Boy, 6, made 'bomb jacket'

2004-03-29 22:56

Antoinette Pienaar

Pretoria - The homemade "suicide-bomber jacket" worn by a six-year-old to a protest march in Pretoria was his own idea, says his father.

Mohammed Dockrat, a university lecturer, said: "Muslim children in South Africa have been aware of the attack on Islam since the war in Afghanistan.

"They saw other children being killed and maimed and are very aware of who the enemy is."

The academic said his son, Uzair, decided to wear the jacket to a protest march in Pretoria attended by about 300 Muslims.

The Dockrats were among those protesting in front of the Israeli embassy against the killing of Sheik Ahmed Yassin, spiritual leader of the Palestinian Hamas group, outside a mosque in Gaza in an Israeli missile attack a week ago.

Uzair's brother apparently helped him to make the jacket.

Dockrat said the children's awareness of the Palestinian struggle was visible even in their games.

"Actionman is their hero and the bad guys are Bush (President George W Bush of America) and Sharon (Ariel Sharon, Prime Minister of Israel).

Wants them to be able to defend themselves

"I don't think we should make too much of the jacket. As an adult, he will have a better understanding.

"To me, the fact that he wore it symbolises that one can kill one generation, but there will always be a next generation to continue the struggle."

Dockrat said he didn't want his sons to be pacifists and he wanted them to be able to defend themselves.

He agreed there could be negative feelings towards Jewish friends in South Africa.

"But if you see what is happening in Jewish communities here, how they send their children for military training in Israel, then it seems to me that our children should be the ones to be afraid and not the other way around."

Dockrat claims the recent case of a Palestinian teenager, wearing a suicide jacket, being arrested at an Israeli checkpoint, was an Israeli set-up.

"The Hamas group never uses children in suicide-bomb attacks and it occurs mostly on buses where there is a civilian target.

"We do not use children in the struggle, this is a principal of Jihad (holy war)."

- Beeld