South Africa, black on black crime

South Africa police charged with dragging murder

[...] The video shows Mr Macia struggling with police after apparently parking his vehicle illegally.

Police officers then overcome the taxi driver and tie him to the back of a van by his arms before driving off.

Police Commissioner Riah Phiyega: "The behaviour displayed in the video... is to be abhorred"

Former South African President Nelson Mandela's wife, Graca Machel, joined hundreds of mourners at a Daveyton sports stadium on Wednesday.

Wednesday's emotional ceremony saw mourners, many wearing t-shirts and holding posters printed with Mido Macia's photograph, joining together to sing, clap and dance.

Graca Machel, who is herself Mozambican, told reporters: "As a society we are bleeding. We are grieving. We are in pain. We just don't know how to deal with the pain."

Sonnyboy Ndlovu, a witness to the dragging who was at the ceremony, told Reuters news agency: "The police are used to terrorising people here in the township, especially the Ethiopians and Mozambicans." [...]

During the Aparteid years, any crime by the white-controlled police against blacks made international headlines. When Apartheid was abolished, and blacks assumed majority rule and control of the police, crimes by police continued, I would read about them in SA newspapers on the internet. They were reported in South Africa, but no longer made international headlines. The international press was not interested in reporting black on black crimes by police.

So what made this case different? Someone recorded it on video with their cell phone, and it got shown on South African TV (the article has a link to that video). And Nelson Mandela's wife Graca Machel got involved.

There has been an ongoing problem in South Africa with crimes against black foreigners. When Apartheid was abolished, so were much of the border controls with neighboring countries, which allowed millions of foreign nationals to come streaming into South Africa, competing with South Africans for jobs in an already tight job market. Unfortunately, it continues to be a problem.