The deadly gang war being waged across Cape Town is being driven by internal battles for control, gang experts say.
|||Cape Town - The deadly gang wars being waged across the city are being driven by internal battles for control, rebuilding, re-arming and reclaiming territories, gang experts say.
At stake for competing gangs is the prospect of gaining a bigger share of the Cape’s lucrative drug trade, and, for leaders and their rivals, the prestige and wealth that goes with it.
Suburbs like Hanover Park, Lavender Hill, Bishop Lavis and Elsies River have been caught in the grip of one of the most vicious gang wars in years, with
children often being caught in the crossfire.
There are an estimated 100 000 gangsters in the Western Cape, with the majority operating in poor communities on the Cape Flats.
Criminologists say the Mongrels gang is involved in an internal war for control, with one faction wanting to shift activities into legitimate businesses like owning taxis.
The Hard Livings are reclaiming their space in Manenberg and are squaring up for a battle with the Americans.
The Americans and the Mongrels are also at war with each other over drug turf.
The Mongrels are using smaller gangs to fight their internal battles, but also increasingly younger gangsters are gunning for leadership positions.
The smaller gangs are often groups of youths who aspire to belong to the bigger gangs. They usually start out as “runners” for the gangs. Now however, in some areas, they are being armed by both camps in the Mongrels to aid the factions’ firepower.
The Hard Livings gang, based in Manenberg, has been rebuilding and re-arming itself after virtually going to ground for a few years.
A number of Hard Livings gang leaders have applied to be paroled from jail and if this were to happen, there would be an internal power struggle for control of the once-feared gang.
A swathe was cut through the once-powerful gang when many of their leaders, including Rashied Staggie, were imprisoned.
The Americans took over the area but now as the Hard Livings return to prominence, there is a fight brewing between them to control the area.
Now, with some leaders already out on parole and others like Staggie awaiting the results of their aplications, the two gangs are holding back on a full-scale war.
Eldred De Klerk, a policing specialist, said leadership change, amalgamation and splintering in gangs were some of the big reasons for the ongoing war. “There is a change in leadership and it is more than just about passing the torch. The fight in the Mongrels is about what the gang is going to look like.”
According to De Klerk, it is a classic fight. On the one hand is the current leadership wanting to maintain the status quo, on the other is a new brand of leadership that wants to legitimise the gang’s operations, increasing their footprint in businesses like taxis.
The fight is playing itself out on the streets of Hanover Park and Lavender Hill. Young boys who loiter on the streets and who have formed “pavement gangs” are being armed.
Calls by the provincial government to the Presidency to deploy the army have been denied. Police provincial head Arno Lamoer says the police are capable of dealing with the violence and their wide-ranging strategy is starting to pay off.
Lavender Hill has been quiet for weeks following an increase in police activity in the area.
Lamoer says 50 percent of the crimes in the province are recorded at 23 stations, many of them in places like Steenberg, Lavender Hill, Grassy Park and Mitchells Plain, where gang and drug activity is common.
Part of Operation Combat is to identify the gangsters, build up their profile and conduct search-and-seizure operations.
The plan includes retraining police officers to deal with a range of incidents and for the force to be cleaned up.
Last year, 87 officers were arrested for corrupt activities and crimes like selling drugs to gangsters and participating in armed robberies. Of these, 20 have been dismissed.
Cape Argus