R823 Million Anti-Gang Operation | Where Are the Results? | InQuestion

[00:00:02]In question today, has the army's deployment against gang violence failed if four months later not a single gang has been dismantled and people are still being murdered? Soldiers arrived with rifles, armored vehicles, and a promise, stabilize the hotspots, disrupt the gangs, help police dismantle the criminal networks terrorizing communities. 4 months later, there have been more than a thousand arrests. Guns, ammunition, and drugs have been seized, but not one gang has been dismantled, and the killings have not stopped. So, what exactly has prospered through Operation Prosper? The president was asked about it in Parliament. He said it was too early for final conclusions, but insisted the deployment was already paying off. I do believe that it was a correct decision to deploy the South African National Defense Force to support the South African Police Service and we are beginning to see good dividends.

[00:01:10]>> Good dividends. That was the president's assessment in May. But by July, 4 months into the deployment, those dividends needed an audit because this is not a cheap experiment. The 13-month National Army deployment budget is around 823 million rand. The average budget rate is about 63.3 million rand a month. Four months of that budget works out to about 253 million rand. Now that covers five provinces. The actual amount spent in the Western Cape has not been published.

[00:01:49]But a budget that big needs a clear result. This is serious money. So, the public is entitled to demand serious results. We're talking about 17 Western Cape high crime precincts, more than 1,000 arrests, firearms, ammunition, and drugs seized, gangs dismantled, zero.

[00:02:12]Activity is not the promised outcome here. Now, those arrests matter. Every illegal gun taken off the street could save a life. Every suspect arrested could lead investigators further into a network. But government is also pointing to things like illegal liquor confiscations as evidence that the operation is working. And that is where the measure of success starts to blur because an arrest is not a conviction.

[00:02:42]Confiscating illegal liquor may enforce the law, but it does not dismantle a gang. A roadblock may disrupt movement for a night, but that's where it stops.

[00:02:53]Dismantling a gang means arresting its leaders, cutting off its money and weapons, and breaking its control over a community. That has not happened.

[00:03:04]Government chose the goal for this operation, and it was to dismantle gangs. Just days into the deployment, community activist Michael Jacobs warned that visibility without intelligence would become a public show. His demand was simple.

[00:03:20]>> We want a force that is going to make a difference on the ground and brings the bullet to our communities, not a circus.

[00:03:28]>> Now the violence continues despite those soldiers being there. Within days, shootings were reported in Mitchell's plane, Manenburgg, Lotus River, Delft, and Alcy's River. That's not stabilization for the families burying the dead. Four people were killed in Mitchell's plane on the 7th of April.

[00:03:47]More than 40 people were killed in reported suspected gang shootings since the deployment. Children are still living in fear. The boots arrived, but the bullets continued.

[00:04:00]Now, these are not merely entries on a police spreadsheet. They are families whose daily lives are still controlled by gunfire.

[00:04:08]>> Fouryear-old granddaughter asked me, "MA, IS THIS GANGSTER PARADISE THAT WE'RE LIVING IN? MA, I DON'T WANT TO stay here cuz I don't want to die here."

[00:04:18]>> That's the real scorecard here. Children cannot play outside. Can residents sleep without hearing gunshots? Have gang leaders lost their power? Have their gun pipelines been broken? Has their money been seized? And has even one gang ceased to exist? In a written parliamentary reply, police minister Ferroskalia said no gangs have been dismantled during the period measured.

[00:04:46]He added that dismantled means the entire gang ceases to exist. Fair enough. That is a high standard. But government chose that word. Kachalia told News24 that phase 2 will shift the focus to gang leaders, their financiers, and gun suppliers. That sounds exactly right. It also sounds like what an anti-gang operation should have been doing from the start. You do not dismantle a gang by only arresting people on street corners. You dismantle it by identifying commanders, following the money, tracing firearms, finding informants, building strong cases to see convictions, and arresting anyone in law enforcement, government, or business who protects the network. Soldiers can patrol. They can secure an area. They can support police raids, but they cannot repair a broken criminal justice system by marching through it. that needs crime intelligence, detectives, financial investigators, prosecutors, witness protection, and cases that survive in court. Camouflage cannot be a substitute for intelligence. Boots on the ground cannot be a substitute for investigations.

[00:06:03]So, what does success mean? Well, gang leaders must be arrested and prosecuted.

[00:06:09]Money and assets must be seized, gun pipelines broken, and gangs dismantled.

[00:06:16]Four months in, the army is still on the streets. The gangs are still in the communities, and the funerals have not stopped.

[00:06:25]Government can call this phase two, but communities need more than another phase, another patrol, another promise.

[00:06:33]They need gang leaders arrested and convicted so that their control over communities is broken. The deployment is not over, but 4 months is a long enough time to demand proof that it is doing more than temporarily managing the violence. The state has not defeated the gangs. It simply deployed around them because the army moved in, but the gangs did not move out.