COSATU condemns police brutality 17 - 11 - 06

COSATU condemns police brutality

The Congress of South African Trade Unions is outraged at the report on SABC News tonight, 17 November, at the brutal torture of security guards employed by Coin Security in Modderfontein. It closely resembles police brutality in the strike at Karan Beef in Heidelberg, which has led to the death of one worker.

A resolution which was passed at COSATU's 9th National Congress noted "the sometimes inhumane, barbaric and violent response by the police in managing demonstrations, which reverts to the old brutal apartheid style of tear gas, bullets and skiet, skop en donner", is highly relevant to these violent incidents.

Congress resolved to "call on the police management and the police more general to ensure adherence to the Code of Good Practice on Police Conduct during pickets and strikes". This has clearly not been adhered to in these cases. In the Karan Beef strike there was a welcome intervention by Firoz Cachalia, Gauteng Safety and Security MEC, who agreed to investigate the role of police and security guards in that dispute.

We urge him to complete his investigation and to launch a similar urgent investigation, together with the SAPS's Independent Complaints Directorate, into the role of the police at Coin Security, and to take strong disciplinary action against any officers found guilty of these assaults.

We also demand that Coin's parent company, the Mvelaphanda Group, which claims to be "South Africa's pre-eminent broad-based, black-controlled, owned and managed diversified group", must intervene immediately to discipline the Coin management who are presiding over these atrocities against their workers - members of the disadvantaged majority, which such companies are supposed to be empowering.

More than twelve years after the overthrow of apartheid it is outrageous that sections of the police and management can treat workers as if nothing has changed since those dark days. The transformation of the police into an organisation that serves, rather than terrorises, the people is long overdue.--