The video shows the cops setting four attack dogs on the three men. The dogs repeatedly maul the men's arms, legs, and genitals as the cops, laughing and cheering, urge the animals on, calling their victims "kaffir," a virulent racist epithet, and landing their own blows. Appeals for mercy are met with more assaults. A cop tells the camera: "This is a training exercise."

The video, made in 1998, has apparently been circulating as police officer "entertainment" since that time. But someone recently made it available to the SABC television program "Special Assignment," which broadcast lengthy excerpts of the material on November 7.

While millions of workers here know from personal experience that police brutality is rampant, the graphic nature of the video provoked a widespread outcry from both blacks and whites and became the topic of discussion on the job nationwide.

SABC reported that 15,000 people called in following the screening to protest the police assault, and the letters columns of newspapers filled up with angry denouncements of the police. The Citizen newspaper headlined its front-page story "Live Bait" over a photo of a dog tearing into one of the men as a cop kicked him in the stomach. The Sowetan simply said "Racist Brutality." Many letter writers related their own experience with the cops.

Just prior to the broadcast, the show's producers showed the video to government and police officials, who ordered the arrest of the six cops, aged between 27 and 32. They are being charged with attempted murder and held pending a ruling on their bail application, set for November 22.

In an interview with SABC, one of the assaulted workers, Gilbert Ntimane, who was born in Mozambique and now works as a quarry laborer in South Africa, described how he and his brother, Alexander, were picked up in a Johannesburg suburb in January 1998 while looking for work.

"The police asked us for ID or a passport, but we didn't have any. They asked us for 300 rands (about $40) but we didn't have it." Ntimane said they were forced into a minibus with a third man, Sylvester Khosa, and driven to an open field where the assault took place. Afterwards, they were taken to a hospital for superficial treatment before being locked up in jail, then deported to Mozambique.

Such stories are common among workers from other parts of the African continent who come here in search of work. In fact, many newspapers and news broadcasts persist in reporting that the three men assaulted by the cops were "illegal immigrants," as if their lack of papers justifies, just a little bit, the treatment they received.

Many black South Africans are stopped by police who say they are looking for "illegals"--especially if they are seen as dark-skinned--and brutalized by both black and white cops.

"We have insisted that the South African government should take drastic measures to deal with this sort of situation," said Mozambican labor minister Mario Sevene. "The South African government is receptive to our requests, but it seems that in some areas it is not in control."

According to the Independent Complaints Directorate, a quasi-government agency set up to monitor complaints against the cops, 681 people died in police custody or as a result of police action in South Africa between April 1999 and March of this year.

While changes have been made to the command structure since South Africa's first nonracial, democratic elections in 1994, the police force essentially remains the same entity that was set up to defend the racist apartheid state and the property relations built upon it. Most cops are black, though specialized units such as the one that assaulted the three men are mostly or all white.

"We are doing our utmost to rid the SA Police Service of these backward elements. I have made it abundantly clear that there is no place for racism and brutality," said Safety and Security Minister Steve Tshwete of the African National Congress. "These rogues are exceptions." He said the duties of dog units would be cut back and that their members would undergo psychological screening.

South African president Thabo Mbeki stated, "I think that, I hope anyway, that what [the video] did was show all South Africans that when we raise the issue of persisting racism in this country, we are not playing politics. It is a matter of great importance and we have to address it. You can't leave it as a constitutional principle. To create a nonracist South Africa we must in detail deal with the matter." A cabinet statement said, "We wish to call on all the people in our country to report these incidents and assure them that these actions will be dealt with using the full might of the law."

A constant refrain in the press and among opposition parties is that the police are "underpaid" and face a "stressful" environment where crime is "rampant." The notion that the country is besieged by criminals finds expression in the pronouncements of government officials.

"We will tackle these scum the way a bulldog tackles a bone," Tshwete was reported to have told a gathering of cops last year.  
 
 
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