Bloody and insatiable appetite for power

“MAYBE there is hope after all” is the perhaps ironic sentiment at the end of an oddly nostalgic report nearly two decades ago about one subject most people in Cape Town are least likely to associate with optimism.

In February 1998, as today, there wasn’t much to be hopeful about gangsterism, but the informant in that story, identified only as “Duiwel”, did find a small jot of hope.

Here is an edited version of the report: February 25, 1998 Street rule marked in lines of blood

Duiwel’s hairline is receding and the tattoo of horns on his forehead look a bit out of place. Scars on his right cheek and at the side of his neck under his left ear have faded with time but seem to be the cause of some irritation.

As he starts to tell of his involvement in an old Cape Town street gang called the Law Breakers, his hand almost instinctively migrates to his neck. He gently runs his fingers over the scars, first to the one below his ear then to the one on his cheek.

People do all sorts of things to gain respect, control and power. Gangsters are the same. The difference is how they go about it.

Now close to 60, Duiwel says much has changed for the worse in the underworld web of gangs, drugs and crime.

He says that while poverty, unemployment and forced removals – the scars of apartheid – have a hand in why people turn to a life of crime, it is their hunger for power and control that make them gangsters.

“Cape Town has a long history of street gangs but that history has never been as drenched in blood as is the case now.”

In the 1960s gangsters had a lot of respect for human life, “especially community leaders like teachers, nurses, religious leaders and, to a lesser extent, the police”.

“When standing at the corner café you noticed the police van arriving, you would just disappear. Gang fights were nothing more than turf wars and the occasional fight over women.

“It was hand-to-hand combat and you gained respect for your opponents as you battled away. There was an unspoken rule that you never hurt the bystanders.”

The scars on his face begin to make some sense. “There are others.” He lifts his shirt and points them out, hidden in the body art. “These I got in jail,” he says, almost proudly. “It is there that you learn the nature of being a gangster.”

The history of the prison gangs, the 26s – thieves – and the 28s – sodomisers – is at the heart of what is happening in the neighbourhoods and the fight for control.

Running his hands through his greying hair, Duiwel says things will never be the same again. The drugs and guns have changed it all. The respect for others is gone. Gang fights are no longer tests of fighting skill, but who owns the most guns.

“And this new breed of gangster is never satisfied. They always want more control. The next thing they will try to do is enter politics. They feel they are organised enough to challenge to become elected officials.”

But it won’t work, because the history of the 26 and 28 prison gangs is one of fierce rivalry. “This united front they are trying to create is doomed to fail… so maybe there is hope after all.”