South Afrika: Yt who massacred over 100 Afrikans during Apartheid is released

[Mekeda7]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/southafric...836912,00.html

Apartheid killer finds religion but not remorse

Case of freed racist murderer highlights refusal of
whites to take responsibility for the past

Rory Carroll in East London
Friday August 4, 2006
The Guardian


South Africa's most prolific mass murderer takes
another sip of coffee, eases back in his chair and
pauses when asked if it is true he shot more than 100
black people. "I can't argue with that," says Louis
van Schoor. "I never kept count."
Seated at a restaurant terrace in East London, a
seaside town in the Eastern Cape, the former security
guard is a picture of relaxed confidence, soaking up
sunshine while reminiscing about his days as an
apartheid folk hero.

Hired to protect white-owned businesses in the 1980s,
he is thought to have shot 101 people, killing 39, in
a three-year spree. Some were burglars; others were
passers-by dragged in from the street. All were black
or coloured, the term for those of mixed race.
Convicted of murder but released from jail after 12
years, Van Schoor is unrepentant. "I was doing my job
- I was paid to protect property. I never apologised
for what I did."

He is not the only one. The whites in East London who
turned a blind eye to his killing spree have not
apologised and whites in general, according to black
clerics and politicians, have not owned up to
apartheid-era atrocities.

That reluctance to atone has been laid bare in a book
published last week, The Colour of Murder, by Heidi
Holland, which investigates the bloodsoaked trail not
only of Van Schoor but also his daughter, Sabrina, who
hired a hitman to murder her mother.

The macabre tale is likely to reignite debate about
those whites who shun the spirit of the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission and mock rainbow nation
rhetoric. "The story is of a family but it is also the
story of a divided country and of the people of that
country trying to find new ways to live with each
other," says Ms Holland.

Since his release two years ago, after benefiting from
a sentence reduction for all convicts issued by Nelson
Mandela when he was president, Van Schoor, 55, has
slimmed down, shaved off his beard and kept a low
profile, working as a cattle farm foreman outside East
London. During his 1992 trial white residents
displayed "I Love Louis" stickers decorated with three
bullet holes through a bleeding heart. Sympathy
endures, says Van Schoor. "The reaction is 90%
positive. Strangers say, 'Hey, it's good to see you.'"

Magistrates and the police, grateful for the terror
instilled in black people, covered his tracks until
local journalists and human rights campaigners exposed
the carnage as apartheid crumbled. Van Schoor was
convicted of seven murders and two attempted murders.

Upon his release in 2004, Van Schoor said he had found
God and, when prompted, expressed sorrow to his
victims' relatives. "I apologise if any of my actions
caused them hurt."

In an interview this week, he tried to clarify his
position. "I never apologised for what I did. I
apologised for any hurt or pain that I caused through
my actions during the course of my work."

Thanks to his changed appearance and low profile he
has faced no backlash. Few black people recognise him,
including the bookseller who took his order for The
Colour of Murder. When Van Schoor gave his name the
penny dropped. "She nearly fell off her chair," he
says, smiling.

Married four times and now engaged to a local woman,
Van Schoor, speaking softly and warily, says he is
"happy and content". But he does not seem to approve
of the new South Africa. "Everything has changed -
people's attitudes, the service in shops, it's not the
same."

On the contrary, lament black leaders, one crucial
thing has stayed the same: the refusal of many whites
to admit past sins. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a Nobel
peace laureate, recently said the privileged minority
that once feared retribution had not shown enough
gratitude for peaceful inclusion in a multi-racial
democracy. Nkosinathi Biko, the son of the murdered
anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko, noted the dearth
of white voices during last month's commemorations of
the June 1976 Soweto uprising, when police slaughtered
black schoolchildren. A liberal white commentator, Max
du Preez, called the silence embarrassing.

Nowhere is it more deafening than East London. Van
Schoor's rampage was made possible by a white
establishment that made no outcry as his victims piled
up, many of them impoverished children such as Liefie
Peters, 13, gunned down while hiding in the toilet of
a Wimpy restaurant after breaking in to steal cash.

This week, eating a burger yards from where Van Schoor
cornered his prey, Jacques Durandt, a 33-year-old
white former member of the security forces, defended
the killer. "I won't say he's a murderer. For him it
was a job."

Wannitta Kindness, a 36-year-old white taxi driver
parked outside the restaurant, says the security guard
might have fired even if the intruder was white. "But
you don't find white people breaking into places."

Others echoed the refrain: denied jobs reserved for
black people, targeted by criminals, harassed in the
street, victims in South Africa these days have pale
skin and they see no reason to apologise. "The blacks
don't want equality," says Ms Kindness. "They want to
be on top."

East London does boast at least one white advocate of
racial harmony: Van Schoor's daughter, Sabrina, 25.
While her father was in jail she shocked the white
community by dating black men and giving birth to a
mixed-race child.

In 2002, in a grisly irony, she hired a black man to
slit her mother's throat, claiming she was a racist
bully.

Convicted of murder and sent to the same prison as her
father, Sabrina van Schoor is seen as a martyr by some
black people. She seems popular among fellow inmates
at Fort Glamorgan jail. "That girl, she's not like the
whites outside of here. She's OK," says one inmate.

Speaking through iron bars, Sabrina van Schoor,
powerfully built like her father, says she is nervous
about her family history coming under public scrutiny
again because of the book. "I'm afraid it might open
old wounds."

Blame game goes on in a society dogged by murder and
violence


Each time someone is murdered in South Africa - which
happens about 50 times more often than it does in
Europe - 2010 flashes through the minds of football
administrators and politicians. That year, when the
country stages the World Cup, has become as much of a
test of South Africa's ability to rule itself as the
1994 election which introduced majority rule.

While most World Cup hosts get nervous at some stage
of preparations, about the capacity of stadiums or
transport systems, in South Africa the worry is
murder. Just as violence threatened to derail the
peace train heading for majority rule 12 years ago, so
there are fears that it is about to humiliate the
country.

One of the most puzzling aspects is that the violence,
long associated with tensions arising from racial
divisions, has failed to disappear with apartheid. The
statistics are unreliable; the police and government
do not like releasing them because of their impact on
tourism. But it is believed that the only country to
rival South Africa in the crime stakes over recent
years has been Colombia. The issue is intrinsic to
life in South Africa.

Blame tends to be coloured by political perspective.
The government blames illegal immigrants and organised
crime. Farmers who see neighbours killed on lonely
homesteads blame the ANC, which they claim is after
their land. The rich blame the poor and, of course,
whites blame black people. Crime replaces the weather
in small talk - until an incident of particular
savagery, such as the recent case of a white farmer
who threw a black farmworker into a lions' cage, to be
eaten alive.

The South African author André Brink fell victim to
crime when gunmen raided a country restaurant where he
was having dinner with his family, assaulted them and
locked them in a storeroom. He said he received a
flood of letters in response to an article he wrote
about the experience.

"Each one of them has encountered, either personally
or through family and close friends, examples of the
violence which has come not only to cloud all the
laudable achievements of our young democracy but to
threaten the very likelihood of success for this
democracy," Brink said.
David Beresford

[BlackQueen]

How can they release that monster upon society for slaughtering over 100 of our brothers & sisters?! I don't care that he found religion while incarcerated,it's that fact that he has no remorse for shedding Afrikan blood! An evil such as that deserves to be punished by death in the same fashion! To make it worse,people have welcomed this animal back into society,and not judged him for his crimes against our people! What about the victims' families?! What about their pain and anguish?! Is there any such thing as justice for crimes against humanity?

[BlakWolf]

Originally Posted by BlackQueen7980

How can they release that monster upon society for slaughtering over 100 of our brothers & sisters?! I don't care that he found religion while incarcerated,it's that fact that he has no remorse for shedding Afrikan blood! An evil such as that deserves to be punished by death in the same fashion! To make it worse,people have welcomed this animal back into society,and not judged him for his crimes against our people! What about the victims' families?! What about their pain and anguish?! Is there any such thing as justice for crimes against humanity?

i ask the same question, however it is said that what goes around comes around to those who do wrong to others...i believe this is called the law of attraction, and this man will suffer the same fate ultimately for the wrong he has done.

[Mekeda7]

Greetings Afrikans, Welcome to the discussion of this issue!

We have to look at this situation as a microcosm of the macrocosm; a small example of an on-going, larger issue.

We shouldn't even be surprised by this yt's behavior, and the way he has been treated as a result. yt has been massacring our people for hundreds of years, (some may argue much longer), without punishment. yt has never been convicted for their crimes against us or any other people who have suffered a similar fate.

We cannot expect that yt will be punished somehow and some way for what they have done, there is responsibility on our shoulders to express that what is happening to us is wrong, and to let it be known that atrocities carried out against our people is not to be tolerated, that there are consequences for such actions.

Until we are willing to stop waiting for a yt messiah to come rescue us, or for yt to turn around and say "man, we sorry we were wrong!" or some unseen force to somehow do the work for us, things like this will continue to happen to our people.

Uhuru

[AzaniaSpeaks]

Originally Posted by Mekeda7

Greetings Afrikans, Welcome to the discussion of this issue!

........We cannot expect that yt will be punished somehow and some way for what they have done, there is responsibility on our shoulders to express that what is happening to us is wrong, and to let it be known that atrocities carried out against our people is not to be tolerated, that there are consequences for such actions.

Until we are willing to stop waiting for a yt messiah to come rescue us, or for yt to turn around and say "man, we sorry we were wrong!" or some unseen force to somehow do the work for us, things like this will continue to happen to our people.

Uhuru

Greetings! ImHotep!

Whatever you beLIEve is true, IS true for you at the time you are beLIEving it! So utters Dr. Linda Meyers -- therefor hanging on to the "safe, escapist and secure" notion that "what goes around comes around" isn't about to end one iota of evil being waged against anyone! Just as history does NOT repeat itself -- People do -- what comes around is what we SEND around!

Ashe Sistah/Goddess Mekeda7! Asante sana for the insight and ongoing Warrior Afuraikaitnit Spirit! I am honored to count you among my "conscious" and "revolutionary" family!

POWER & Protection Is Within You. . . along with my Love!

[AzaniaSpeaks]

Greetings! ImHotep!

Allow me to expound, briefly, on the statement: "What comes around is what we send around". . . . .

If any of us truly and sincerely accept the truth that we are, by virtue of being alive, beings endowed with the Essence of Creation then that would make us Creators/Creatresses. Under that premise whatever we give life to via our thoughts, words, actions and/or emotions is of our creation and therefore something that we "send" around [so to speak!] At any given point when enough of us decides that yt, yurugu, "them," the devil [or whatever designation/name the vessels of absolute destruction] has to "go," no longer belong here AND/OR are NOT worthy of any further thought, words, actions and/or emotions of life force power, they will cease to be.

As long as we give "space" to that which we SAY we are against while we maintain a "space" for it's existence within our minds then naturally it shall continue.

When people tell me they HAVE a "head ache" or "high blood pressure" or an illness/discomfort, I always respond: "Let it go, you don't need it! It's got your attention now correct the imbalance. . . ."

We CAN correct this imbalance, for ultimately, it is all in the mind! Free yo mind and yo a$$ will follow!"

Power & Protection Is Within US. . . . . along with my Love, Thought, Emotions. . . . . .

[Mekeda7]

Originally Posted by AzaniaSpeaks

Greetings! ImHotep!

Whatever you beLIEve is true, IS true for you at the time you are beLIEving it! So utters Dr. Linda Meyers -- therefor hanging on to the "safe, escapist and secure" notion that "what goes around comes around" isn't about to end one iota of evil being waged against anyone! Just as history does NOT repeat itself -- People do -- what comes around is what we SEND around!

Ashe Sistah/Goddess Mekeda7! Asante sana for the insight and ongoing Warrior Afuraikaitnit Spirit! I am honored to count you among my "conscious" and "revolutionary" family!

POWER & Protection Is Within You. . . along with my Love!

Asante Sana Mother-Sister AS!!!
You are on point, as usual. Your comment on giving "space" in our consciousness for something to occur is very very true.

By not doing anything, we allow the space for things to happen to us. Divine forces will not do our work for us- that is not the Afrikan way- in fact it is very yt-centered to think so. It is the divine who assists us in the things that we do.

Once again, sis AS, medase pa for your words! I am because u are!

Uhuru

[Pain]

When it comes to the issue of Racism White Supremacy, I like to be perfectly clear. I don't follow "Black people" who are confusing to me on this particular issue and on this particular issue, Nelson Mandela is confusing as hell to me.

[Mekeda7]

Originally Posted by Pain

When it comes to the issue of Racism White Supremacy, I like to be perfectly clear. I don't follow "Black people" who are confusing to me on this particular issue and on this particular issue, Nelson Mandela is confusing as hell to me.

Greetings Pain

It is a good point to bring up the issue of Afrikan leaders
who "rule" countries where Afrikan people are suffering.

In the case of Mandela, and now Mbeki we must ask ourselves what
power does-did he truly have, and who were-are his allegiences
to- if it is the case that that apartheid activity and
racism still continue to take place under the guise of
so-called democracy.

Neo-Colonialism is the key word here.

Uhuru!