Foreign Tourists Abandon Kruger Due to Protest Dangers on Access Roads

[Richprins]

Ja, Peter. Working and having a job are two different concepts for many in SA...

Strange nobody said "system offline"? That is a perennial favourite.

[Lisbeth]

It sounds like a tough morning You must all walk around with a bad headache with all the that you do

Booking at Sanparks has never been easy and they are shooting themselves in the foot going on like this. "This" also includes the whole Wildcard business (at least for foreigners) and the day visitors system

[Richprins]

Tourists are supposedly being targeted by criminals
It is believed that a gang operating in the Ehlanzeni district is terrorising tourists by kidnapping and robbing them.
8 hours ago
Charl Pienaar

MBOMBELA – Brig Leonard Hlathi, the provincial police spokesman, confirmed that he suspects a gang is targeting tourists.

“It may be the same suspects who move from town to town, robbing foreign visitors,” he said.

Last Tuesday, one victim and his wife were driving in a Nissan Qashqai rental vehicle on their way to an unknown lodge when, on the road at Mthethomusha in Pienaar, a black Volkswagen without number plates drove in front and another red vehicle pulled up behind theirs, obstructing their movement. The red car pulled over next to the passenger’s side where the female occupant was sitting.

“One of the suspects threw a stone against the window and then forced them out of the car, threatening them with a knife,” Hlathi said.



The suspected robbers instructed the couple to give them their bank cards, cash, jewellery, two cameras and a laptop. They drove the victims’ car, which they had seized, to a nearby bush and abandoned it.

Oupa Pilane, president of the Kruger Lowveld Chamber of Business and Tourism (KLCBT), said he provided support to the distressed tourist couple.

“They were driving from the Kruger National Park and got lost in Pienaar. They were clearly followed by two cars in a suspected gang-related operation.”

In an incident on November 6, a tourist couple was driving on the White River main road from God’s Window tour at approximately 19:05. A white Polo suddenly blocked them off and two armed men wearing reflector jackets jumped out of the vehicle and approached them, pretending to be police officers.

The suspects pointed a firearm at them, and forced them out of their vehicle and into the backseat of their Polo. They drove off with them and stopped in a bush, where the suspected kidnappers demanded their bank cards and banking details.

“The one suspect was in possession of a speedpoint and tried to transfer an undisclosed amount of money, but due to a weak signal and network problems, the transaction was fortunately declined.” Hlathi said.

The police impersonators left the two victims on the Sabie Road and fled the scene. The victims managed to get a lift from a truck driver who took them to the nearest police station.

“We had a meeting with various stakeholders which included members of the SAPS Visible Policing Unit on Thursday,” said Tom Vorster from the KLCBT.

The engagement was arranged by Lindiwe Mthombeni, manager of tourism safety for Mpumalanga Tourism and Parks Agency.


“They couldn’t give us feedback and clarity on the question, if it is the same perpetrators going from place to place, robbing people,” Vorster said.

Hlathi confirmed that no one has been arrested in connection with these incidents. He urged the members of the public who can assist with information to contact Capt John Mabunda on 082-449-0334.

https://lowvelder.co.za/514171/tourists ... criminals/

[Lisbeth]

This is terrible! You can be careful, but in these cases, there is nothing that you can do. I am thinking seriously of cancelling my trip

[Richprins]

A brilliant article by William Saunderson-Meyer:




In South Africa, one of the most worrying things for the ordinary citizen is the to-the-bone erosion of law and order. Protecting the life, liberty and property of its citizens is, after all, the primary duty of the nation-state. By that criterion, SA is in a perilous condition.

As far as white-collar crime goes, it can be seen in the looting of state assets to the tune, by government estimates, of R1trn (US$66bn) and the inability to bring corporate crooks to book More seriously, as regards criminal violence, it can be seen not only in some of the world’s worst murder, rape and assault statistics, but also in a sense of growing public anarchy. Law enforcement seems to be losing whatever grip it might once have had.

Public violence is approaching levels last seen in the political uprisings of the mid-1980s. At that time, it was brought under tenuous control by the National Party government declaring successive states of emergency and unleashing its own massive, retaliatory violence.

Nowadays, public “unrest” is mostly unpoliced by the SA Police Service and has become so ubiquitous as to be unremarkable. Messages on neighbourhood WhatsApp groups regarding missing pets and grousing over potholes are routinely interspersed with matter-of-fact warnings about stone-throwing mobs and burning trucks to be avoided when going shopping.

The national broadcaster has developed a format that is as mundane to locals as it must be scary to overseas visitors. After the news and the weather, the morning traffic report’s list of broken-down trucks and fender-bender frustrations includes, as routine, a long list of roads, intersections and highways to avoid because of violent protests and fiery barricades.

Almost any of these incidents, generally poorly reported in the media because there are so many of them, provides a microcosm of all that is failing in SA society. There’s a grievance — often real but blown up out of all proportion — combined with the assumption by the aggrieved that any means of obtaining redress is justifiable and that they will not suffer any serious consequences for criminal acts. Indeed, their behaviour, however reprehensible, will most likely be met with capitulation, reward and absolution.

Take the ongoing student riots at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, where an elderly professor was hospitalised this week after being attacked with a brick, all because he dared defy the students’ national shutdown by going to his office. IOL quotes a UKZN staff member to tellingly reflect the warped values of our society’s supposed leaders: “Management said the professor was injured but his car was okay.”

The students, angry at the universities’ insistence that they settle at least 15% of any outstanding fees before registering this year, have been running amuck for weeks. Students reluctant to join the protests have been assaulted, including at least one stabbing. No lectures are being held.

So far, this year, the UKZN students, numbering about 1,000 out of an enrolment of close on 50,000, have burnt down the HIV-clinic, a residence, and two campus security offices. They failed in their attempts to burn down the gym, unlike a few years ago when they torched the Howard College Law Library and destroyed a priceless collection of historical books.

The SAPS’ nationwide strategy seems to be one of containment, doing no more than trying to prevent the violence from spreading. As SAPS put it, the police will monitor protests and “take appropriate action when protestors commit a crime”.

But at the universities, arrests have been few and far between. When they have occurred, it seems they have mostly been made by varsity security. As it has done for decades with householders and businesses, SAPS response has not been to do its job but instead to shift the responsibility for law enforcement to the victim — in this case, taxpayer-funded institutions — “imploring” them, according to media reports, to beef up their security.

But one can’t blame the SAPS entirely. When arrests are made by them, the offenders are often not prosecuted and the courts tend to be lenient in sentencing.

It must be wearisome for the cops to see their best efforts negated by a supine and endlessly accommodating political establishment. Fees Must Fall thug, Kanya Cekeshe, who was sentenced to eight years jail for public violence — trying to set a van full of cops alight — of which three years were suspended, spent less than two in prison. He was released following a campaign supported by the likes of former Public Protector Thuli Madonsela, which demanded clemency for the “political prisoner”.

It is not coincidence, given their pseudo-military affectations, that at many incidents of public disorder can be spotted the red berets of the Economic Freedom Fighters. It’s not clear whether they are there merely as enthusiastic participants in existing chaos or orchestrating it. Or both.

What is clear, however, is that the African National Congress government is incapable of acting forcefully against any public violence that has attached to it the vaguest connotation of leftist political mobilisation. To do so, it fears, would be to strengthen the EFF and to weaken its credibility and support among an increasingly militant black youth.

Unfortunately, the government is absolutely right. And, even more unfortunately, that means we are sliding towards one of the most obvious characteristics of a failed state — widespread and uncontrollable mob violence, fomented by sinister populist forces.

https://www.politicsweb.co.za/opinion/u ... c-violence

[Lisbeth]

Excellent! Finally someone who has analyzed the daily violence happening everywhere and the hesitance of the police to intervene