Last week, 07 March 2014, marked an end of week-1 to a trial that has once again made South Africa a global spectacle in just a third month of mourning Nelson Mandela. Once again, a country with a fascinating story to tell makes global headlines as flocks of rapt journalists from all over the world jet into the African homeland to cover yet another international marvel’s life chapter. The only difference this time around, is that South Africa is telling a story unlike that of Madiba.
2014- South Africa's trial of mystery takes off. Analysts, Advocates, Reporters and Judges in their buoyancy are witnessed walking towards the same direction as they seek to unpack the mystery of what could have possibly transpired in Pistorius’ home in the night of February 14. Pistorius once again takes global spotlight but this time around, his life depends on it.
Hither to, the trial has offered both the prosecution and defence an opportunity to present their pleas before the court. The opening statements of both parties proved that this trial will not take a period less than a month. In the coming weeks, a rank of witnesses will join the witness stand and face the austere cross-examination of Advoc Berry Roux who in the past week launched his attempt in defence to prove Pistorius, an innocent victim of circumstances. In this court room, the world got to learn that Oscar Pistorius "screams like a WOMAN". It is in this very same court room, that justice in its fickleness is ought to take its course and give the Steenkamps either redress or anguish. The trial will dissect all facts and presented evidence that led Reeva Steenkamp’s body to a lifeless-tagged-corpse at the morgue, which unfortunately, in its silence, gallons of truth about what really happened remain trapped.
Hypothesis, Delusions, Facts, Assumptions and Interogation will be the order of the season as the defence continues in its quest to invalidate the evidence offered by witnesses. Roux will continue scrutinizing the sequence of alleged screams, door-bangs, gun-shots and blood-spats which will eventually; complete the conundrum in its due realism. For as long as this series progresses, Reeva Steenkamp’s death will remain just a deadly error and nothing of a femicide statistic.
Of witnesses and neighbours, all four -- Michelle Burger, Estelle van der Merwe, Charl Johnson and Johan Stip, lies is a common denominator, that they all heard loud bangs which they insist were gun shots.
Roux shocks the court in his first assertion that when Pistorius screams, he sounds like a woman. There are some chuckles in court, but later that turns out to be a critical part of the defense.
Earlier, the prosecution, Adv Gerry Nel admitted that indeed there were no eye witnesses to the killing. The state then brough two unrelated gun charges against Pistorius.
One that a gun went off in a crowded restaurant when he was holding it. Another of when he fired a gun out a sun roof in irritation of a police argument he just had about his gun.
Amongst many questions, one of Pistorius having an anger problem and another of constantly using his gun to release tension at the tip of his anger, remain a critical part of this trial.
The last witness of the week was Pieter Baba, a security guard who was on duty the night Reeva was killed. After receiving calls from tenants who complained about hearing gunshots coming from the Pistorius house, he and another colleague decided to go and find out. Speaking on the phone to Pistorius on their way, Baba says, Pistorius himself said, "Security, everything is FINE" but because Baba heard that Pistorius wasn't in his normal state, he went to investigate despite. He arrived just in time to see Pistorius carrying Reeva's dead body down the stairs.
Another question surfices, what exacty did Pistorius mean by FINE and by moving the body from its initial position, did he perhaps have an alternative plan? What was Pistorius going to do with Steenkamp's body?
In the coming weeks, more and more will continue to unfold as details of this case lay bare in state of examination.
Amidst these progressions though, let me atleast introduce you to an angle that seems to take no precedence in the course of this trial.
In his statement, Oscar Pistorius claimed the shooting was an accident in which he misidentified beloved Reeva for an intruder. That version and portion of his statement brings a different allusion altogether in this incident. Moreover, it presents a third party that appears to have been present right from the beginning of this horror.
A supposed man, rapist, murderer or thief that remains a devilish villain and serious life threat in this episode, is still highly questionable. Who is this intruder Pistorius refered to, what race is he and why would he mistake him for Reeva? Which beast is this that would mislead a man of veneration like Pistorius into an unconscious state of reaching for his pistol around 2:00am; shoot through the bathroom door and do the unthinkable? How desperate was Oscar to gun down and destroy this creature? The intent was clear, despite who was behind that door, and it was to find a dead body in a pool of blood after those four bullets. WHO? is the question.
Let us then ignore the possibility of him having pre-meditate the murder of his darling, model Reeva and use our own assumption in an attempt to identify this supposed ‘intruder’ who is at fault for Reeva’s death.
- Oscar lived in Silverwoods Estate, a highly secured gated community with no past crime or violence record which could have led to his unthoughtful actions. It is the elite that encompass the majority of residents in this area.
- He spends two days in the same house as Steenkamp in what is believed to have been a romantic quality time in.
- Hypothetically, Oscar wakes up at 2: am, hears movements in the bathroom, puts on his blades, takes his pistol, resolutely walks towards the bathroom door and begins his shooting spree. How natural of a midnight progression.
- Neigbours report the gun shots, security calls the Pistorius house and Oscar Pistorius says "...Everything is FINE". How exactly?
- Did it cross Pistorius’ mind that the disruptive being who woke him up from his sleep could have been his girlfriend using the toilet?
- Why would Pistorius think of a pistol half asleep in the early hours of the morning? Was this a habitual practise?
- When he fired bullets to the supposed bogeyman through the bathroom door, three with no pause in between and the fourth one that went right through Reeva's head, finishing her, didn't he hear Steenkamp's screams?
- Can we perhaps assume that this ‘intruder’ whom Oscar was after could be in his psychological cosmos?
- How much of a coincidence is this sequence of events to happen in one night?
- How frightening was this supposed intruder, to have led Pistorius into firing four bullets at a close range through a bathroom door without realising what he was doing?
- Lastly, what Reeva doing with her cellphones? Was she desperately calling for help or was she in a phonecall with somebody else?
The ruthless-life-threatening intruder Pistorius is talking about, does indeed exist. In reality, he has always been in his house day and night. Pistorius himself has always been aware of his private trepidation. This man, who continues to walk freely without charge, has a name, a history, an identity and he is; BLACK CRIMINAL- a blood thirsty scavenger that continues to torment the lives of many white South Africans. He has famously claimed precedence in many white executed murders in this country and nobody has ever bothered to go after him. The only difference though is that this man of terror operates invisibly, dwells in the subconscious state and leads many of his victims into a condition of acting without thinking all in the name of self-defence.
The following are some but few reported cases of white victimisation by BLACKS in 2012/13.
- A white teenage girl was brutally raped to death by BLACK killers. Tanya Flowerday, 18, was found dumped on a grassy verge of a Darrenwood, Randburg street hours after her death, - but it took five days for her body to be identified, so torn to shreds and battered was her body.
- In Gordon's Bay near Cape Town, another elderly, helpless white woman was brutally beaten to death by BLACK killers. Pensioner Anna Myburgh was killed in her home inside a security complex on Wednesday by intruders who locked the house from the inside before fleeing through a bathroom window.
- Another white farmer was brutally murdered by BLACK killers. Koos Terblanche, 52, from the Trentham district near Betlehem in the Orange Free State, was tied up by two armed blacks, who then proceeded to slash his throat. He was found lying in a pool of blood in his bath by his domestic worker on Monday afternoon.
- In Brits in the western Transvaal, another young couple, presumably white, was also attacked by armed BLACKS. In the latest incident, the 18-year-old girl, who was sitting with her 19-year-old friend on the back of a bakkie on the bank of the Crocodile river, was brutally gang-raped by three BLACKS, who took turns while one held up the young man with a fire-arm. In the end, the attackers took the bakkie's radio, a cell-phone and 50 Rand.
- On a plot in Midrand, between Johannesburg and Pretoria, a group of armed BLACKS overpowered an elderly white couple, beat them with a sjambok till the husband passed out, and then shot the woman in the head. After the barbaric attack, the black robbers loaded up the couple's car with household goods and drove off. The victims were eventually found and taken to hospital, where the woman is in a critical condition, and her husband has been severely traumatised.
Presumably, this is the current state of our country and the reality of black-white relations. All these reports specify the identity of their victimisers and they are all black. Perhaps whites really do live in spat fear of white genocide in South Africa.
Lets create a scenario; A white old woman who comes across a black man in a park, its just the two of them. She is mostly likely to react this way-: grin, clench her handbag tight and from a distance her silent prayer for help remains even more visible as she gets closer to this man. Is she driven by black hatred, NO! She is driven by fear.
White South Africans really do fear for their lives and many are leaving the country as a result. So what could be the motivation behind this supposed white genocide fear?
In 2013, a shocking campaign for the exclusive, RED OCTOBER, made it to the shores. As provoking as it may, it however painted a picture of a racial war within a democratic structure.
There is absolutely no distinct justification for murder whether it’s racially motivated or not. Every human being has a right to life. I am however concerned about many white South Africans who in each day of their lives survive in fear of a vicious black murderer.
South Africa has a vicious cycle of racial hatred. Prior 1994 blood-spats, shooting sprees and many other forms of ruthless execution were launched by a white folk to torment blacks. Blacks feared for their lives. In actual fact, for centuries, a white man remained the black man’s worst nightmare. Post 1994, a white civilian fears for their life in this South Africa. Blacks are their apparent source of fear and as a result, they continue to act impromptu in a claim to protect themselves. So clearly there is an unhealthy culture of revenge and bitterness between these extreme racial groups.
The big question then is; Does Crime Have Race in SA? Is it only blacks who are initiators of hijacking, rapes and house break-ins? Bearing in mind ofcourse that they made 80% of the population.
For how long will this black villain occupy the psychological cosmos of a white man?
The reality that a black man who, for centuries survived the wicked intentions of a white man, remains fearless amidst such contraventions, Yet, a white man somehow feels threatened for life in just 20-years of democracy, raises concerns. How distorted is this picture? The poor element of trust and unsafety leaves much to be desired here and the unanswerable question of whether the race demon will ever be exorcised echoes even more.
And so Pistorius’ trial continues, hopefully as events unravel, and cross-examination proceeds, a possibility of a bigger room for thought will ascend.
