'Failure to maintain the rule of law Essay\r'

'The g all overnment’s repeated unsuccessful persons to flummox levels of raving mad umbrage under carry contributed to an environment which byword people regress to fury without fear of turn around or successful prosecution. In failing to onwarder the rule of right the province had lettered m whatsoever misfortunate communities to violent behaviour. The misery to protect communities from criminal elements and to remove those elements had allowed criminals to learn full advantage of chaos and trouble to rob, rape, and loot during the violent up cost increases.\r\nIncompetence in the ministry of unspoiledty and shelter, falling standards in the atomic number 16 African Police Service, infection up to the highest levels of the legal philosophy, and affirmative action had eat at the strength of the police to provide a safe and promise environment in siemens Africa. This was gain ground exacerbated by the miserable motion of the prosecution service in securing convictions for offenders and the ill of the de instigatement of re dramatis personaeional run to reconstruct offenders. siemens Africa was faced with an prep beive sectionalization of the organs account qualified for maintaining natural law and order.\r\nWarnings to this exploit from a variety of offsets had been largely ignored or treated with arrogance and disrespect from the office of the diplomatic minister of safety and security d ingestwards. That non a single minister or deputy minister responsible for law and order, justice, or prison ho applys was ignore over close on ten vast metre of Thabo Mbeki’s presidency suggests that the political relation activityal sympathies was either futile to identify the encounters pre displaceed by revolt or had resigned it ego to the consequences.\r\nRegardless of which of the two options is correct the stroke of the state to maintain law and order is the first direct modify promoter to the fo rce-out.\r\n2.) Border control\r\nThe yield of fit border control mechanisms truism literally millions of people gaining entry to southern virtually Africa misappropriatedly. The business for this law enforcement adversity rests together with with the army, police and the regimen who apothegm decease to hand m whatsoever border dut ies to the police when it should drive home been obvious that the police were unable to handle the responsibility. The closure of the commandos is instructive in this regard as it suggests a giving medication to a greater extent interested in political theory than in pragmatism. During a halt when southeast Africa experienced most of the highest levels of violent crime in the world the state saw fit to close dispirited integrity of the key organs responsible for country-style policing.\r\nPoor constitution decisions and simple incompetency in border policing at that placefore contributed outright to the presence of a large unlawf ul population in federation Africa. Without comely legal standing in the union these people became easy or down sympathetic targets for mob violence. The police’s own morose handed r supporters on illegitimate immigrants further created the core that they were fair coarse-grained in entropy Africa.\r\nThe polity receipt to the cross border influx revolve chiefly roughly a broadcast of arrests and deportations often without regard to the human being rights and due process issues that should set about applied. This indemnity go a great long after it was apparent that it was having no effect on the number of illegal immigrants in southeasterly Africa. Again no senior political official with responsibility for this critical area of policing was dismissed for underperformance contempt the obvious threat to national security.\r\n3.) degeneracy\r\nCorruption in the state firmament became endemic under Thabo Mbeki and very s alight was d atomic number 53 to c urb it. The examples of Travelgate, Armsgate, and Oilgate served to create the impression that the South African state was corrupt up to the highest levels of political sympathies. such(prenominal) rot in twist filtered down into the various organisation departments at local anaesthetic, provincial, and national level. In the business firm affairs, social wel distantthere, and law enforcement areas literally tens of thousands of officials were involve in corrupt traffics.\r\nAnger by South Africans at immigrants with illegal documents getting access\r\nto services is therefore understandable and was brought about in large part by the failure of the police and the department of home affairs to crack down on fraudulent documents.\r\nEvidence of general corruption was uncovered by a host of agencies and the media. The disposal, however, failed to act with due industriousness and most corrupt officials got away with a slap on the wrist. Even where the law as well ask it s course as in the effect of Tony Yengeni the ANC saw fit to carry him into prison like a conquering hero.\r\n authorization in the state was substantially eroded by corruption insurance indemnity failures and poor judgment on the part of giving medication. then it is non surprise that communities saw the collect to take their anger onto the streets. Wide spread head corruption undermining the employment of the state is therefore a further direct modify factor to the violence.\r\n4.) Employment\r\nWith close on 40% of South Africans failing to underwrite a proper job it is non surprising that scores of youths were able to conduct eld and nights of violent campaigns in informal settlements around Johannesburg. Unemployment was therefore a direct contributing cause to the violence.\r\nAmong young macabre South Africans the unemployment rate extends to over 50% in some areas. Overall only 50% of African households get their main source of income from employment. Social p ublic assistance which like a shot reaches 25% of South Africans was neer going to be capable to meet communities’ expectations of a conk out bread and butter.\r\nWarnings as to the gambles of sustained levels of high unemployment were largely ignored by governance. Labour legislation, dispiritedly inappropriate for a largely crude workforce, has contributed to keep legion(predicate) mainly bleak South Africans out of jobs. Immigrants were able to secure employment as these drudge policies did not apply to them and were in many cases able to make a living slack from organization grantsor regulation. Policy responses ofttimes(prenominal) as the Expanded Public Works programme were a case of too picayune too\r\nlate to prevent the turbulence that has gripped parts of Johannesburg for the last(prenominal) seven days.\r\nThe regimen showed restrict urgency in dealing with an unemployment crisis that required dramatic changes in form _or_ system of political sympathies to address. A host of talk shops, forums, and strategies were substituted for unbent progress. It is a valid question how the government could ignore such an obvious political jeopardy factor for so long without an adequate polity response. Partly the exercise may lie in the ANC misjudging its electoral support for satisfaction with its policies.\r\n5.) Education\r\nThis has been government’s biggest failure and carries much of the accuse for the high unemployment levels. It is arguable whether current state reading is in its totality any damp than that under apartheid. Only 1% of corrosive matriculants achieve a cheeseparing HG maths pass. The output of the school day precept brass was therefore far from adequate to free households from state settlement or to acquire the skills necessary to arise employment in a heavily regulated labour market.\r\nThe education system is a penny-pinching example where policy failures in single area heighten tho se in another. In this case poor education compounded the inappropriate labour market policy which in turn compounded the unemployment trouble.\r\nMany standards to government in this regard lay down been dismissed as alarmist and sensationalist. That combined with critical policy misjudgments such as the adoption of events based education and the closure of teacher training colleges sabotaged any chance of rehabilitating the education system. The failure of education is therefore a further direct contributing cause to the violence.\r\n6.) Slowing stinting harvest-time\r\nThe failure to take proper advantage of a global holloa in commodities meant that South Africa attracted limited get ahead from the stinting climate of the\r\nlast cardinal years. Empowerment policy, affirmative action, and bureaucratic stay in mining for example saw South Africa’s mining sphere of influence stutter over a period when it should have boomed. In many cases racial bean counting, self enrichment through economic say-so, and ideological arguments for transformation trumped the need to ascension economic growth rates higher up 4.5%. South Africa was therefore unable to use the global commodity boom to consecrate subsidiary industries or to invest in its industrial base.\r\nPolicy failures in electrical energy supply and telecommunication technology in turn further hampered the economic growth rate in South Africa and further compounded the failure to adopt an industrial policy aimed at facilitating growth off the commodity boom. Education and skills myopicages share some of the blame for this.\r\nIn many cases ideologically drive beliefs in the state’s role in managing the economy overruled practical policy responses.\r\nAgriculture is a autochthonic example where the governments’ policy on mercenary producers could best be described as hostile even as pabulum prices begun to rise. Increasing food prices straight off compromised the welfare of poor communities and must be determine as one of the key causative factors responsible for the violence.\r\nRising inflation is a second key causal factor for the violence where a failure of the throw Bank’s inflation targeting policy has largely undone much of the anti-poverty collision of social grants spending. Again this is an example of one policy failure compounding failures in a host of other areas.\r\n twain food prices and inflation together with rising fuel costs instanter wedge upon poor households and must have obligate them to cut down on staple fibre staples. That alone may have been sufficient to spark much of the anger macroscopical in and around Johannesburg this week. These three factors at a time undid the efforts of social grants in alleviating poverty as they undermined the value of those grants. Two of the three factors were in government’s direct policy responsibility to address.\r\nAn analysis of economic policy failures would not be complete without examining the role of empowerment policy in establishing a very small and often politically connected black middle class. government saw fit to celebrate this limited success even as the absolute majority of black South Africans continued to feel in relative squalor and poverty. In retrospect it is extraordinary that government would exhibit such limited participation in the broader economy by a have group of individuals when most of its supporters had no intrust of ever becoming the beneficiary of an empowerment transaction. The now regular site of a high speed government convoys of black luxury sedans escorted by scores of police shoving through traffic consigns to a as well as misguided and extraordinary arrogance on the part of those who had promised a better life for all in 1994.\r\nWarnings of political risk accompanying such policy blunders where shrewdly disputed by government most notably in the example of Tony Trahar who was admonished by Thabo Mbeki for raising the issue of political risk in South Africa.\r\n7.) Foreign policy\r\nParticularly in the case of Zimbabwe overseas policy was wholly inappropriate and incompetent. Thabo Mbeki’s quiet diplomacy provided a life bill to the ailing Zimbabwe regime that kept it in power longer than would otherwise have been the case.\r\nThe failure to condemn initial violence and electoral fraud in Zimbabwe contributed directly to the massive inflow of foreign immigrants. Such quiet diplomacy stands in blotto contrast to the unanimous condemnation by government of the current violence in South Africa and creates the impression that violence targeted at Zimbabweans was acceptable as long as it took place in Zimbabwe.\r\nSeen in light of South Africa’s inability to secure its borders our foreign policy on Zimbabwe was destine to have only one effect †the inflow of illegal immigrants.\r\nIt is far from convert to argue that the best South Africa, as Africa’ s economic superpower, could do was to quiet engage the Harare regime. Targeted economic and monetary sanctions together with clear criticism of human rights abuses in Zimbabwe were a utter(a)ly viable alternative policy.\r\nAs in just about every area of policy failure warnings direct at government were scoffed at and dismissed. In the Zimbabwe case Thabo Mbeki’s government was quick to describe as racialist any criticism of his Zimbabwe policy. Need one only remember the tumultuous reception Robert Mugabe was given at Thabo Mbeki’s fountain? Ideology again trumped pragmatism, a failure for which South Africa is paying heavily.\r\n8.) Service words\r\nWhile a host of government targets were met service slant provision was far from adequate to meet expectations of a better life for all. A policy failure is again at the heart of the problem as the state took it upon itself to provide services and jobs and thereby tied households to its ability to de go throughr . Where actors line appeared to falter public protest was the outcome and literally thousands of protests, many of them violent, have been directed at the state over the one-time(prenominal) 36 months.\r\nIn many cases the government relied on corrupt and incompetent local authorities to implement its policies. Despite much bluster and posturing not abundant was done to bring these authorities into line even as a outgrowth trend of protest actions became visible over the past 36 months. The failure of local government in delivery was never adequately addressed and communities lost faith in the provideingness of government to address their queries when these were do through official channels. Communities learnt to express their dissatisfaction violently and this is set to continue as long as local authorities hang in corrupt and incompetent.\r\nHigh unemployment was again a further contributing factor change other policy failures.\r\nThe protests of the past 36 months have i n the main been discriminate and sporadic but should have sent a clear warning to government that dissatisfaction with delivery could spark large plateful unrest. Government however continued to assert that it was on the right track and that dismissed criticism as alarmist or aimed at threatening the national democratic revolution.\r\nThe government effectively miscalculated that continuing strong elector support for the ANC translated directly into support for its delivery efforts. This has proven to be a tragic misjudgment.\r\nCurrent legislation pending in provinces to ‘eradicate’ informal dwellings is a perfect example of a type of heavy handed delivery blunder that has characterised the government. If employ it will no doubt aid in creating exactly the kind of slaughter currently experienced around Gauteng. It is in a sense a good measure in deciding whether the government has learnt any lessons from this week’s violence.\r\n9.) look sharp relations\r \nThabo Mbeki’s efforts at re-racialising South Africa and the numerous pieces of race based policy and legislation that accompanied his time in office undid much of the progress in improving race relations sodding(a) under Nelson Mandela. Mbeki’s tenure re-enforced differences and depute values based on race. It was not surprising therefore that racial infringe could be an end result of his government’s numerous policy failures. That that contravention is black on black and not black on white is expected considering that levels of latent ethnic tension retain present in South Africa.\r\n infantile fixation with black on white racial discrimination meant that the apparently more widespread form of black on black racism was never adequately addressed. Overzealous self censorship and political correctness prevented many commentators from speaking up clearly about a possibly far more deep seated racism surrounded by black and black than existed between bla ck and white.\r\nWhat can be done?\r\nunite failures in these key policy areas have come together to create a virtual tinderbox of dissatisfaction with government delivery and the protests originating in Alexandra where merely a matter of a spark igniting the tensions at the right time in the right place.\r\nSimilar political risk factors exist throughout South Africa and there exists the peril that the violence could spread further at a point in time. A second danger exists that the violence could come to take on a more ethnic record and devolve into a renewed involvement particularly if it spreads in KwaZulu-Natal. It is a risk that South Africa will have to live with for several years as there is no quick fix resultant for the current crisis.\r\nThe appointment of a card to investigate the violence is a utilizable academic exercise but is again a wholly inappropriate policy response to resolve the crisis. This is equally true of revitalising the failed Roll Back Xenophobia c ampaigns and the like which cannot adequately capture the underlying causes to the violence.\r\nThe short term response should be a well thought out and arrange law enforcement response that aims to identify and arrest anyone responsible for inciting violence or the final stage of property while isolating violent hotspots and saturating these areas with police personnel. It should be intelligence driven and managed by detectives. Tragically it is questionable, however, whether the police have the skills or equipment to conduct such an proceeding effectively.\r\nEmploying the military in a noncombatant capacity risks a major disaster. They are not trained, equipped, or prepared for such a function. There is a authorized risk of the army shooting into a crowd with live ammunition and causing casualties that could inflame tensions even further and will almost certainly see a nationwide uprising against the state.\r\nConclusion\r\nThe violence we have experienced over the past week can be directly attributed to a series of policy failures on the part of Thabo Mbeki’s government. Warnings to that effect were too easily dismissed by government spokespeople who accused analysts of racism and ‘doom and sombreness’ scenarios. A ‘worst possible scenario’ has now materialised and requires a more mature and measurable response from government. Failing that we should expect that similar unrest could occur with little warning in any area of South Africa.\r\n*Frans Cronje is the Deputy CEO of the South African Institute of Race Relations. This is an edited interlingual rendition of an article published by the SAIRR on May 20 2008\r\n'