Eradicate crime before it’s too late

With no moral corruption tainting the border post, the human traffic to and from South Africa would posit a boon to the town, attracting investors and tourists alike. Unfortunately, however, Beitbridge might be headed for notoriety as an alias to its name thanks to criminals who are causing mayhem by attack­ing innocent people in an apparent bid for easy pickings from travellers returning home loaded with money from the south.
A policeman was reported this week to be in hospital in the town after being attacked by two assailants armed with machetes, as he prayed alone in a bushy area on the outskirts of the town, along the Beitbridge- Bulawayo road, accord­ing to the police there. The attack­ers got away with R100, a cellphone and a radio which they ripped out of the officer’s car parked nearby. According to the police, another man from the same town was attacked last week by two men wielding a gun, who frisked him and took R2 000 and a cell­phone before melting away into the bush.
Reacting to the attacks, Matabele­land South provin­cial police spokesperson Sergeant Loveness Mangena also warned the public against venturing out into secluded areas unaccompanied as they risked attacks. She added that there had been an increase in muggings and robberies in the town.
What Sergeant Mangena omitted to say to give resi­dents of Beitbridge a sense of security, even a modicum assurance of that, is what the police and other arms of State security were doing to prevent Beitbridge from being turned by criminals into a no-go area for visitors and investors in particular, in view of the reported rise in criminal activity in the town.
A usually reliable source told this writer from Beit­bridge four days ago that the criminals who had besieged the town were outsiders from cities such as Harare and Bul­awayo, “who targeted Beitbridge to steal money” from travellers arriv­ing in the border town from the south. The source exonerated local residents from committing the rob­beries.
Zimbabwe has for long been popu­lar with foreign visitors for the unbounded hospitality of our peo­ple, so that foreign visitors return­ing home became the coun­try’s goodwill ambassadors. But attacks on innocent, people belie the freedom that our people boast of as a value engendered by inde­pendence, and negate any hos­pitality that serves as a trump card for increased tourist inflows. In metaphorical terms, Beitbridge is to the rest of Zimbabwe what limb is to the human body. But while a limb with a wound that develops into a gangrene or becomes cancer­ous, can be amputated to prevent the rot spreading to the rest of the body and threatening life, Beit­bridge cannot be dismembered from the rest of the Zimbabwean “body” in spite of the gangrene that has set in there, threatening the good image of the town and of the country as a whole.
If the beasts responsible for the social pathologies of muggings and robberies continue with their reign of terror- who knows- they might spread their terrorism to other towns and cities further inland with results ghastly to contemplate. What this suggests is that secu­rity forces should swing into action, and be seen by the wider public to do so, with the support of every citizen to send a mes­sage to every comer of Zimbabwe that crime does not pay.
To begin with, the police and the army might wish to consider mounting joint, clean-up opera­tions in Beit­bridge residential stands areas and in the town’s envi­rons to rid the areas of unwanted elements hibernating there for pur­poses of perpetuating crime.
Other, anti-crime measures may also be adopted by the security forces to get rid of highway robbers who waylay travellers, especially motorists, at lay-byes where people stop to relieve themselves, have a meal or to take a deserved rest in the course of their journey.
If nothing is done to safeguard journeys, a situation might develop whereby travellers might carry illegal weapons to protect themselves with the danger of abusing weapons, human frailty or depravity being what they are. It would be very sad were Zimbabwe to degenerate into medieval times with outlaws into hide­outs to rob travellers.
It may also be found necessary to carry out similar military and police sweeps through residential areas including squatter camps in other urban areas where criminals hold residents to ransom with accomplices also being subjected to the wrath of the law. Such joint police and military operations were once carried out in Zambia during president Kenneth Kaunda’s rule with results that rampant crime was brought under control. If the same is done in Zim­babwe, especially at night, and those harbouring crim­inals are also accounted for, a big start will have been made towards making lives and property safe as well as in protecting and enhanc­ing Zimbabwe’s image.
Apologists for the anti-social misfits might cite the country’s economic meltdown with a loss of jobs to jus­tify crimes by locals, but no such or similar justification for wrong-doing will wash as any able-bodied Zimbab­weans can form co-operatives or join informal traders who now earn an honest living through self reliance.
If on the other hand Zimbabweans eschew zero tol­erance against violent crime, there is a real danger that the country could end up pariah-ed by the outside world with disastrous consequences.
l The writer is former editor of the Chronicle