This is the second of my three-part column in response to the South African Human Rights Commission hearings into how law enforcement agencies treat homeless people.
This week I focus on an often unmentioned agency that, through their violence and gangster connections, have remained quite untouchable, the SanParks “mounties”.
Anyone who has lived on the mountain has experienced their wrath.
I was visited early on, when I moved on to the mountain in Sea Point, and told that to peacefully stay on the mountain, I would have to every two weeks pay my “rent” in cash or kind.
They also accepted valuable items such as watches, cellphones, etc.
The leader of the pack, a brute with a limp and a very short temper, also loved making sexual remarks and kept insinuating what payment could look like on his “horny days”.
Long after I had moved and established myself on the mountain in Vredehoek, on Christmas Eve of 2018, I was preparing stock for my last-minute Christmas shoppers at my stall by cleaning items with a friend at a stream in Van Riebeek Park, when he appeared with his partner and young guys in T-shirts promoting fire awareness.
He limped over to our bags and threw out all the contents. He moved over to a smaller bag among the things that fell out of my friend’s backpack, and produced two R20 packets of tik.
He came over to me, kicked me down and continued kicking me in the face while shouting obscenities, and I could feel he had broken my left jaw.
He took my friend by the hair and submerged his head underwater.
I wanted to get him to stop but the pain trying to open my mouth was excruciating.
Suddenly he stopped, moved over to where the content of our bags lay strewn, and commanded we pick it up and put it in black bags they provided.
We were then instructed to pick up the bags with our teeth and carry them to their vehicle in Deer Park.
I tried to protest. I couldn’t open my mouth without a shriek of pain. I was warned to do as I was told or have the other side of my face kicked in.
At the vehicle we were told to climb on to the back of the bakkie with the black bags. They took us to their mountain offices and were discussing what to do with us when a police vehicle arrived. Suddenly, he said: “Every year this time, we send up coloured guys or k ****** , let’s this year send up some white trash”.
After their lunch, they drove to Central police station where we were processed for possession of tik. Christmas Eve was spent in excruciating pain in the holding cells, unable to eat.
To avoid a six-month wait for the tik to come back from the lab, and knowing a non-guilty plea would keep us as awaiting trial for a lengthy period in Pollsmoor prison, I told my friend I would stand for the case despite knowing the packets had been planted.
The magistrate enquired about the state of my jaw and instructed that I immediately be booked into Pollsmoor’s hospital section on arrival while I awaited the obligatory seven days for address verification, despite my having said I was homeless.
At Pollsmoor I was told by the hospital staff to tell the magistrate that he didn’t get to place people in Pollsmoor, and at my next appearance in court, the magistrate released me and suggested I lay charges against the SanParks officials.
Today, I still live with my caved-in left jaw, and the case against the SanParks officials was never investigated.
I read in the papers exactly a year later that the same officials were being investigated for the assault of a well-known cyclist on the mountain.
Next week, I will focus on the SAPS and a rogue private security company’s treatment of homeless people as I experienced it.
Shocked? SO AM I.
*Carlos Mesquita
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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