What will it take to close the death factory that keeps on churning the bodies of women and children with such gay abandon in this country?
The name on the lips of the nation today is that of Olorato Mongale as the latest in a never-ending stream of young women murdered as they were approaching the prime of their lives, denying SA a stab at fulfilling its true potential of a nation that once teemed with hope and exuded promise of what a people freed of the chains that held them back can be.
Olorato’s name has made it to the rollcall of young women slaughtered while SA chugs along merrily, until another body of a young woman turns up somewhere to remind us of what we have truly become: a society that feigns concern for as long as the latest horror murder is in the news, only to revert to default settings in a jiffy.
All the while, the killing machine never stops. Truly a nation at war with itself.
We can almost imagine, nah, hear, a chorus of disapproval at the apt description above. No prizes, but anyone would have predicted what would happen next once Olorato’s body was found, dumped in suburban Johannesburg last week.
It is as if there’s a template for this thing. The usual noise makers – often politicians looking to score cheap points – show up at the bereaved family’s home, make speeches declaring for the umpteenth time a war on crime and other societal ills.
They will promise “to leave no stone unturned” (their favoured cliché) and drive off into the sunset and forget about their promises, only to turn up at the home of the next unfortunate family when, inevitably, the body of the next Olorato is found.
We welcome the news that a multidisciplinary team, cobbled together to solve Olorato’s murder, has made significant progress. They recovered the car believed to have been used in the commission of her murder.
The discovery of the car in Durban was followed a matter of days later by the news of the death of one of the fugitives in a shoot-out when he dared open fire on the police.
While we caution against extra-judicial killings by the police, the slain lowlife proved he was not about to blow kisses at the law-enforcers when they located him. Police reported that they announced their arrival and pleaded with the thug to surrender. He thought it best to open fire. No sympathies there.
Police were at the time of going to press, on the hunt for one of the two men investigators believe carried out Olorato’s murder. If the scumbag has not been captured as you read this, we urge anyone who may have seen anything that can help the investigation to contact the police and help capture the fugitives.
Going forward, we all can only pray that there is eventually justice for Olorato. We have had far too many such cases, some of which have gone cold, leaving the bloodthirsty and insatiable killers to merge seamlessly back into society, free to continue their murderous ways.
As a nation, we surely cannot go on like this. The past few months, a made-up tale of white genocide has hogged the limelight while the more deserving story of the murders of women such as Olorato and children is ignored. It’s time to stop the lip service to the purported war on gender-based violence and act, NOW!
