the police. The Ministry of Safety and Security is considering plans to fully incorporate the constables into the police.

In addition, residents of the townships have complained of the constables participating in violence and crime. But a recent South African Police report on the program found the constables were doing a good job in investigating crimes and were especially helpful in feeding information and sources to the regular police. Community leaders and regular station commanders have also come out in support of the program.

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Following the success of the community constables program, the Central Methodist Mission continued to work with the units, recognizing that the potential for violence remained high as long as the units were intact and unemployment high.”We started looking around for anything that would keep them busy: getting them jobs, (or) training to prepare them for a career,”said Jabu Dhlamini, the coordinator of Central Methodist’s program in Kathorus.”The whole point of this exercise was to disband the SDUs and the SPUs, and it has worked.” David Nxumalo is the former Inkata Freedom Party commander of all of Tokoza township. Standing next to a workers’ hostel that local residents named mshayazafe (“Kill Him Till He Dies Hostel”in Zulu), Nxumalo said that for five years African National Congress units were trying to assassinate him.”It was a horrible time, for me and everyone here,”said the 28-year-old Nxumalo.”You could easily be killed for just speaking the wrong language.” Today Nxumalo is a security guard with a commercial firm. Although he is still a staunch supporter of the Inkata Freedom Party (IFP), he says Tokoza will never again erupt in war.”I can’t change my political position,”he said.”I am Zulu and I am IFP. But we can change the violence. Tokoza has suffered too much in the past. There is no need to return to those days.”(STORY CAN END HERE. BEGIN OPTIONAL TRIM TO END)

Former unit members have recently formed an association they call Simunye (“We Are One”in Zulu) that takes in the community constables, the newspaper and the security guards.

The group works toward addressing the needs of all the members and the community as well. Although Simunye is currently just a loose association, the group may eventually become a workers union, a move supported by Dhlamini, the Central Methodist coordinator in Kathorus. She said the church will not support the program forever and eventually it will have to run on its own.


For now, the group has its work cut out, but prospects for peace between once-rival factions seem good.”We still have problems here,”said Embrose May, a 28-year-old spokesman for Simunye.”Crime and unemployment are still far too high. We need new schools and better roads.” May, a former commander of an SDU unit, has a nasty, S-shaped scar on his right cheek. It resulted, he said, from throwing himself through a window as he tried to get away from an SPU gang. “There were two other (African National Congress) people with me, but they were behind me,”May said.”I don’t know how they were killed. I just heard them scream.”Things are so much better now. At least we aren’t fighting anymore. I used to try to kill those (Inkata Freedom Party) guys and they used to try to kill me. Now I would let them sleep at my house if they wanted.”

MJP END FLEMING

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