REPORT BACK | BY NATHI MTHETHWA
The road to a society that is free from violent crime: Awulethe umshini wakho - surrender your firearm

Democracy enjoins that all South African patriots ought to work together to ensure the success of the process of reconstruction and development of our country. However, the increased availability and abuse of firearms and ammunition contributes significantly to the high and unacceptable levels of violent crimes in our society and undermines our democratic gains. >>> MORE

Viewpoint | BY MOLEFI SEFULARO
Quality Health Care is about Human Rights, Politics and the National Health Insurance

The quality project of the department of health gives all of us an opportunity to revive our Health and Education Campaign launched in Kliptown in 2008. At the same time, we will be able to meaningfully participate in the delivering on the ANC 2009 Election Manifesto undertakings and government priority of ensuring A Long and Healthy Life for all South Africans.>>> MORE

Viewpoint | BY ANDILE LUNGISA
Haitian Disaster put in historical context

The immediate suffering in Haiti is the result of a natural disaster of biblical proportion. But it is also compounded by political disasters of the past two centuries, and the considerable responsibility for those disasters lies with the politically penury Haitian elites and US policymakers. >>> MORE

REPORT BACK | by Nathi Mthethwa

The road to a society that is free from violent crime: Awulethe umshini wakho - surrender your firearm

The strategic goal of our democratic government led by the African National Congress remains the creation of a united, non-racial, non-sexist, democratic, peaceful, secured and prosperous South Africa. All our actions and policies are aimed towards achieving this goal. Democracy enjoins that all South African patriots ought to work together to ensure the success of the process of reconstruction and development of our country. We, collectively and singularly, have a responsibility to bring about a better life for all.

Our country’s Constitution guarantees every person the right to life and the right to security, which includes among other things, the right to be free from all forms of violence from either public or private sources. Our Constitution further guarantees that adequate protection of such rights is fundamental to the well being, social and economic development of every person. However, the increased availability and abuse of firearms and ammunition contributes significantly to the high and unacceptable levels of violent crimes in our society.

To realise these Constitutional imperatives, the South African Police has embarked on the number of operations. Amongst these are Operation Washa Tsotsi and Operation Duty Calls. Since the launch of Operation Washa Tsotsi on 1 July 2009, a total of 752 criminals have been arrested in coordinated intelligence-led take-down operations and R25, 5 million worth of evidence has been seized. These arrests were over and above arrests made during normal day-to-day policing and detective work.

Operation Duty Calls was launched late in November to counter the usual spike in crime rates during the holiday period. It focused on visible policing at shopping malls and taxi ranks, as well as patrols of popular tourist destinations and operations against illegal firearms. Due to this operation there was a significant year- on-year decline in crimes, including armed robbery, burglary and theft of cash in transit.

To take our fight against crime to a higher level, on 11 January 2010 the South African Police launched the firearm amnesty, Operation Awulethe umshini wakho. Surrender your firearm. It will run until 11 April 2010 and has the following objectives:

• to advocate for the voluntary surrender for destruction of licensed firearms through the process prescribed in the Firearms Control Regulations.
• to allow for the surrender of illegal firearms under the amnesty.
• to allow people who missed the cut off date for relicensing to license their weapons in terms of the Firearms Control Act (FCA).

The amnesty process should not be seen in isolation from our efforts to reduce the number of illegal firearms in circulation. It should be understood to be part of our holistic approach to reduce firearms in private hands and the resultant crime from the proliferation of these guns.

The current amnesty process is aimed at achieving the following:

• Promoting responsible firearms ownership through the implementation of the Firearms Control Act (FCA).
• The implementation of Integrated Ballistic Identification System (IBIS) testing of weapons. In particular state weapons and starting with SAPS members. This is aimed at ensuring greater accountability and responsibility over weapons in the hands of state officials and private security operators.
• Initiatives by SAPS to remove weapons from the hands of criminals through focused police operations and investigations.
• Addressing the pool of illegal weapons in circulation within the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region. To this end we are planning to ensure that similar amnesty processes occur in other SADC countries starting in March this year.

Under the amnesty the following people are targeted:

• Individuals who have knowledge of whereabouts of firearms and ammunition.
• Individuals who inherited firearms and did not apply for a license.
• Individuals who have legally sold or disposed of licensed firearm, but are still in possession of firearms parts or ammunition.
• Manufacturers, gunsmiths and firearms dealers with surplus, obsolete and redundant firearms and ammunition.
• Storage facilities where firearms and ammunition are stored.
• Individuals who store firearms without legal authorization.
• Private security companies with obsolete, redundant or surplus firearms.
• The general public.

People who wish to make use of the amnesty process will surrender their weapons or apply for licensing through their local police stations. Each local station has been instructed to appoint a designated Firearm Amnesty Official/s who will be responsible for ensuring smooth running of the process at a local level. The Provincial and National Joint Operation Centres (JOC) will co-ordinate all operational aspects of the amnesty process.

The establishment and maintenance of an all-inclusive monitoring mechanism will play a pivotal role in the successful conclusion of Amnesty 2010. In relation to the issue of compensation, the Firearms Control Act, 2000, is clear about the circumstances under which compensation will and will not be paid.

Compensation is not payable where the firearms and ammunition was seized from a person to whom no license was issued, or the person was otherwise unlawfully in possession of the firearm. A lawful owner of a firearm also has no claim against a firearm if the South African Police Service (SAPS) recovered it after having been stolen from a lawful owner as a result of his or her negligence. The Act also provides that no compensation is payable where firearms or ammunition are destroyed by the State.

A person who has had their license repealed under the old repealed Act, or who does not wish to retain their licensed firearm has a number of options open to them:

• The person could choose to sell their firearm to a licensed person or a firearm dealership.
• A person who wanted to keep firearms purely for sentimental reasons could apply for permission to de-activate a firearm and once permission is obtained, such de-activation has to be performed at their own expense.
• They could choose to forfeit the firearm to the State for destruction and where the destruction costs are then borne by the State.

The choice on how to dispose of a firearm is therefore with the owner, as long as the conditions of the Firearms Control Act are adhered to as cited above.

There may be entities that will embark on a strategy to derail the amnesty processes. One of which is the discrediting of the safety of firearms in police custody and the amnesty processes as exemplified by the wild accusation made by the Gun Owners of South Africa (GOSA) last week Friday.

In order to address these allegations as well as to ensure public confidence in the process, we have established a comprehensive monitoring process to monitor the amnesty. A National Monitoring Team has been established under the Secretariat of Police and the provincial teams have been put in place and will report to this national team on all aspects of the process.

Vital to the success of the amnesty is an effective communication plan. Our communication plan has been up and running since 4 January 2010 and will continue until the end of April. Our communication plan includes the following:

• Informing the public about amnesty.
• Communicating the period and conditions of the amnesty.
• Promoting responsible firearm usage and compliance with the FCA.
• Creating awareness in communities.
• Enlisting the support of civil society in communicating the amnesty to the public.
• Informing the public about steps being taken by government to address firearm related crimes.

We are encouraged by the support the amnesty has received from members of the public and organizations. Weapons have already started to be handed in at local stations around the country. Within two weeks of the launch more than 22 000 weapons and over 33 600 rounds of ammunition had been recovered. We wish to thank citizens who have heeded our call to rid our country of unwanted and illegal firearms by making use of both the amnesty of 2005 and the present amnesty.

Equally, we are encouraged by the support we have received from the business community, Gun Free South Africa and even from some of the Gun Owner Associations such as the South African Hunters and Game Conservation Association. We intend over the coming days and weeks to intensify our engagement with other organisations to ensure their support for this process.

It is important for us to explain to the South African public the reason that prompted us to declare this Amnesty. Amongst other factors is that South Africa has a significant pool of illegal firearms in circulation which contribute to the high rate of serious and violent crime as well as firearm-related crimes.

The source of these illegal firearms range from stolen firearms from licensed members of the public to firearms illegally smuggled into the country. It is therefore common in nature that they are owned illegally and the State has little or no knowledge of them.

The law enforcement agencies be it police, military, intelligence community are charged with the responsibility of uncovering illegal arsenals, tracking arms smuggling and uncovering illegal weapons syndicates. The success of any operation depends on the active participation of the ordinary citizens of our country.

It is indeed a duty of every South African patriot to report any criminal activity including the illegal possession and dealing in firearms and ammunition. As a government that cares, we understand that all our people irrespective of race, class, gender, or religion deserve to live in a secured and comfortable environment.

Working together with communities, the ANC government will ensure that criminals are dealt with to the full extent of the law. To fight crime, we need to stand together. We must build and strengthen partnerships, and work together to speed up effective service to the people in order to succeed in our objective of creating a united, non-racial, non-sexist, democratic, peaceful, secured and prosperous South Africa.

The journey that we have thus far travelled gives us confidence that we shall reach our goal of a society that is free from gun violence, a society that cares.

Awulethue umshini wakho. Surrender your firearm.

<< Nathi Mthethwa is an ANC NEC member and Minister of Police

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Viewpoint | by molefi sefularo

Quality Health Care is about Human Rights, Politics and the National Health Insurance

The National Health Insurance requires many building blocks before it can be rolled out. One of these critical building blocks is the programme on the Quality of Health Care, launched in November 2009 by the national Department of Health.

Our 2009 Elections Manifesto and Plan of Action are clear about the need to improve the health of our population, and to improve the quality of the services we provide. This is not because we have not seen this as a priority before - under the ANC we have achieved a major transformation of the highly inequitable health system that we inherited from the past.

We have moved away from the previous race-based and very hospital-centred health-care system, and we have made large investments in improving access, especially where this was very limited - although differences in terms of access for the poor and for rural people are still too large. However, in spite of these best efforts the results we are seeing are still not good enough in terms of improving the health of our population, and there is widespread criticism of the quality of the care we provide.

What is not said often or clearly enough is that the lack of quality in our health services is a violation of the human rights of our people, especially women, rural people and the poor. It is they who suffer preventable and avoidable deaths of breadwinners and loved ones because of poor quality care. The micro-economics of long waiting hours mean that in addition to travel costs, the poor are forced to buy food and other necessities as they wait a full day to be served and discharged. Taking a day off work to go to hospital may mean choosing between losing a day’s wages and seeking health care. No wonder some of the employed poor go to hospital when it is too late.

The dehumanising effects of dirty facilities and lack of basic amenities like clean sheets have often caused our people to protest, “We too are human beings!” The middle class and the rich who enjoy private health insurance and care do not have to wait the whole day, sleep in unclean wards and bedding or fear burns, infections or accidents when they are in hospital.

But what exactly do we mean by quality health care and why do we say it is poor?

“Quality” is a very wide term that means many things to many people. One definition of quality is “getting the best possible results within the resources that we have.” Even though we recognise that we might need more resources, how well do we use what we have? Other people define quality as “meeting standards”, while for others, quality is about meeting the expectations of the different groups of people involved in health care - firstly, the patients themselves and what they expect, but also the health care workers who provide care, and those who fund and manage our services. Quality is in fact all of these things.

Set against this of course, we have many, many public hospitals and clinics that are efficient and clean, where the staff provide excellent care and are trusted and respected by those they care for. Why this difference? How to make this the rule, the norm? This is what we are trying to achieve. How to contribute to the developmental state we all aim for and ensure that we are truly contributing to service delivery for those most in need?

In achieving this, our first priority lies in recognising that health care, and indeed all public service, is based on values of caring, dedication and integrity; and that this has to be led from the top, from our leadership. President Jacob Zuma has clearly stated how critical it is to transform the attitude of our public servants to reflect the values we expect of our services. Internationally, the critical importance of leadership based on such values and supporting them is identified again and again as the most fundamental success factor in ensuring a quality health service.

At a recent “Quality Summit”, 300 staff and partners adopted a Declaration affirming their commitment to living and sharing values that made them chose to become health care workers and that make them proud to continue to do this work. They ended by affirming their readiness to

• Walk the talk of values and quality
• Be care givers
• Act in a disciplined manner and instil discipline
• Assume their role as quality improvement leaders

This highlights that if we are to serve the public and use public money most effectively, there has to be stronger accountability for how we do our work to meet quality standards - something that has become weakened over time. This requires a clear statement of what is expected of our staff and managers, how they will be measured, and what will happen if they achieve what is expected (the incentives or rewards) or if they do not (the sanctions).

Accountability also requires that any consequences be applied without fear or favour. Strengthening accountability lies at the heart of the focus on improved monitoring and performance management.

Government has developed a set of national core standards that capture the expected performance of a health facility (a hospital, a clinic) that is delivering quality health care. The national standards are intended to cover public and private sectors, primary health care as well as hospitals. They are all expected to ensure they achieve these standards and they will be measured every few years against them as the basis for accreditation; as a pre-requisite for implementation of the National Health Insurance.

Patient rights are the first area, reflecting the expectation that patients are treated with respect and dignity. To those using our public services, the attitude of our staff, the environment within which they are treated and the length of time they have to wait are at the top of their list of expected performance. The second area covers patient safety and good clinical care. It is recognised throughout the world that the unintended harm caused to patients is a significant problem, even in the best healthcare systems. Our system is certainly no exception.

Clinical Support Services which means patient care is done correctly and all medicines and equipments are available for doctors, nurses and other health workers, are essential in the effective diagnosis and treatment of our patients. These first three domains together are what we are about - these are our “core business” of caring for our patients.

The other areas or domains of Public Health, Leadership, Corporate Governance, Operational Management and Facilities Management reflects what we expect managers of health facilities to do to improve the health of the population they serve and not just the sick patients who walk through their doors.

There are two overriding requirements to ensure that we turn around the quality of care in our public health services. The first is that leadership and support systems (such as the clinic committee or hospital board; the top management team and the district or provincial office) must ensure that things get done and that the quality improves. The second is that our staff and all health workers need to have the knowledge and the tools to be able to improve how they do things - and this is what will ensure we can provide quality health care.

Some of us who are members of the ANC and have served in the public health sector for a long time are convinced that while technical solutions are necessary, they are not enough without citizen participation. As leaders and servants of our people and communities, the ANC members and branches have to be at the forefront of supporting South Africans as they assert their right to quality and dignified health care.

The quality project of the department of health gives all of us an opportunity to revive our Health and Education Campaign launched in Kliptown in 2008. At the same time, we will be able to meaningfully participate in the delivering on the ANC 2009 Election Manifesto undertakings and government priority of ensuring A Long and Healthy Life for all South Africans. To do so will require that we form health and education subcommittees at all levels of our constitutional structures.

The life of a branch is in its campaigns. Quality of health care is just the one kind of the campaign that we can adopt to give life to our branches. More importantly, we will be helping to prepare ourselves to more effectively support, advance and defend the National Health Insurance once it is introduced.

<< Molefi Sefularo is the Deputy Minister of Health

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Viewpoint | by Andile Lungisa

Haitian Disaster put in historical context

A devastating earthquake, the worst in 200 years, struck Port-au-Prince on the 12th of January 2010, laying waste to the city and killed many thousands of people. The quake detonated more than 30 aftershocks throughout the night to the following morning.

It toppled houses, hotels, hospitals and even the capital city's main political buildings, including the presidential palace. The collapse of so many structures sent a giant cloud into the sky, which hovered over the city, raining dust down onto the wasteland below. Estimated 200,000 people have died, in a metropolis of 2 million people and those that survived are living in the streets, afraid to return inside any building that remains standing.

The immediate suffering in Haiti is the result of a natural disaster of biblical proportion. It is also compounded by political disasters of the past two centuries, and the considerable responsibility for those disasters lies not only with the politically penury Haitian elites but also with western, particularly US policymakers. The media coverage of the earthquake is marked by an almost complete separation of the disaster from the social and political history of Haiti.

Haiti is seen as simply another "failed state" to be pitied and in need of international intervention. Few people remember that Haiti has a glorious past.

Journalists have noted that a slave revolt led to the founding of an independent Haiti in 1804 and made a passing reference on how France’s subsequent demand for “reparations” (to compensate the French for their lost of property and slaves) crippled Haiti economically for more than a century. Some journalists have even pointed out that while it was a slave society, the United States backed France in that cruel policy and didn’t recognise Haiti independence until the Civil War.

Occasional references also have been made to the 1915 U.S. invasion under the “liberal” Woodrow Wilson and an occupation that lasted until 1934, and support the US government gave to the two brutal Duvalier dictatorships (the infamous “Papa Doc” and “Baby Doc”) that ravaged the country from 1957-86. Today there’s little discussion of how the problems of contemporary Haiti can be traced to those policies. It is thus important that a brief history of the resilient nation of Haiti is offered in order to contextualise the unfolding tragedy.

Towards the end of the eighteenth century, Haiti, in those days Saint Domingue, was France's richest colony. Haiti's sugar-plantations and Haiti's African slaves provided the economic backbone and renaissance of France. After the fall of the Bastille, which ushered the institutional domination of capital, both Haiti's white slave-owners and emancipated Haitian mulattoes sent representatives to the revolutionary convention in Paris. Haiti's slave and plantation owners were relieved that the French monarchy and French commercial controls had collapsed which opened up an interesting new market in the neighbouring United States. Haiti's mulattoes were enthralled by French revolutionary principles. A Haitian mulatto leader, Lacombe, insisted that freedom, brotherhood and equality were principles which ought to be observed also in Haiti. He was immediately hanged by irate French slave owners.

Haiti's popular majority, hundreds of thousands of African slaves, sent no representatives to revolutionary Paris. Instead they organised themselves, using the cover of voodoo sessions, which were tolerated by French plantation owners who thought their slaves were merely gathering to dance and worship their African gods. Haiti's slaves were modernised proletariats brought together by their work on the big plantations. And they too heard the rumours from France and the signals of the revolution.

The first Haitian slave rebellion took place in the month of August 1791. Twelve thousand slaves in the northern parts of Saint Domingue rose up, ransacked the plantations and hanged their oppressors on the nearest palm trees. And this is where Toussaint L´Ouverture, Haiti's revolutionary leader, enters world history. He was a literate, black supervisor on a slave plantation where his French master seems to have been fairly tolerant and was protected by Toussaint against rebellious slaves.

For a while Toussaint was seen as a benign slave collaborator, but he had realised that the slaves needed military organisation. He raised a black army and had the satisfaction of defeating two European invasions. First he defeated the troops sent out by revolutionary France to quell the slave rebellion. After that he defeated one hundred thousand British soldiers, dispatched by Prime Minister William Pitt the younger. The invaders were thoroughly beaten by Haiti's African defenders and by yellow fever.

In France, especially the Jacobins showed a great deal of sympathy for revolutionary Haiti, and in 1793 slavery was banned. However, after assuming power, the First Consul, Napoléon Bonaparte, decided to reintroduce slavery and, as he put it, "rip the epaulettes off the shoulders of the Negroes". Napoléon sent new invading forces. Haiti did survive as an independent nation but was under perpetual pressure from France, England, United States and Spain. Toussaint L´Ouverture eventually died in a French dungeon.

Even more glaring is the absence of a discussion of more recent Haiti-US relations, especially US support for the two coups (1991 and 2004) against a democratically elected president. Jean-Bertrand Aristide won a stunning victory in 1990 by articulating the aspirations of Haiti’s poorest citizens, and his populist economic program irritated both Haitian elites and U.S. policy-makers.

The George Bush (Senior) administration nominally condemned the 1991 military coup but gave tacit support to the generals. US President, Bill Clinton eventually helped Aristide return to power in Haiti in 1994, but not until the Haitian leader had been forced to capitulate to business-friendly economic policies demanded by the United States.

When Aristide won another election in 2000 the George W Bush (Junior) administration blocked crucial loans to his government and supported the violent reactionary forces attacking Aristide’s party. The sad conclusion to that policy came in 2004 when the US military effectively kidnapped Aristide and flew him out of the country.

Aristide today is our guest in South Africa, blocked by the United States from returning to his country, where he still has many supporters and could help in the relief efforts.

Exactly two weeks after the disaster, government ministers, international bankers and aid agencies gathered in Montreal, Canada, to discuss plans for 'reconstructing' earthquake-ravaged Haiti, a project that the theorist Naomi Klein has prudently termed 'Disaster Capital'. At the heart of the proposal in Montreal is the recolonization of Haiti and brutal exploitation of its people. Haiti is now being run by the US military which has deployed over 13,000 troops and unilaterally taken control of the country’s airport and port facilities.

The Pentagon dominates the provision of relief which it has subordinated to the number one priority of deploying combat-equipped US soldiers and Marines, much to the detriment of injured and hungry Haitians waiting for life-saving medical supplies and food. Behind the talk of Haiti's 'reconstruction', what is being discussed is a plan worked out in the months before the earthquake that is dictated by the profit interests of US banks and corporations, together with those of Haiti’s wealthy elite.

Speaking to reporters en route from Washington to Montreal, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton referred to this plan, 'Disaster Capital', while praising the work of her husband, former President Bill Clinton, in seeking to implement it in his position as United Nations envoy to Haiti. “He had just had a conference with 500 businesspeople,” she said. “They were signing contracts, they were making investments.”

She continued: “So we have a plan. It is a legitimate plan. It was done in conjunction with other international donors, with the United Nations. And I don’t want to start from scratch, but we have to recognise the changed challenges we are now confronting.”

The plan, worked up at the behest of the UN last year, is aimed at expanding the Haitian economy through the development of free trade zones based on garment sweatshops in which Haitian workers would be paid near-starvation wages. The initiative is based on a report prepared for the UN last year by Oxford University economics professor Paul Collier.

The report perversely cast Haiti’s poverty - the deepest in the Western Hemisphere - as its number one asset in the global capitalist economy. “Due to its poverty and relatively unregulated labour market, Haiti has labour costs that are fully competitive with China, which is the global benchmark,” Collier wrote. This “asset” is something that both Washington and Haiti’s parasitical ruling elite have jealously guarded.

Former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was overthrown twice - in 1991 and 2004 - in bloody coups orchestrated by the CIA in conjunction with Haitian factory owners, in large measure for proposing to raise the country’s minimum wage.

<< Andile Lungisa is the Deputy President of the ANC Youth League and Executive Chairman of the National Youth Development Agency