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Northern Cape
PAGE 22 Friday, 13 May 2011
Free State News
Cope: cops must be of sound mind
POLICE should undergo psycho-logical evaluation before being
declared t to use a rearm,Cope’s Johannesburg mayoralcandidate, Preddy Mothopeng,has said.
“They must be of a stable andsound mind. They should betrained properly and placed in workshop counselling every sixmonths to ensure they are t toreport for duty.”
Mothopeng was responding tothe recent killings of protester
Andries Tatane in Ficksburgand Jeanette Odendaal outsidethe Kempton Park police stationat the hands of police.
Police needed to act as peace-keepers, Mothopeng said.
“Where there are two politicalparties campaigning in the samearea, they must be able to medi-ate,” Mothopeng said.
Police allegedly red rubber
bullets into Tatane’s chest and beat him with batons during the
protest in the Meqheleng town-ship in the Free State last month.Their actions were broadcast
on television.Tatane’s killing was widely
condemned by political par-ties, trade unions and civilsociety.
Odendaal, 45, was shot dead,
allegedly by a police sergeant,after she crashed into a police van while trying to park her caroutside the Kempton Park policestation. The ocer, Manape Phi-neas Kgoale, 38, appeared in theKempton Park Regional Courtlast week.
He was refused bail after it was found that he had a previousrearm-related conviction.
It also emerged that Kgo -ale had a drinking problem. – Sapa
Kuruman clinicruns out of drugsIshmael Modiba
THE rural community of Kuru-man has been receiving sub-standard care in the past three
months due to the clinic being without basic medication. The DAprovincial leader, Andrew Louw,said the issue came to light duringa campaign visit to the area in theJoe Morolong municipality.
Louw said old, sickly residents,many of whom were pensioners,
were dependent on grants andhad no access to public transport, were being sent home from theLaxey community health centre without necessary treatment.
The clinic had had only diabetesand blood pressure medicines forthe past three months.
“It’s ironic that the medicalcare being received from this ne
building is in such a shambles.On top of this, the building has
been maintained by volunteersfor at least the past three years,”he said.
He added that these volunteersreceive no stipend in return forhelping with the cleaning of thefacility and in assisting the sick.He said the government hadshown little interest in helpingthem to improve the services
being rendered at “this poorexcuse for a clin ic”.
“It is thus little wonder, giventhe fact that people are dying,that the Laxey community is sodespondent,” he said.
Louw added that the Laxey community health centre was yet
another case where the “poorestof our poor people are unable totake advantage of the rights andfreedoms enshrined in the Con-stitution”.
“The question is what are theJoe Morolong municipality andthe department of health doing
about it? Sadly, the answer isnothing,” Louw stated.
“Poor health robs people of opportunity. The DA believes thatit is government’s moral duty tocombat poverty by ensuring thateveryone, including those whocannot aord to pay for them,have access to the basic servicesthey need to improve their lives.
“To this end, the municipality has a crucial role to play, not leastof all working with other spheresof government to expand accessto primary healthcare facilities,
but also to establish primary healthcare units in municipali-ties to assess the quality of careadministered at primary healthcare facilities. The ocial at Joe
Morolong municipality referredthe matter to the department of health as they are responsible andcan better explain what is happen-ing,” said Louw.
Spokesperson for the healthdepartment Lulu Mxekezo saidthere were no government carsavailable to take medication toLaxey clinic, due to the termina-tion of the transport contract withthe previous service provider.
Mxekezo said everything was back to normal as an interimarrangement had been made.
Bid to end student strikeGetrude Makhafola
OFFICIALS and student repre-sentatives at Motheo FET collegein Bloemfontein were on Wednes-day night still in talks in a bid toresolve issues regarding the seven week-long strike at the college.
After writing to the Ministry of Higher Education to intervene lastmonth, the student representativecouncil (SRC) said it had receiveda letter from the departmentpromising to investigate.
The students rst marched andhanded over a memorandum tothe department of education inMarch.
In the memorandum, they demanded that principal PasekaMaboya leave the college withimmediate eect because of his
alleged “failure to transform theinstitution”.
There were also allegations of nepotism, nancial mismanage-
ment and a shortage of lectur-ers at the college, leading to theemployment of “incompetent and unqualied” lecturers.
The SRC has said students willnot sit for exams in two weekstime if their demands are not met.
Last night, one of the college
ocials who identied himself asMr Moroe said he could not com-ment on the ongoing talks.
Asked when the talks wouldend, Moroe said he was not sure“as they can go well into midnight”.The college was established in April 2002 and has branches inThaba Nchu, Bloemfontein andHillside View.
Mayor ‘built toilets’Andrew Molefe
THE federal chairperson of theDA, Wilmot James, has writtento the public protector requestingan investigation into the circum-stances surrounding the failure by the Moqhaka municipality in theFree State to properly provide andenclose some 1 600 toilets for theresidents of Viljoenskroon.
“It was reported yesterday,on the Mail & Guardian websiteand on the front page of The
Star newspaper, that the mayorof Moqhaka, Mantebu Mokgosi,together with her husband, serveas executive directors of the com-pany Danteb Building Construc-tion cc, which was awarded the
contract by Moqhaka municipality to build the toilets in question. Ihave attached to this request, bothstories referred to,” wrote James“It is reported by The Star, thatMs Mokgosi was an ANC council-lor in the municipality when thetender was rst awarded. The
Mail & Guardian report states MsMokgosi’s company was awardedthe contract in 2006.
“In 2006, she would be electedmayor. Either way, it is fundamen -tally problematic.”
He said apart from an investiga-tion by the Human Rights Com-mission, which is investigating apossible infringement of humanrights, the relevant body needs toinvestigate whether or not therehad been any illegality, unethi-cal or inappropriate behaviour in
this case.The Star, he said, also reports
that after the work was not com -pleted by the initial contractor, asecond tender for the toilets wasawarded to a company that wasalso owned by an individual whoserved as an ANC councillor.
He added that after 10 years,the toilets were still unenclosedand the job required of the com-pany awarded to build them, unnished. The consequence has been the long term and sustained
assault on the dignity of people
who live in Viljoenskroon.“If it is true that the mayor was
an ANC councillor when the ten-der was awarded, this is deeply unethical. There is a case to bemade too that it is corrupt.
“I would like to request that you investigate the awarding of
this contract and the contract sub-sequent to it, the circumstancesaround which those decisions were made and whether they weredone in accorda nce with the law.”
DA claims unfnished toilet contract was awarded to mayor’s company
Cop kills wife and himself THE Independent ComplaintsDirectorate is investigating anincident in which a police ocer inKimberley shot his wife and then
committed suicide, ICD spokes-person Moses Dlamini has said
yesterday.“It is alleged that on Tuesday
about 11pm, a sergeant who is adetective at Galeshewe police sta-tion in Kimberley, shot his wife
with his service pistol at their
home and then turned the gunon himself. They both died at thescene,” Dlamini said..
The ICD was notied on May 11
and the crime scene was attended by ICD investigators who con-ducted a preliminary investiga-tion.
“At this stage, no foul play issuspected.”
The post mortem was con -ducted yesterday. – Sapa
WOMANDLA: Minister of Public Works Gwen Mahlangu-Nkabinde, right, and her secretary Debbie Berry walk triumphantly hand in handout of the new provincial building of the department in Bloemfontein yesterday. The building, which cost R55m, will replace the ofceblock which had cost the department R240 000 monthly rental. Pic: Getrude Makhafola
PUBLIC WORKS OWN HOME AT LAST
AfrikaBurn’s the egoScott Smith
WELCOME to AfrikaBurn,
check in your ego at the gong.Tucked away in the semi-arid
Karoo, about 100km south of Cal- vinia, o one of South Africa’slongest dirt and deserted roads,the R355, lies something just alittle out of the ordinary that hap-pens just once a year.
A collection of temporary struc -tures literally just popping out of the desert gravel, a gathering of people maybe just a little weirderthan you may be comfortable withand probably the most interestingve days you will spend anywhere.
AfrikaBurn is primarily anart festival despite the loose phi-losophy guiding this temporary community based on the valuesof radical self-expression andself-reliance in a strictly non-commercial environment.
Organisers feel the event rep-
resents such a radical break fromthe norms of society that if the
festival continues to grow then theexperiences there will somehow,in some form and some measure,spill into mainstream society and make desired changes suchas more love, less commercialismand more tolerance. Unlikely inthis correspondent’s opinion butit is a noble ideal and those who doparticipate do so properly.
AfrikaBurn has attracted animpressive 4 000 people after just four years. These increasingnumbers may suggest, broadly, agrowing displeasure with main-stream society. Without gettingtoo philosophical about it or goingso far as to suggest that some-
thing is indeed wrong with the world we live in, an excuse to go wild in the desert and trump con -
ventions and even laws is clearly on the minds of many revellers.
AfrikaBurn is, in a very realsense, a gloried theme anddress-up party. So what is itexactly? In short, it is inden -able. Participants and organis-ers desire to keep the event free
An alternative to consumer culture at a carnival o human expression
from the prison of interpretation,explanation, and the insidious netof meaning. In other words – it is what you make it and consider-ing the varied individuals at theevent it appears people do justthat – make it up.
Conformity is simply non-exist-ent. It is a social experiment if onedoes require an answer.
What it is for the participantis a carnival-like atmosphere– bright lights, plumes of hugeames bursting periodically,theme cars ranging from the
beautiful to the dangerous, lotsof naked people, buckets of body paint and eccentric characters,friends in every tent, and the saf -est environment to express your-self despite the lack of any healthand safety standards.
If there is any real meaning it
is lost on the uninitiated. Those who attend come away with dier -ent ideas and experiences and sotheir thoughts on what it means tothem. This correspondent wouldgo so far to consider it a kind of pilgrimage. A big, exciting party in the desert to be sure, but one
with a somewhat more archaiccalling to gather.
In a real sense, and this notionis repeated among revellers, it isa gathering of tribes. People fromall dierent walks of life, inter-
ests and values gather together
and sit beside another tribe withabsolutely no antagonism.
What do you do there? Any-thing you want. Due to the con-cept of loose participation thereisn’t a strict schedule of activities,
which may frustrate those not used to this way of doing thi ngs.
Suce to say, there is no singlefocus of the event, although the building of an egy of a man andits subsequent burning on Satur-day night is a ritualistic feature,a tradition dating back to 1986.
While there are many mythssurrounding Burning Man’s ori-gins, the festival had a modest
beginning on Baker Beach inSan Francisco, California in 1986 with about 20 participants. Larry Harvey and Jerry James burneda wooden man on the beach inhonour of the summer solstice.
Within a couple of years the gure was known as the Burning Manand the followers described them-selves as a randomly gatherednetwork of free spirits united inthe pursuit of experiences beyondthe pale of mainstream society.
This social experiment is one
where you can leave your belong-ings lying anywhere you wantthem to, leave your tent unzippedand your camera lying in the dust while you dance or go for a walk, where it is safe to walk nakedand not have to worry about being abused, harassed, judgedor raped. Where guns and knivessimply don’t exist and the starry night sky is visible from horizon tohorizon while the Milky Way wasnever so milky – that is a world Icould live in.
What better place to drop out
of mainstream society than in themiddle of a desert with no network
coverage? Just burn it all.
ARTISTIC FREEDOM: There are plenty of eccentriccostumes and characters at AfrikaBurn.
CLIMAX: The Sun Clan sculpture was burnedspectacularly on the Saturday night. Pics: SCott SMIth
