NATION/WORLD UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Tuesday, January 30, 1996
7A
South Africans willing to kill for jobs
1601 W.23rd
Police were baffled by the shooting. But some of those hoping for jobs said they understood the motivation: The gunmen simply had wanted to clear away competition.
The Associated Press
A few months ago, word that 10 jobs were open attracted 6,000 applicants to NF Die Casting, said Barry Hallett, managing director.
"People will kill to get a job," said Sipho Masimin4, who has been out of work since 1994 in a country with 40
Hours after the ambush, many of those who escaped harm returned to line up once again for a chance to earn up to $2.77 an hour making aluminum wheels.
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — It was 2 a.m. yesterday when Alson Mbatha, desperate after two years of searching for work, arrived at the gates of a car parts factory, where hundreds of others also stood in line, hoping.
percent unemployment.
Mbatha had traveled to Tokoza only two weeks ago, after failing to find work in rural Kwazulu-Natal province. Settling in at a workers' hostel, he heard there were factory jobs in the industrial area between Tokoza and the white suburb of Alberton.
Police said yesterday they had no suspects. A special team was being set up to investigate, and police offered a reward of $70,000 for information leading to a conviction.
749-3455
Witnesses said about seven men, armed with assault rifles and handguns, fired on the crowd outside the NF Die Casting factory. The attack did not appear racially motivated — the gunmen and almost all the job-seekers were Black.
Mbatha, wounded by a bullet in the chest, was among 23 injured. Eight people were left dead.
In post-apartheid South Africa, it is violent gangs with little regard for ethnic or racial ties that are the chief source of chaos in South Africa's Black townships.
He expected 10,000 to show up for
Confrontations that elsewhere might end with shouting or a fist-fight often erupt in gunfire in South Africa: Its history of political violence and proximity to civil wars in Angola and Mozambique have created an environment where guns — even high-powered automatic
The sun had not risen yet when a band of armed men walked up and opened fire on the crowd of job-seekers before fleeing into the darkness.
Previously, violence often stemmed from rivalry between Black political groups — the African National Congress and Zulu nationalist Inkatha Freedom Party. But political fighting largely subsided after the ANC won the 1994 elections.
Terrified people fled toward nearby Tokoza, one of Johannesburg's Black townships, some getting shot as they ran. One body was found hundreds of yards from the factory.
even high-powered automatic rifles — are readily available.
"They didn't say anything, they just opened fire," recalled Mbatha, 26 from his bed at Natalspruit Hospital. His striped pajama top gaped open, revealing bloody stitches where a bullet grazed his chest.
Knioht-Ridder Tribune
the 200 jobs available yesterday.
A week ago, Hallett's first attempt to fill the jobs by having people draw lottery numbers ended in chaos, with arguments and shoving erupting outside the plant.
Some of the people waiting outside yesterday said the shooting might have been a follow-up to last week's conflict.
U.S. servicemen await rape trial verdict
The Associated Press
NAHA, Okinawa — Facing prosecutors' demands of 10 years in prison for three U.S. servicemen charged with raping a 12-year-old girl, one of the defendants yesterday said God had forgiven him and hoped the court would, too.
In closing arguments, defense lawyers argued the sentences requested by prosecutors would be unusually severe. But chief prosecutor Masayuki Nomura painted the case as an affront not only to Okinawans but to the country as a whole.
"The acts of these men can be seen as a challenge for Japan in general to maintain peace and order," Nomura said.
Marine Pfc. Rodrico Harp of Griffin, Ga., and Pfc. Kendrick Ledet of Waycross, Ga., have admitted to helping abduct the girl and beating and binding her with duct tape while Navy Seaman Marcus Gill of Woodville, Texas, drove them all to a remote road.
Gill testified that they all three raped her there. But Harp and Ledet said Gill bullied them into helping with the abduction, and said they only pretended to rape the girl, fearing Gill's anger if they didn't.
Ledet crossed himself before he gave his final statement.
"My Lord knows every move that I made ... and He has forgiven me," said the 20-year-old Marine. "Now I ask the court to forgive我."
The three, all charged with confinement and rape causing injury, face a minimum sentence of three years and a maximum of life in prison.
A verdict by the three-judge panel — there are no jury trials in Japan — is due March 7. In Japan, 99 percent of criminal cases that come to trial result in convictions, and sentencing could immediately follow a guilty verdict.
Harp's lawyer Mitsunobu Matsunaga said he
expected sentences for all three defendants of six to seven years if convicted. No Japanese court has imposed a sentence of more than 10 years for similar charges.
The three servicemen agreed to pay compensation to the victim and her family, but lawyer Matsunaga said the girl's father refused the second installment of what was to have been a $15,000 payment because the accused could cite the payment in pleading for leniency.
The servicemen's lawyers asked the judges not to let public anger and opposition to the U.S. military influence their ruling.
Okinawata hosts two-thirds of the 47,000 American troops in Japan. How many should stay in the strategically key area has become a political headache for the government, which supports the longstanding security relationship with the United States but cannot ignore the public outcry about the rape case.
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