Sweeping SA clean of criminals
House arrest for nine poo-throwers
OPERATION Fiela-Reclaim has been instructed to conduct a minimum of two operations a week in each province until its mandate ends in March 2016, it emerged before the parliamentary police committee.
Described in yesterday’s presentation to MPs as the “multi-disciplinary integrated national action plan to reassert the authority of the state”, the SAPS told MPs the operation led to 9 968 arrests between its establishment in April to June, and another 3 050 arrests over just two days at the end of July.
The operation, which The Star has confirmed will stay in place until the end of the financial year on March 31 next year, was launched amid April’s attacks on foreigners.
It was announced by the inter-ministerial committee on migration on April 28 amid a broader briefing on government action to ensure calm during the violence which killed six people and displaced thousands.
“Operation Fiela-Reclaim is an operation to rid our country of illegal weapons, drug dens, prostitution rings and other illegal activities… Fiela is a Sesotho word for ‘sweep’… and that is exactly what we intend to do. We want to sweep our public places clean so that our people can be and feel safe,” the committee said.
Run by the National Joint Operational and Intelligence Structure, it was called into action to co-ordinate the government-wide response to April’s violence, centred in Durban and Joburg. THE NINE men who emptied buckets of human waste in the departure hall at Cape Town International Airport two years ago were sentenced to three years of house arrest yesterday.
They appeared in the Bellville Regional Court before magistrate Nonkosi Saba, who also sentenced them to three years in prison, conditionally suspended for five years for violating the Civil Aviation Act.
The sentence was in line with that suggested by prosecutor Natasha Moshodi.
According to the charge sheet, all the accused lived in informal housing settlements that fell under the jurisdiction of the City of Cape Town.
The settlements were provided with portable toilets, but a dispute had arisen between the nine accused and other residents over the city’s perceived neglect of sanitation, including the infrequent and irregular removal of human waste.
The magistrate said she identified with their plight but that there were legal means of addressing their grievances and expressing their frustrations.
She said the emptying of buckets of human waste at an airport had to be viewed in a serious light.
It had caused a disruption at the airport in that the affected area had to be cordoned off and cleaned.
“Your actions, no matter what the reasons, can never be condoned,” Saba told them.
She said all the men came from impoverished backgrounds and that the purpose of their behaviour was to highlight their plight to the world at large.
They were not a danger to their communities, Saba pointed out.
She said she had, at some stage, wondered how they had managed to carry buckets of human waste all the way to the airport.
Their actions were not only an embarrassment, but also an infringement on the constitutional rights of innocent people to human dignity. – ANA