Issued by Office of the Presidency
2 July 2000
Honourable Chairperson
,
Ministers Present
Government Officials
Ladies and Gentlemen
I wish to thank the organisers of this conference, for inviting me to speak on this very important topic.
Mr Chairperson,
Your theme for this conference correctly identifies poverty as the single most critical causal factor in the collective social problems of crime, violence, substance abuse and HIV/AIDS, in our country and elsewhere. Poverty is the single most important issue, which is at the heart of this problem. Our cabinet has long accepted this fact, that if we are to make a long lasting impact in this area, our strategies have to focus on the eradication of poverty and the creation of a better life for all our people.
We have made significant progress in the past six years, but this is by no means a small task. We recognise that the damage to our society, economically, socially and politically, caused by decades of apartheid, will not be undone in six short years.
During the 1970's and 80's, the South African economy lost much of its dynamism and vitality and became globally uncompetitive.
During that period, only a small section of our society enjoyed immense benefits at the expense of the rest of society. Apartheid and economic exploitation created vast social inequalities, based mainly on racial lines. Social and economic inequality became deeply entrenched.
Given its resources, South Africa should have been able to afford to feed, house, educate and provide health care for most of its citizens. Yet today, among comparable middle-income developing countries, South Africa has one of the worst social indicator records and one of the highest income inequalities in the world.
To resolve the glaring inequalities and endemic unemployment, the government has adopted equitable and sustainable economic growth as the framework for its economic policy. It is clear to many of us that, in the long run, treating the root causes of crime, particularly poverty, will go a long way to ensure our goal of a secure and safe South Africa.
Our task has been made harder by the effects of the apartheid system, which eroded the most basic norms and values that are the fundamental pillars of any society. Our task, in restoring orderliness and ubuntu is made more difficult by the extent to which the moral fibre of our society was eroded, by the many years of apartheid brutality. The apartheid system affected the entire society including the law enforcement agencies whose interpretation of their task was also distorted by the system.
Since the establishment of democracy, South Africa has been recognised as being among the countries that set an example in many parts of the world. This is borne of our outstanding achievement in defeating apartheid, which has been regarded, to some extent, as a yardstick among other emerging democracies. However, with all these successes there is still one challenge that faces us, and that is the struggle against crime. Law-abiding citizens continue to be victims of the most violent and horrific crimes imaginable.
Tremendous efforts have been made during the past six years to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of law enforcement, criminal investigation and prosecution. Although we are now seeing an improvement, this has not been sufficient to make an appreciable impact on criminal activity.
Therefore we cannot, for one moment, sit back and allow the criminal element to believe that they are gaining ground. Our fight must be relentless and our efforts doubled, to make the goal of a safe and secure South Africa a reality.
The link between crime and drug abuse is well documented, and is generally accepted in the criminal justice field. Recent research conducted by the South African Medical Research Council and the Institute for Security Studies revealed that nearly half of the arrested suspects being held at nine police stations in Cape Town, Durban and Gauteng tested positive for at least one drug. Violent crimes comprised the largest category of the offences that had been committed by those tested at all three locations. Furthermore, about 20 percent were HIV positive.
Chairperson, the problem of drug abuse and drug trafficking is of grave concern to our government. A variety of hard drugs and other illegal substances are smuggled into the country through our ports of entry and elsewhere along our borders. Inadequate control and transit systems and corruption have provided fertile ground for growth in drug-related and other crimes in this area.
While tackling the drug supply by improving border control and closing the net on drug syndicates is one way of dealing with the drug problem, reducing the demand for drugs is equally important.
The Department of Welfare, the lead department in the fight against drug abuse, is actively involved in reducing the demand for drugs by establishing and maintaining drug treatment centres, and developing and conducting drug education and awareness campaigns.
The high level of unemployment and poverty plays into the hands of the crime syndicates. Destitute South Africans are being enticed into the drug trade by the promise of easy money. Added to this is South Africa's convenient location between the source countries of the east and the major consumer countries of the west. Needless to say, the overflow of drugs transhipped through South Africa has found its way into the local market and is now one of the major challenges we face in our fight against crime and violence.
A significant trait of this scourge is that while our law enforcement structures have worked tirelessly to bring it under control, our efforts have not, until recently, focused on the crime bosses. They were often not directly involved in the commission of crime, but had runners, and in this way were able to escape the law enforcement net.
To this end, the Prevention of Organised Crime Act, now provides for the confiscation of criminal assets, making the laundering of proceeds of crime a criminal act. It is proving a valuable tool in dealing with the "big fish" in the criminal world, thus destabilising the organised syndicates.
Chairperson, to return to the problem of crime and violence, our government is acutely aware of the need for the criminal justice system to function with greater efficiency if we are to maintain and make further inroads in the fight against crime. There is now greater co-ordination between the four core departments of the criminal justice cluster.
The establishment, in 1998, of the National Prosecuting Authority, to unify the prosecution service has ensured that prosecutions are conducted without fear, favour or prejudice and the number of successful prosecutions has increased.
South Africa has emerged from a long history, which demonstrated the evident "power", and even the "effectiveness", of violence as a strategy to exert influence, dominates and oppress. Violence has come to be regarded as a legitimate means of establishing control and authority within many spheres of our society including the family environment. The cycle of violence, which begins in the home and extends to the playground, the school, and the streets and to every facet of community life, is certainly an unpleasant feature of our society.
I am particularly concerned by the exposure to violence, substance abuse and disease that are the reality of the lives of many of our young people. Theirs is a life spent in preparation for entry into a dismal world from which few escape, for reasons beyond their control. They need a social unit of emotional support to shape their basic values, a role traditionally fulfilled by the extended family in many of our communities.
We urgently need to re-examine the way in which we deal with young people in trouble with the law, so that we avoid exposing children, who have committed relatively minor offences, to the negative effects of imprisonment, where we run the risk of pushing them headlong into a life of crime.
A separate child justice system, based on the principles of restorative justice, whilst still holding them accountable for their deeds, is in the process of being established in South Africa.
Chairperson, the devastating effect of HIV/AIDS in South Africa is fast becoming evident, with an ever-increasing number of AIDS orphans and the spread of the disease at an alarming rate. While it is scientifically accepted that HIV knows no social, gender or racial boundaries, it is a fact that the virus is to be found in greater concentration amongst the poorer sections of society. Once again we see this link between a lack of basic needs and vulnerability.
While many countries in the west largely have the disease under control, many countries in the developing world are finding that accepted interventions are not necessarily having the desired and expected effect in their own communities. The question we are beginning to ask ourselves is whether these accepted methods are indeed, entirely correct for our own special circumstances.
Many members of our society are driven by poverty to disregard the accepted wisdom on avoiding infection. One has to recognise that these are people faced with a greater reality of survival against all odds, for whom the threat of HIV/AIDS is merely one more difficulty to contend with in their lives. This makes it necessary for us to work hard to find solutions to the scourge of HIV/AIDS that take into account such special circumstances as they exist in our communities.
For as long as poverty and dependence, render our women and children defenceless, and ignorance prevents the rest of our society from recognising that their actions count in the fight against HIV/AIDS, our society will not be free of this scourge.
Recognising this, our government is constantly searching for ways that are appropriate to deal with this disease in our context. We have put in place a number of initiatives such as the AIDS vaccine initiative in, a search for solutions that take into account South African conditions.
Ignorance about HIV, and prejudice against people living with AIDS makes it more difficult for the government to effectively reduce the rate of HIV transmission. There has been mounting public concern and pressure on the government to take appropriate action against those who deliberately transmit HIV to other people. The South African Law Commission, at the request of the Justice Portfolio Committee, has been tasked with investigating the possible creation of a statutory offence aimed at harmful HIV-related behaviour, and the compulsory testing for HIV of sexual offenders.
Chairperson, as the theme of your conference has correctly identified, we are faced in our country, with one of the biggest challenges of most developing nations, and indeed developed nations - the eradication of poverty and its attendant set of problems. We do believe that unless we deal effectively with issues of poverty, ignorance and backwardness, in our country and continent, many of our programmes to combat crime, violence, HIV/AIDS and so on, will not succeed in the long run.
Although South Africa is facing tremendous challenges regarding crime, violence, drug abuse and HIV/AIDS, we are not disheartened. We are determined as government to embrace best practice, through partnerships with the community and co-operation with our neighbours and countries around the world, and to implement strategies that are appropriate to our situation, to overcome our problems. Our goal is to transform our country into a place where all our citizens can live in harmony, free from the threat of crime, poverty and disease, and with the dignity that they deserve.
We appreciate this joint effort between our government departments and Howard University and hope that it will go a long way in helping us find lasting solutions in the struggle against crime and many forms of abuse and therefore transform our society into a truly, free and self-respecting society. This gives us tremendous encouragement and determination to succeed in our efforts.
I thank you.