Hout Bay’s patrollers accused of being vigilantes who target innocent people

Luwinile Zembe remembers, like it was yesterday, how he was almost beaten to death and left naked in the road on 28 November 2015. Zembe, a security guard, is a resident of Imizamo Yethu, the informal settlement on the slopes of Hout Bay.

Last year he joined Imzamo Yethu’s community patrol. He did so because he wanted the settlement to become a safer place where he could raise children. “All men in the community were asked to join, and because I am a man I joined. At the time it was a good thing. We were escorted by police every night, and there was no more crime,” says Zembe.

More than 100 men took part in the patrols. The police used to join them. The problem started, Zembe says, when some of the patrols chased the police away and said they did not want them to escort them any more.

“After the police left the way of doing things changed. One night I had worked night shift, and when I came back I heard rumours that they had killed two people. I went the next day and I saw that it was now a vigilante [organisation]. Innocent people were being beaten up,” says Zembe.

He says he decided to stop doing the patrols when a woman who was driving at night with three children in her car was attacked by the patrollers. “The woman did nothing. She was just driving. They blocked her car so she could not pass and started hitting the car, throwing stones until she managed to escape,” says Zembe.

The patrollers have implemented a 10 pm curfew in Imzamo Yethu. They target people who are out drinking.

Zembe says he does not drink. On the night Zembe got beaten up he was at home with his friends. Because he has gym equipment in his house people like to come spend time with him.

“It was at night and someone who was going passed my house shouted that the patrollers were coming. The people that I was with ran, and I was left alone. As I was putting the weights back into the house, I went outside again and the patrollers were standing outside my house,” he says. The patrollers asked him what he was doing outside his house at night. “I told them I am at my house and that I was with friends. I lied to them about why I do not patrol any more because I was scared there was one of me and too many of them. When I told them I was tired and had planned to sleep they said I was being disrespectful.”

This, he says, is when they started beating him with a whip and wooden sticks.

“I fought for my life, begging them to stop. I was alone. They dragged me to the road and undressed me. They continued to beat me up, and I just lay there with no movement. I couldn’t move anymore. I thought I was dying,” he says.

He heard the patrollers planning to move him to another place where it was rumoured they killed two other people from the community. But one of the patrollers said that he must be left there because he looked dead already.

“When they left, I found the strength to crawl behind the communal toilets next to the road because I was scared they might come back, and I wanted to to hide. My neighbours only came out when they left because they were also scared. The worst part is that people had to see me naked; that was embarrassing to me,” says Zembe.

On 1 December, five days after the ordeal, Zembe went to the police station in Imizamo Yethu and laid a complaint. He went again the next day to see if there had been any progress in the case.

He says he was told to meet with a captain who told him that they did not know who the patrollers were and that he should go with a police officer to point them out. Zembe tried to find the ones he knew but couldn’t.

“I did not think about it before [I lodged the complaint], but because I was so angry, I wanted to get justice. But in the end I was happy we did not get anyone because that would have put me in more danger. Because [the police] are lying - they know these people. They support them with radios and torch lights,” says Zembe.

He went again on 3 December and was told no arrests could be made without him accompanying the police to do the arrests. That same day the patrollers came to his house and told him to drop the case. They threatened to harm him should he not do so.

On 4 December Zembe withdrew the complaint because he feared for his life and that of his family.

Nearly a year later the patrollers are still operating in the community.

GroundUp contacted members of the Solezwe patrols who kept passing the phone from one member to another refusing to say their names and to answer questions. One who identified himself as the secretary of the organisation when asked about the accusations said: “I am not going to say it’s true or false.”

South African Police Service (SAPS) spokesperson Constable Noloyiso Rwexana told GroundUp Zembe’s complaint was received and investigated: “During the investigation the complainant informed SAPS that he did not want the case to be reopened. If a complainant was threatened he/she can open a docket of intimidation. If the case was withdrawn by the complainant there will be no further investigation.”

“Every case reported where the patrollers were mentioned was investigated. Meetings were held with patrollers, which involved the CPF and sub-forum of Imizamo Yethu and work sessions were held to inform patrollers of their responsibilities during patrols. Most of these cases that were reported was not during patrol times but by individuals and not the whole group,” said Rwexana.

Donate using SnapScan.