Heroes or villains; Martyrs or menaces?
Wednesday, 28 September 2011: 16 years after it first emerged on the Western Cape landscape to fight gangsterism and drugs, opinion is still divided whether or not PAGAD became a ruthless, violent urban terrorist organization or was demonized. Anxious to assert itself as a stable democracy and eager to show its Western allies that it was not soft on terrorism, the South African government clamped down hard on PAGAD, arresting, charging and convicting hundreds of its members and leaders. They were sentenced for crimes ranging from public violence to murder.
But no-one was ever convicted of the most serious of the charges leveled against them – that of being behind the spate of bomb blasts that terrorized Cape Town during the late 1990s. Sixteen years later, PAGAD still insists it was made into a scapegoat and vilified by a government that had neither the political will nor the capacity to target the real enemy.
The scourge of gangs and drugs has now worsened and PAGAD is back! Its leadership insists it has re-emerged to mobilize communities countrywide, to continue the struggle for a safe, secure and crime-free society.
In a two-part investigation, Special Assignment revisited the history of PAGAD to deconstruct the myths surrounding the organization and to unpack some of the anomalies of investigations into crimes supposedly committed under its banner.
Producer: Hazel Friedman. Production Coordinator: Menatalie van Rooyen (011-714-6757 or 083-241-7670) Download YouTube Video
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