BEACH SLAUGHTER
IN FRESH developments in the Clifton Beach saga, civic organisations have announced bold plans for it to be renamed Chief Makhanda beach.
This was after the Black People’s National Crisis Committee (BPNCC), staged a protest on the beach yesterday and slaughtered a sheep to “cleanse” the beach of “evil spirits” and to put an end to racism in South Africa.
Clifton 4th has been in the national spotlight since last Sunday when a security company, Professional Protection Alternatives (PPA), allegedly acting with authority from the City of Cape Town, escorted people off the beach and advised beachgoers that the beach would be closing at 8pm.
The city denied any links to the security company.
BPNCC spokesperson Chumani Maxwele said it called on its ancestor, Chief Makhanda to cleanse the spot where fellow South Africans were ill-treated.
Protesters were addressed by deputy police minister, Bongani Mkongi.
There was a heavy police presence at Clifton but Maxwele said their protest was peaceful.
Former Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille also waded in on the saga.
De Lille is demanding that mayor Dan Plato explain to South Africans how a public beach came to be shutdown and allegedly in “collusion” with the city’s law enforcement management.
De Lille said, “It is shocking to learn that a private security company has been permitted to police our magnificent Camps Bay and Clifton Beaches. Public amenities have no closing times.
“We have long passed the days of curfews and restricted movement. There is no lawful or rational basis for this security company to shut down our beaches at 8pm or at all.”
She added that the behaviour of the security company “tramples on our hard-won constitutional rights and anyone who was forced to leave the beach should lay criminal charges with the police.
“I’m appalled by the lack of leadership and accountability from Cape Town’s political leadership. They are absent.”
She added the city’s leadership should account for what happened and if PPA were acting without an explicit or tacit arrangement with law enforcement then criminal charges should be laid. “If they were acting in terms of some arrangement then heads should roll.”
Plato said in a statement: “The City of Cape Town is an inclusive city and will always encourage everyone of all demographics to enjoy our public spaces. We will not allow any private organisations to limit access to our public spaces”.
He made it clear that “the security organisation operating at Clifton beach had no authority to ask anyone to leave Clifton beach, that they asked people of all races to leave, and did not single out any race groups”.
Plato also said opportunistic political organisations ignored this fact to drive a highly divisive and politicised racial agenda.
Efforts for comment from PPA have been ignored.
BEACHES have been a battlefield for South Africans for a long time.
For decades under apartheid, they were segregated – with the minority white population enjoying exclusive access to the country’s finest sandy stretches.
Occupying them in acts of peaceful disobedience was an obvious strategy for anti-apartheid activists in the dying days of the regime.
The legacy of privilege however lived on well beyond democracy, culminating in the now infamous New Year’s Day Facebook post of Penny Sparrow.
The Freedom Charter enjoins us stating that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white.
Our beaches are similar, but that right of ownership extends well beyond the people who live in the vicinity of those beaches.
Whether you live in Prieska or Pofadder you have as much right to sun yourself at Pennington as someone from Port Shepstone – or, in this case, 4th Beach at Clifton.
On Sunday night, private security guards closed down the beach which lies next to some of the country’s most expensive real estate at 8pm allegedly for security concerns.
None of those concerns have stood up under scrutiny in the days since.
What has become clear though, is that the people who were chased off the beach were not from the area and that the guards were acting at the behest of the residents who pay them to provide security in adjacent suburbs.
Yesterday evening, concerned Capetonians attended a protest picnic. Another one is scheduled for today. The speed with which the anger has spread in the broader community is telling; the extent of the outrage beyond class, creed and colour is heartening.
The security company must be prosecuted for acting beyond its mandate and punished. That way maybe the next time they will think twice before breaking the law.
In this land of gross inequality, we dare not allow those who have to arrogantly assume even more rights for themselves – simply because of that.