Bomb: Don't blame Pagad

2005-05-17 11:15

File photo of the "Big House" in Manenberg on the Cape Flats, which was bombed at the weekend. (Ebrahim Pregnolato, Die Burger0

Ziegfried Ekron

Cape Town - Experts warned on Monday that the public should not make hasty assumptions about Pagad's involvement in the bombing of an alleged drug trafficker's house on the Cape Flats at the weekend.

The attack showed similarities with attacks attributed to Pagad in the past.

Peter Gastrow, director of the Institute for Security Studies in Cape Town, said on Monday that speculation about a revival of Pagad would only be fuel on the metaphorical fire.

Windows of the alleged drug house in Surrey Estate were shattered and the plastering on the walls damaged when an attacker threw an explosive device, probably a pipe bomb, in the front garden on the house on Saturday evening. Witnesses said the man fled with three accomplices in a white BMW.

The owner of the house claimed Pagad had bombed the house three times before.

Although nobody was injured in the blast, police are investigating a case of attempted murder.

Gastrow, an expert researcher on Pagad, said no member of the public has enough information about the recent attack to make a valid assumption.

"Speculation and guesses will only lead to more speculation and eventually make it virtually impossible to get an accurate version of the events," Gastrow said.

Copycats

He did not want to venture an opinion on the possibility that Pagad could have regrouped over the past five years or that the attack was the work of a splinter group or copycats.

Inspector Bernadine Steyn did also not want to elaborate on the possible involvement of Pagad in the attack.

"The investigation is still at an early stage and we do not want to make allegations or assumptions about the identity of the attackers.

"The remains of the bomb will be sent for forensic tests to determine the nature and origin of the device," Steyn said.

Pagad dominated the headlines in the 1990s when the organisation was implicated in a series of bombings and other attacks on drug dealers in the peninsula. Although the organisation strongly denied any involvement in the attacks, many of its members were arrested on charges of urban terror.

The spate of bombings stopped at the end of 2000 when police arrested two Pagad members after a bomb was disposed of outside a bar in Bellville.

The case against these two men was withdrawn in 2003.

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- Die Burger