No penalty; a just reward?

If I hear another plea to reinstate the death penalty, I'll kill someone! It can't happen. Fullstop. The Constitution that protects all of us also protects them. Them? Yes, those who in the past were executed because it was a quick solution to a murky problem of punishing with a final act of Man as God. We got it wrong most of the time. I wrote this on 17 March last year, but I still want to share it with you, as so much of it is still relevant now. I remember how often during John Vorster's 1970s regime, the Bryntirion dinnertable talk would touch on who had been hanged that morning at Pretoria's prison. How the neck had cracked and the rope had squeaked. And then we'd lift our crystal glasses and toast the future of our country, after praying to God to remain on our side. When I am President, I will certainly not attempt to bring back a death penalty. I know crime is the primary issue among all parts of our society. The rich get robbed; the poor get poorer. Travelling around and living in the cities of South Africa becomes a daily round of Russian roulette. As people now sigh: It's not if it happens to you, but when! Daily I am made aware how broadly we are spreading this word 'criminal'. There are thousands of people in jail awaiting trial who did not kill, rape, assault or rob. They took a tin of food off the shelf. Those people should not languish in prison and come out hardened criminals. They should be fed and then work off their debt. But what about murder? My son De Kock showed me an old film called 'Escape From New York' last year. I hated it and left after awhile. It was set in the future with Manhattan turned into a penal colony run by the inmates. I felt De Kock was insinuating my collaboration with the Robben Island policy during apartheid. But what a good idea! Prisoners are always bleating for their rights to vote. I agree. In my South Africa all murderers will be sent to the same prison which they will run, enjoying all the rights they once enjoyed and forfeitedin our civilized land. Let them rule themselves, and if they want to execute each other? Foeitog. That's got nothing to do with us. We messed up our chance to re-use Robben Island. But Madagascar needs foreign investment. Let them build us a maximum secuirity jail among thesnakes and crocodiles and we will send them cash and convicts! A 2010 L'UGHAWE SOLUTION It nearly drove me crazy trying to get to OR Tambo Airport last week. Everyone seemed to be on their way to Australia. No, they were going to Cape Town for that Cycle Tour. I so admire middle-aged ( and not so mature ) people for carrying their awkward bikes all the way into a blistering South-easter gale to create a perfect situation for that fatal heart attack as they cycle up and down the steep slopes of Table Mountain and the Twelve Apostles in order to prove - what? Anyway, sitting in a hour-long traffic jam to park in the Parkade, I suddenly came upon the solution to the 2010 log-jam round the buildingof stadiums. OR Tambo is a mess as they try to join the three parts together to make a whole. Now there's just a hole! Cape Town Airport is a dusty chaotic building site and Durban is .. well, Durban is Durban. Imagine if we extended the building operations at our international airports and actually completed perfect soccer stadiums in time for 2010? Then the fans could fly in from the rest of the world, get off their planes, find their seats, watch the match, board their planes and fly away. And live to tell the tale! SKATTEBOL It's been a week of horrors. White people have killed white children. This is nothing to celebrate. But robber-baron Arthur Brown and his group accountant Graham Maddock who are behind bars this week for Fidentia's failure to account for more than R200 million belonging to needy clients, have exposed an important fact. So thank you, seuns for showing us that wealthy white people are also thieves and crooks, who steal from the poor and desperate without so much as a shrug. It should not just be the 'others' in our rainbow line-up who are always under suspicion. FURBALLIt's a tie! The Department of Justice - who single-handedly holds the most pressing issues of crime, fraud, trial etc and did not spend up to R600 million of their annual budget. If anything proves that justice is in the wrong hands, this certainly does. Then there's the South African Air Force who, after spending R13 billion on a flock of brand-new fighter jets, has to ground them as useless, because there is no battle to be fought from the sky. And last but not least, gesture politics from Minister Jeff Radebe, now wearing the beetroot-soaked mantle inherited from Manto, the Angel of Death. Jeff has just announced that by 2011 one million Aids sufferers will be on ARV's! Too late skattie, te laat!