PAGAD phenomenon to the fore

By M. S. Prabhakara

CAPE TOWN, DEC. 30. The killing on Tuesday night of Yusuf Enous and Fahiema Enous, a Cape Town couple who were key prosecution witnesses in a case against two alleged members of PAGAD (People Against Gangsterism and Drugs) facing terrorism and attempted murder charges in a bombing incident in a Cape Town pub last month, once again brings to the fore the unique problems relating to terrorism and measures to control it in the Cape Peninsula. The couple were supposed to be in a ``safe house'' far away from Cape Town as part of a police witness protection programme.

The couple, from Grassy Park area of Cape Town, were shot dead inside their ``safe house'' in Gouda, a small town about 100km from Cape Town, on Tuesday night. They had apparently contacted their parents, enabling them to visit them on Christmas Day at their ``safe house''. According to the police, the revealing of their whereabouts even to their parents was against the rules that governed witness protection programme. Insisting that the couple were being ``hidden, not guarded,'' a police official said that no one could protect them if they themselves revealed their whereabouts. The police surmise that the killers possibly followed the couples' parents and later returned to kill them.

About 700 persons involved in 360 cases are currently under the witness protection programme throughout the country. Though the police maintain that this is the first time that persons involved in such a programme have been killed, there are reports that at least in two other cases involving PAGAD members, key state witnesses have been killed.

The unique feature of the phenomenon of PAGAD ever since its (literally) fiery debut in Cape Town on the night of 4- 5 August 1996 is that those who initiated the movement, as well as the overwhelming majority of its victims of vigilantist initiatives, are from the same social and religious background, part of a larger community in Cape Town which despite its obvious sharp economic disparities share these common features. This is the case also with the Enous couple as well as the persons against whom they were supposed to testify. One of the mourners at the funeral of the Enous couple, while criticising the failure of the police to protect persons who were to all purposes in protective custody, also said that the couple are ``much happier off where they are now.''

According to him, ``although they were brutally murdered, it is a great month to die'' - an apparent reference to the fact that they died during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Indeed, the couple were buried on the day of Eid, the celebratory day marking the end to the month of fasting. PAGAD supporters too routinely invoke the words and symbols of ``martyrdom'' in their confrontation with the authorities - be it a routine appearance at court or a more passionate engagement against the State viewed as both illegitimate and corrupt.

The enormous complexities of this aspect of the PAGAD phenomenon are yet to be fully grasped by the structures of the State most of which sees the phenomenon as simply terrorism, laced with the ``exoticism'' of Islam.

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