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Hermit
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So Long Lucky
« on: 2007-10-19 12:02:04 » |
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South African reggae star Lucky Dube killed in South Africa
Sources: Associated Press
Authors: Not Credited (Associated Press)
Dated: 2007-10-19
Datelined: JOHANNESBURG
South African reggae artist Lucky Dube was shot in an apparent carjacking attempt and died as he tried to drive away and crashed into a car and a tree, police and news reports said Friday.
The death of the international star focused attention on South Africa's murderous crime statistics, and united political rivals in calls for police to act.
Dube, 43, was shot Thursday night in front of his son, whom he was dropping off in Johannesburg's southern Rosettenville suburb, according to Police Capt. Cheryl Engelbrecht.
"His son was already out of the car. When he saw what was happening, he ran to ask for help," she said.
Police were looking for the perpetrators, Engelbrecht said. [ Hermit : Unfortunately, if by some accident the overworked and underpaid police ever find find them, they will likely be released on bail the next day; and by the time they get to court, if they ever get to court, the docket will be lost or witnesses, court officials, the police or all of the above bribed, threatened and, or cajoled into ensuring that the case collapses. Should by happenstance it does not, the hopped up children who actually tried to hijack his car (and they likely were aged 12-15 and almost certainly hopped up (as that is the preferred modus of the gangs)) will be sentenced to a short period of training in one of the criminal instruction institutes that have sprung up all over South Africa to train criminals in how to graduate from small time crime to large scale gangsterism without getting caught again. ]
Dube recorded more than 20 albums in a career spanning more than two decades, switching to reggae style in the 1980s to express his anger against South Africa's former racist white-minority regime.
South Africa has one of the highest crime rates in the world, recording an average of 50 murders each day. U.N. crime statistics say one in three Johannesburg residents has been robbed.
The pervasive crime has raised concerns about South Africa's hosting of the 2010 Soccer World Cup.
President Thabo Mbeki praised Dube as "an outstanding South African" and said the nation needed to "act together as a people to confront this terrible scourge of crime, which has taken the lives of too many of our people." [ Hermit : Only the latest in a dreadfully long line of important and less important victims of a culture where the government is dependent on the support of the criminal classes established as a result of decades of sanctions and the ANC's policy throughout that period of creating a criminal dependent class by preventing schooling, and which thus cannot be expected to act in any effective way to change the status quo. Unfortunately, all too often, the victims tend to belong to the tiny community of the non governmental (because they don't have armies of security guards) social and business leadership (given that they have the cars and houses that attract attackers) all of whom know each other (it really is a small community) and most of whom are wonderful people (because most South Africans just are), and, in case you wondered, Lucky was a wonderful person too; who deserves a far better epitaph than this traversty. (Dave, as jy ooit hiervan hoor, het ek eerste aan jou gedink en daarna 'n betekenis gesoek. Maar ek sien niks hierin nie, behalwe troosheid en trane. My jammerte, dit is altyd erg om 'n vriend te verloor, veels erger in sulke aard. ]
The Star newspaper reported that three fellow musicians were among the first at the scene. [ Hermit : Not terribly surprising. Friends, distant relatives and curious tortoises from the Johannesburg zoo are all likely to arrive before what is left of the emergency services can respond in the Johannesburg South area. ]
The newspaper quoted an unidentified witness as saying Dube's son was out of the car, a Chrysler sedan, when the singer was approached by two men who opened his door and shot him twice.
The wounded musician drove away and hit another car, causing him to lose control and hit a tree, the newspaper reported.
Dube's recording company, Gallo Records, paid tribute to its star, the newspaper reported, quoting CEO Ivor Haarburger as noting that Dube had a bigger following internationally than in South Africa. [ I really have to wonder if there wasn't anything else he could have said? What an epitaph from those to whose bottom line Lucky contributed so much as for quarter of a century he made his magical music in so many genres. ]
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Blunderov
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"We think in generalities, we live in details"
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Re:So Long Lucky
« Reply #1 on: 2007-10-22 07:53:18 » |
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[Blunderov] The best and the worst of my country of origin on display at the same time; Lucky Dube and the Rugby World Cup victory. Quite remarkable was the extent to which black people became invested in a sport which has until now had a mainly Afrikaaner following.
Not without irony is the fact that "the poet Mzwakhe Mbuli" (referred to below) has himself just emerged from a stiffish stretch for armed robbery. If memory serves, it involved a bank robbery and threats with a hand grenade for which he received a 10 year sentence. His defence was "I wuz framed". It was not believed. A colorful figure, our Mzwakhe. Not long after he was released there was an incident in which his car was shot up with automatic gunfire in a drive-by.These gospel singers put rock and rollers to shame with their extravagant lifestyles I tell you!
He's served his time I suppose. Tabula rasa, all that...
Not without even more irony is the fact that the National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi was himself the subject of a warrant of arrest on charges of racketeering until the prosecutor who arranged the warrant was fired by President Thabo Mbeki whereupon the warrant mysteriously vanished and nobody was able to say whether it had ever existed in the first place including, apparently, the judge who issued it who was nowhere to be found at all. What japes! Oh how we laughed.
Those with an unlimited capacity for irony will probably already know that Jacob Zuma, putative president of South Africa, walks free and untroubled whilst the man who was convicted of having a corrupt relationship with him, Shabir Sbaik, is serving 15 years. It is not clear to me how sufficient proof against one party in a corrupt relationship is not simultaneously sufficient proof against the other.
Gangsta nashun. But we play good rugby sometimes.
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?from=rss_News&set_id=1&click_id=79&art_id=vn20071022035242803C360207
Alleged Dube killers apprehended in dawn raid
Gill Gifford
October 22 2007 at 05:59AM
As South Africans revelled in rugby glory, a task team of 15 policemen worked tirelessly until they arrested five people in connection with the murder of reggae singer Lucky Dube.
"I am convinced we have the right guys," said Commissioner Richard Mdluli on Sunday, hours after the arrests.
'Since the murder we have had sleepless nights'
The breakthrough came three days after the music icon was shot dead in front of his two children in Rosettenville, Johannesburg, during a botched hijacking.
"This means a lot, both for the police and the country. Since the murder we have had sleepless nights," Mdluli said, explaining that both National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi and Gauteng Commissioner Perumal Naidoo had congratulated the task team.
But while detectives have five suspects, aged between 31 and 35, behind bars, they are tight-lipped on details and continue to work furiously on the case.
They claim "more arrests and links to other crimes cannot be excluded".
'He did not deserve to die in that manner'
According to provincial police spokesperson Superintendent Lungelo Dlamini, a team of 15 detectives was set up and started working fresh on the case early on Friday.
The team was led by Director Charles Johnson.
It is understood that, working with what little evidence was garnered at the murder scene, the detectives tracked down five suspects in the greater Spruitview area on the East Rand.
Shortly before dawn on Sunday, detectives pounced and arrested the men as they slept.
One suspect, the owner of the well-secured house, was said to have been in possession of suspected stolen property.
Police took two flat-screen TVs, a DVD player and a sound system found in the house.
A dustbin bag full of surgical gloves - possibly used in the commission of crimes - was also seized.
At 11.45am, while detectives were still busy at the Spruitview house, Mdluli triumphantly announced that his detectives had located, in nearby Kwa-Thema, the vehicle believed to have been used by Dube's killers.
It was found parked in the front yard of a small stone house owned by Papa Jack Mbokazi.
Sitting in his yard as detectives scoured the car for fingerprints, Mbokazi said: "Somebody - the owner of a panel-beater and a guy I know - asked me if he could park this car in my yard yesterday.
"I was very surprised when the police arrived here, but I stand with them 100 percent. They are doing a very good job."
Superintendent Eugene Opperman, reluctant to divulge more details of the case, said speculation was rife about a hit on Dube or a possible assassination.
"But our investigations endorse the view that this was a botched hijacking.
"The firearms we seized will be sent for ballistic and forensic tests to see if they have been used before in violent or serious crimes."
Opperman said they were asking for co-operation "as we plan to say as little as possible. We cannot give out any more information as it will jeopardise our investigations".
Identification parades still had to be conducted.
Speaking soon after the arrests, poet Mzwakhe Mbuli said that while "our wounds are still open and the nation is in mourning, we breathe a sigh of relief at news that the suspects have been nabbed".
He had been in touch with Dube's family, who were on Sunday in Newcastle, where they were busy with funeral arrangements.
"They remain devastated. For them, it was their son who was murdered and he did not deserve to die in that manner," Mbuli said.
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