Former ANC guerrillas suspected of highway heists

After a series of highway robberies, the South African government has declared war on the former ANC guerrillas allegedly involved. But Mary Braid reports that the move is over-shadowed by claims that a suspect, on the run, was guest at a minister's birthday party.

From the start the robberies bore the all the hallmarks of meticulously planned, military operations.

In one of the first, a spiked metal chain was thrown across the N4 motorway, west of Pretoria. As a security van drove over the spikes, 15 armed men opened fire. Two guards were killed and a passer-by badly injured. The gang got away with 17 million rand (pounds 2.1m).

Since then there have been at least four robberies thought by police to have been executed by the same gang. All were on vehicles belonging to bank security firm SVB. To date 11 guards have being murdered and more than R40m has been stolen.

Last week saw the most daring raid. Men wielding Kalashnikovs opened fire on a van on the N1, Johannesburg's busiest motorway, during the rush hour. Four security guards were shot. Motorists with bullets wedged in their cars were later asked to contact police ballistic experts.

The government understandably shied away from admitting former members of the African National Congress's military wing Umkhonto weSizwe (MK) might be responsible. Thabo Mbeki, president in waiting, suggested former security police were to blame.

But recent arrests have forced the government to admit some former ANC guerrillas have helped mastermind the attacks. It does nothing for public confidence that some suspects are also serving members of the South African Police Service.

This weekend, plagued by opposition accusations that it is soft on old comrades, the government finally came out guns blazing. Sydney Mufamadi, the security minister, warned former cadres that the government had "no sentimental attachment" to them; and that they would be hunted down. Cadres- turned-crooks had "outlived their usefulness to the people and the country".

Those who look for excuses in high unemployment and redundancies in the South African National Defence Force - an amalgamation of the apartheid- era security forces and the ANC guerrilla army - were slapped down.

"These robberies are not about want. These chaps are absolutely greedy ... this is not the white man's money. That money belongs to the old auntie next door in Diepkloof [a black suburb]."

The government's move to distance itself from errant MKs was undermined yesterday when police confirmed that Colin Chauke, a former MK and heist suspect, was a guest two weeks ago at a birthday party for deputy minister Peter Mokaba.

Mr Mokaba said yesterday he was unaware that Chauke, who escaped from prison last month, was there. He said he did not know the man. But opposition parties were last night calling for Mr Mokaba's suspension from parliament until an investigation was carried out.

Stephen Friedman, director of the South African Centre for Policy Studies, says the government must make the high profile attacks a priority. For of all the crimes plaguing the country, the heists give the impression that there are groups in society more powerful than the state. That has profound implications for a fledgling democracy.