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Speaker 1: There have been eighty three murders recorded in just eleven

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Speaker 1: days across the Western Cape, Mitchell's Plain, ky Leech, and

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Speaker 1: Younger Elsie's River, those four areas bearing the brunt of

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Speaker 1: that truly staggering and obscene murder statistic. And the promise

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Speaker 1: was made that the Defense Force is coming to help.

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Speaker 1: And we still don't have any absolute confirmation, but I

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Speaker 1: was told by somebody quite senior that the deployment would

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Speaker 1: start on the first of April. News twenty four is

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Speaker 1: reporting that on the first of April, around eight hundred

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Speaker 1: members of the South African National Defense Force will be

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Speaker 1: deployed to the Cape Flats and apparently they are currently

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Speaker 1: doing training to assist with patrols and raids and search operations.

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Speaker 1: They won't have arrest powers. That has been made absolutely

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Speaker 1: clear that at the live broadcast that we did from Beaconvay,

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Speaker 1: which is sort of part of the Greater Mitchell's Playing

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Speaker 1: Complex last week, it was absolutely clear from the several

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Speaker 1: dozen community members are in the hall with us that

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Speaker 1: they had no expectations, no positive expectations of the presence

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Speaker 1: of the army. They knew it was coming and they

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Speaker 1: weren't excited about it at all. Chandre Gould is a

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Speaker 1: senior Research fellow in the Justice and Violence Prevention Program

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Speaker 1: at the Institute for Security Studies and joins US now

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Speaker 1: chandreg Good.

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Speaker 2: Afternoon, Good afternoon, John.

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Speaker 1: The deployment, I don't know, because I was away for

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Speaker 1: a while. I'm not sure how widely it was reported,

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Speaker 1: whether it was just in and out, but in the

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Speaker 1: two suburbs sort of southwest of Johannesburg where there have

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Speaker 1: been gang problems and the defense force was deployed. Have

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Speaker 1: there been any positive aspects to that deployment that you're

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Speaker 1: aware of.

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Speaker 2: I'm not aware of any at the moment. Look, what

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Speaker 2: we do know from research is that one thing that

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Speaker 2: the military can do is support in the short term

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Speaker 2: a quick reduction in particularly gun violence, if they are

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Speaker 2: coming in to support the police in operations to remove

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Speaker 2: firearms and kingpins if you like, who are fueling violence.

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Speaker 2: But I think the people in the community forums that

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Speaker 2: you were speaking with are probably not that excited because

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Speaker 2: we also know that the long term deployment of the military,

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Speaker 2: and by all accounts, certainly according to the president's statement,

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Speaker 2: the anticipation is that the military will be deployed for

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Speaker 2: a year. That is not going to help it all.

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Speaker 2: So short term focused to deployments in places of high

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Speaker 2: gun violence can lead to a reduction, but then a

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Speaker 2: whole lot of other things need to happen. You need

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Speaker 2: puppy investigations, you need prosecutions, you need good intelligence driven investigations.

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Speaker 2: Now add and in the long term, we can't keep

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Speaker 2: relying on these kind of emergency responses to solve problems

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Speaker 2: that are decades old.

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Speaker 1: So the feeling amongst the people that I spoke to

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Speaker 1: both on the radio and then had conversations off the

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Speaker 1: radio where people that are a little more open about

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Speaker 1: what they're really thinking and feeling, is that there might

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Speaker 1: be some reduction in gang activity, that people might stay

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Speaker 1: off the streets, and drug deals might be a little

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Speaker 1: less openly done, but it would only be temporary. That

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Speaker 1: criminal activity would continue, perhaps at a reduced level, and

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Speaker 1: the minute the soldiers left the area, the gangs would

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Speaker 1: be back in full force. Nothing would have been done

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Speaker 1: to undermine them to And I don't think one can

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Speaker 1: blame people who live in gang affected areas for that

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Speaker 1: level of pessimism.

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Speaker 2: I don't think that's pegmentis or that's that is realism,

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Speaker 2: that is the truth of it is. So I think

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Speaker 2: they're seeing it for exactly what it is, and that

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Speaker 2: points to a deeper issue, and that is that people

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Speaker 2: living in the communities affected probably know what needs to

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Speaker 2: be done and probably are able to come up with

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Speaker 2: the kinds of solutions that they would like to see

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Speaker 2: being in place. So the question is, are we engaging

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Speaker 2: those communities sufficiently? Are we ensuring that their needs are

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Speaker 2: being heard? Is there a way to respond to that

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Speaker 2: in a structured way, to put resources into dealing with

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Speaker 2: problems that they identify and solutions that they identify. I

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Speaker 2: just wonder if that isn't a root that might be

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Speaker 2: more sustainable in the long term than this kind of

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Speaker 2: emergency response that we resort to when violence threach of

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Speaker 2: the levels that it is now.

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Speaker 1: Again going back to the experience of broadcasting from a

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Speaker 1: community hall in Beacon Valley, which is right next door

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Speaker 1: to Mitchell's plane and where gang violence is a daily

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Speaker 1: and horrible occurrence. I had with me the police commissioner

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Speaker 1: in the Western Cape Tempes see Tadequila, and he was saying,

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Speaker 1: you must help us, and they were shaking their heads

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Speaker 1: saying we can't trust you. We just simply can't trust you.

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Speaker 1: We try to help you, we try to open cases,

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Speaker 1: we get nothing back. And the distrust between communities and

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Speaker 1: SAPs is blatantly obvious. And I'm not sure that the

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Speaker 1: s and EF is going to gather any more trust

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Speaker 1: and trust. It's not the only thing that needs to happen,

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Speaker 1: but it's part you know. So it's all very well

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Speaker 1: consulting communities, but communities then need to see results from

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Speaker 1: those consultations, and slowly you big old the relationship of trust,

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Speaker 1: which in the long term starts to get on top

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Speaker 1: of the problem.

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Speaker 2: Exactly John, That's exactly right. I mean, one of the

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Speaker 2: things that I worry about, certainly they're you know, in

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Speaker 2: gang areas where there is a high level of organized

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Speaker 2: crime or gangsterism. I think we are talking about an

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Speaker 2: extremely complex issue because on the one hand, I mean,

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Speaker 2: I think often people think when we talk about gangs

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Speaker 2: that you're talking about an organized group of people who

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Speaker 2: have a specific name and who have a hierarchy. What

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Speaker 2: I'm hearing is that, in fact, that idea of what

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Speaker 2: a gang is is changing. That on the one hand,

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Speaker 2: sure you do have organized crime groupings that organizers, gangs

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Speaker 2: have names and the hierarchy. As I've explained. Now, on

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Speaker 2: the other hand, there are just groups of young people

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Speaker 2: who are moving together, or groups of criminals who are

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Speaker 2: moving together who are far less that they don't have

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Speaker 2: that kind of whatever discipline and hierarchy, it's much harder

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Speaker 2: to engage them. So it is a complex issue. It's

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Speaker 2: an issue that's got long, deep historical routes. But the

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Speaker 2: reality is that unless we start both engaging communities, addressing peace, corruption,

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Speaker 2: and addressing the factors that drive gangsterism in the first place,

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Speaker 2: we're not going to get ahead of this problem, and

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Speaker 2: we're going to constantly be resorting to measures like this,

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Speaker 2: which is unsustainable and not good for communities because to

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Speaker 2: see soldiers walking around every day on your street is

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Speaker 2: to increase fear, no doubt, it's dangerous. And I worry

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Speaker 2: too that what you might find is one of the

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Speaker 2: reasons why trust has been eroded is because of collusion

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Speaker 2: between peace and people in organized crime. Now, if you

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Speaker 2: deploy the military for a long period of time in

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Speaker 2: one community, are you to have the same phenomenon emerging?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think the answer to that is almost

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Speaker 1: certainly yes. Janre Gul thank you very much. Indeed, senior

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Speaker 1: Research Fellow in the Justice and Violence Prevention Program at

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Speaker 1: the Institute for Security Studies