Fun_People Archive
25 Nov
WhiteBoardness - 11/22/96

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 96 18:44:34 -0800
To: Fun_People
Subject: WhiteBoardness - 11/22/96

Excerpted-from: WhiteBoard News for Friday, November 22, 1996

Luis Martinez

Cape Town, South Africa:

The 1,500 marchers arrived at the gates of Parliament chanting "We want
justice. We want peace." Then, they turned in a complaint on crime in the
city's gang-infested mixed-race townships.

These were no ordinary protesters. These were murderers, thieves and drug
dealers seeking government protection from anti-crime vigilantes.

Most of the city's rival gangs have banded together in a campaign for peace.
It started in August, when a vigilante group - People Against Gangsterism
and Drugs, or PAGAD - shot one of Cape Town's biggest gang leaders 72 times
and set his body ablaze. A police response was forced back.

The gang leaders formed the Community Outreach Forum, or CORE, a loose
organization that makes speeches, has press conferences and organizes
demonstrations in the name of self-protection.

"The irony is that anti-crime protesters are now involved in criminal
activities, while criminals have assumed the moral high ground," community
activist Norman Jenkins said.

CORE is offering Cape Town an end to gang violence. In return, it wants
President Nelson Mandela to acknowledge gangsters as victims of the past
apartheid political system and to help them enter legitimate businesses.

Given the chance, CORE insists, it could help weed out police corruption
and break local links with international drug cartels. But CORE leaders say
their drug-dealing will continue until the government finds its members
other ways to make money.

The government says it cannot negotiate with criminals, and police question
CORE's sincerity.

"Time will tell," Police Inspector Verna Simons said.

The driving force behind CORE is Rashied Staggie, twin brother of Rashaad
Staggie, the gang leader that People Against Gangsterism and Drugs members
killed August 4.  Since his brother's killing, Rashied says he has found
Christianity.
==========

Durban, South Africa:

About 16 tons of sex paraphernalia came under the hammer at South Africa's
first adults-only auction Thursday and was sold off easily.

"The main sex stuff that went very well were your aphrodisiac powders and
the blow-up dolls. They were very, very good," auctioneer David Unterslak
said, adding that the two eight-ton truck loads of items belonged to a
deceased importer who was a sex accessories wholesaler.

"I don't yet know how much money we've made out of this but the interest
the people had shows there is a market for this kind of merchandise in South
Africa."

Until Nelson Mandela's African National Congress swept to power in April
1994, all pornographic material in the country was under strict taboo and
controlled by conservative censorship laws.

© 1996 Peter Langston