The local papers over the last two days have been reporting a story on how a Dubai resident was murdered while on holiday in South Africa. A sad incident indeed. This now makes the mind go back a week when the South African cricket team left Sri Lanka citing a threat to their security after a bomb blast in Colombo. Unfortunately for cricket fans, the remaining matches with the Indian team who did not bat an eyelid about security were washed out by heavy rains. The Sri Lankan media then revealed that the security consultant company, who advised the South African team to leave was never in Sri Lanka to assess the situation, and had filed a report sitting in the air conditioned offices of far away Dubai. The International Cricket Council was forced to admit it had accepted a report on the security situation in Sri Lanka, without sending a security consultant to the country after the bomb blast. The report supposedly stated "that it was unsafe to stay - and to come home. "
Just yesterday the South African Government acknowledged it has a major problem tackling crime before the FIFA World Cup in 2010. Now how safe an environment did the South African team go back too?
I agree, Sri Lanka is in the middle of a civil war! But that's been happening for the last 20 years and business goes on as usual. However the security consultant seemed to have forgotten to tell the South African team their home country has the second highest crime rate in the world.
National crime statistics and the BBC show that nearly 20 000 murders were reported in the country of 47-million over 2004 - 2005. South Africa also has one of the highest rape statistics worldwide - more than 55 000 cases reported by police last year alone. 54 police officers have lost their lives in the first 7 months of 2006. South African Police (SAP) spokesperson Vishnu Naidoo said, the SAP Service is recruiting about 11 000 new members a year - a total of 55 000 by 2009. That's a police force the size of a small army.
It is estimated that the civil war in Sri Lanka has left 65,000 people dead since 1983. Now compare it with number of murders in South Africa in a single year! In 24 years of fighting a war in Sri Lanka, the number of people who have died is slightly higher than the total number of reported rapes in a single year in South Africa. And i shudder to think of the number of unreported rape cases.
Hmm, I am sure the South African cricket team sleeps safe in their homes. After all, you work out the math and statistics - but in one look, anyone can state - there is a highly likely chance of them becoming victims of crime in their own country than a stray bomb in Sri Lanka.
This blog does not intend to offend any of the South African Cricket team or the people of South Africa but it is simply not acceptable to take the public for fools and cite security concerns as an excuse when one's closet is full of skeletons.
And as for the next FIFA World Cup in four years! I guess, i will have saved enough to lay back in the comfort of a couch at a sea side resort in Sri Lanka and see the matches on a wall sized LCD TV without any security fears!
“Hypocrisy is a fashionable vice, and all fashionable vices pass for virtue”
Moliere (French Actor, Playwright and Writer,1622-1673)
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