South African Exposes Crime’s Gruesome Face

A young man lying with a large kitchen knife protruding from his chest; an old man shot in the head and bearing the marks of torture; a 6-month-old burned to death: The shocking Internet images of crime in South Africa are one man’s controversial mission to force the government to act.

Since Neil Watson launched his website in July, it has struck a nerve, attracting more than 100,000 hits. The website, www.crimexposouthafrica.org, has been disabled by hackers and criticized by politicians and tourism officials, and it even sparked a website duel with a South Africa booster.

The debate reflects growing concern about crime as the country gears up to play host to thousands of foreign tourists for the 2010 soccer World Cup, and lays bare divisions on strategy for dealing with the problem.

The deaths of 56 police officers in five months this year added to the sense of helplessness and anger. In June, the country was shocked by a shootout after a shopping mall robbery; 12 people were killed, including four police officers.

Analysts are perplexed by South Africa’s crime rate, with no simple explanation for why it is so much higher than those in poorer neighboring countries such as Zimbabwe and Zambia, which also have entrenched social and economic problems.

Although crime has eased recently, according to police statistics, South Africa still has the highest per capita rates of fatal shootings, rapes and assaults in the world, reports NationMaster, a website that compiles statistics from the United Nations and other sources.

Watson said his life changed last year when he went to check on two friends who did not answer their phone. He and police officers arrived at the same time at a home in an upscale Johannesburg neighborhood and found the couple and two friends lying in pools of blood, their throats cut during a robbery.

He wanted the world to feel the same shock and repugnance he felt.

“There’s no comparison reading about a murder in the newspaper and seeing it,” said Watson, who has been a victim of four attempted carjackings and once saw a security guard shot dead during a robbery. “I don’t think people understand the brutality. I wanted to expose people to that.”

Watson, who seems to relish the controversy he has created and the support he has received, decided that displaying graphic photographs of victims was the only way to wake up South Africans and to pressure the government.

He said he collected photos of victims from police and families, including one of a man’s severed head that was displayed recently on a page titled “Shocking Images.”

“We want to get the government to focus on crime in this country. There’s no political will. I think they’re in denial,” said Watson, an insurance broker who lives in an upscale Cape Town neighborhood. He says he has almost no time for his job because he spends 14 hours a day working on the website.

In August, the government announced a six-month police blitz focusing on organized crime, cash-in-transit robberies and shopping mall and bank holdups. It also asked the Center for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation to report on the causes of violent crime.

President Thabo Mbeki said recently that South Africa should not copy European crime-fighting methods because London had more car thefts than Johannesburg. He said police had made progress in solving crimes but acknowledged that “further work is necessary on capacity building, especially the police capacity for intelligence-gathering.”

Watson has launched a virtual graveyard on his website for homicide victims, with angry testimonials from families and friends.

“No one was ever caught, ever found guilty of this horrible crime. Brutally murdered in your own home and set alight. Nothing was taken from your home,” said a testimonial to Vincent Viet, 51, who was killed in Johannesburg in 1999.

The website has many postings from expatriates who say they are afraid to return because of crime and reports of tourists being stoned or shot on the way from the airport.

Some of the anguished stories read like a primal scream from white South Africans:

“My 27-year-old hubby was shot seven times in a car hijack on July 21, 2005,” a 25-year-old widow wrote. “I hate the government for the way crime is handled in this country. I’m so torn and devastated, and those bastards who killed the love of my life are still roaming the streets free to kill more people.”

Another widow who left South Africa in October, a year after her husband was killed in a carjacking, wrote: “The hand which shot my husband was a small, young hand, and I’m asking myself how can this person carry on living, knowing that they have killed somebody and turned the lives of several people upside down? I think nearly everybody in South Africa has a traumatic experience he or she has to cope with.”

Angered by Watson’s crusade, Pieter Boshoff set up an opposing website with a similar domain name to promote South Africa as an attractive destination. Boshoff’s site, www.crimexposouthafrica.com, is crammed with testimonials from politicians and athletes saying there is no better place on Earth.

Boshoff, 33, accuses Watson of allowing racist comments on the website’s discussion forums, and argues that he will scare off tourists, which will cost jobs and worsen crime.

Watson said he did his best to weed out racist comments. “Criminals don’t care anymore if you’re white or black; they just kill you,” he said.

The U.S. State Department posts a lengthy safety bulletin for travelers to South Africa, warning that violence is routine and that property crimes such as carjackings are often accompanied by violence.

The South African government was criticized recently after Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula told parliament that people who complained about crime should leave the country. Nqakula later said his comments were just politicking.

Peter Gastrow, crime analyst at the Institute for Security Studies in Cape Town, said violent crime was “extraordinarily high.”

“We’re a violent society, something which is an increasing concern to South Africans across all dividing lines,” he said. “The argument that it is due to poverty alone doesn’t hold water, but it does play a contributory role.”

Gastrow said other factors included the accessibility of firearms and a large youth population.

“The key question is: Where’s the entry point if one wants to take corrective steps? It’s a highly complex issue, and no one has been able to reduce it to understandable components that one can take action on.”

The dueling websites underscore the divisions: For every posting on Watson’s site congratulating him for exposing the crime problem, a posting on Boshoff’s site praises him for focusing on what is positive about South Africa.

Others suggest that Watson might appear negative only until violent crime hits close to home.

Boshoff, who says he has received threatening phone calls and thousands of angry e-mails because of his opposition to Watson, advocates neighborhoods working with police to combat crime.

“We have got this extremely poor black group of people and this very rich group of both blacks and whites,” he said. “People get frustrated. I think you have got to look at the poorest of the poor.”

Boshoff said he was no stranger to crime. He was seriously injured when he was hit by a car while fleeing three youths with knives who attacked him in Cape Town a year ago. And several years ago he was robbed of several thousand dollars, beaten and stripped of his clothes.

“There was a period when I was very angry,” he said. “But your actions should not make the situation worse. You must think about the consequences of what you do.”

Not all are so restrained. The anger of crime victims is reflected on Watson’s website by calls for the death penalty and by stories of turning the tables on criminals.

One reader, who gave his name only as Juan, described how he chased a burglar with a club and bashed him repeatedly.

“I went blind with rage and I started beating him with the club,” he wrote. “He lost two teeth and I broke his jaw. I would probably have killed him if the neighbors didn’t show up.”

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robyn.dixon@latimes.com