‘If I don’t do this, we’ll have nothing left for the future’
● He defected from the apartheid security police to become an ANC operative in the 1980s. Now Neil de Beer is walking around the Cape Town townships encouraging social distancing.
De Beer, 51, risked his life when he was recruited into the ANC’s intelligence unit by Jeremy Vearey and Andre Lincoln, both now generals in the police. This week he called the fight against the coronavirus equally challenging.
The chair and CEO of Investment Fund Africa, De Beer — who is also a neighbourhood watch member in Strand — has volunteered to assist the City of Cape Town ensure social distancing compliance.
He spends most of his time walking the length and breadth of Strand and its surrounding townships and malls, educating people, checking their temperatures and offering sanitiser.
“If I don’t do this, we will have nothing left for the future,” he said.
“I used to be in the defence force and then I was an agent in the security police before I realised that something was wrong. We were young men and fought for what we thought was right until we heard of the stories of Solomon Mahlangu and the Freedom Charter and we realised that it was not about colour, it’s about dignity, it’s about people’s freedoms.
“Then the government wanted to kill us. Today no-one wants to kill me but there is an invisible enemy and we have to approach it with the same vigour we put into the fight against apartheid.”
De Beer said he set up the neighbourhood watch nine months ago. “Except for poverty, except for inequality, crime is one of the biggest problems this country has,” he said.
“People ask me: ‘You are a disciplined ANC cadre and you have been a member of the ANC for 32 years, why are you now working with the DA in the city?’
“I say there is your first mistake. It’s not party politics. Crime does not choose politics, it steals from white, it steals from black. It steals from the rich and also steals from the poor. Somewhere we must unite.”
He said after neighbourhood watch activities were suspended under lockdown regulations, “the city came to us and said: ‘We are in a disaster, we need volunteers.’ The reason they came to us is that they already had us in their database and they know everyone has no criminal record.
“It was a very good move. They took 10 people from every neighbourhood watch. Our mandate at the moment is to check out the shopping areas to monitor that social spacing is taking place.
“I took it a bit further, we are also sanitising people and, at my expense, I bought digital thermometers. I test the temperature of every single person in that queue. If anyone has a higher temperature, we advise them to seek immediate medical attention.
“My group of 10 volunteers has scanned more than 6,000 people for temperature since we started. We go deep into the townships.”
JP Smith, the mayoral committee member for safety and security, said he hoped that more people would emulate De Beer.
“Doing voluntary work during this pandemic … speaks of true character. It shows that we care.”