The political, economic, cultural and social problems of South Africa

Barbara Simpson:

If you were to believe the picture presented by the media, you would think South Africa is a political, economic, cultural and social utopia. After all, the media picture goes, apartheid is gone, Nelson Mandela is free, blacks are in charge and all's well. Things are as they should be.

Well, not exactly. In fact, things in that physically beautiful and natural-resource rich country are pretty rocky, but so much is at stake in preserving the image of order and peace that the realities are ignored on the world stage, especially in the United States.

But there may be a crack in the veneer with a report in the Los Angeles Times last weekend concerning an attempted rape, which resulted in charges of police violence and a near riot. At the heart of the incident lies a reservoir of discord and official malfeasance.

The National Basketball Association took 450 orphans, aged 8-18, on a beach holiday to Durban. They were from the Ithuteng Trust, a charity recently awarded a $1-million sponsorship by Oprah Winfrey.

Near a restroom, four girls were threatened with rape by four men armed with knives – when the girls fought back, they were knifed. Other orphans chased them, catching one who was taken to the police.

Chaos ensued. Apparently the police refused to arrest the man, saying the orphans didn't speak the local Zulu language, used tear gas on the orphans, beat 20, sent 95 to the hospital and kicked their supervisor.

It might have ended there except the supervisor called the wife of President Thabo Mbeki and got the phone numbers of local politicians.

The incident is another of the investigations of South African police for varied charges of mistreatment, beatings, disruptions of demonstrations, immigrant harassment, and for ignoring rampant rape and violent crime.

I was recently in South Africa and reading the daily newspapers illustrated a shocking array of rampant crime.

South Africa is flooded with refugees from the Mugabe dictatorship in neighboring Zimbabwe, but those same people are frequently victims of South African police.

In August, a group of pastors from the Zimbabwe National Pastors Council visited South Africa and called the police treatment of Zimbabweans refugees "shameful."

After visiting the Lindela Refuge Repatriation Center – where two people, including a pregnant teen, died in July – they called the facility a "psychological torture chamber" and a "concentration camp." They revealed stories of police sexual harassment of arrested female Zimbabwean illegal immigrants. They said the deportation process is failed and many refugees are forced into prostitution to survive.

After the publicity, Roy Naidoo, Gauteng police commissioner, promised all people, including arrested Zimbabwean immigrants, would be "treated as human beings regardless of status."

Crime? One way of handling it was to have a "special remission of sentence" – essentially, releasing prisoners who were supposedly non-violent. Since June, nearly 31,000 prisoners and 34,000 parolees and probationers were released.

One was a pedophile who'd been convicted of raping a 3-year-old and previously had sodomized a 9-year-old boy. Officials said he'd served his sentence and there was nothing more they could do.

In one instance, 131 prisoners were released and – within 10 weeks – all 131 were back in jail. Officials said they planned to interview them to "see where did it go wrong."

There were more prisoners in jail after the remissions than before.

Crime in South Africa is rampant, heavily black on white, but also growing violence – extremely vicious violence – of black on black. The news, more than chilling, is reported in South Africa each day, but ignored in the United States.

S. Africa Police Clash With Orphans Draws Inquiry

South Africa Accepts Leader's Withdrawal

Ex-official's rape case tests South Africa

Male attitudes key target in war on AIDS