A racist, po­ten­tial­ly volatile sit­u­a­tion is de­vel­op­ing in African com­mu­ni­ties that are be­ing tar­get­ed as crime hot spots by law en­force­ment agen­cies. This warn­ing is com­ing from Kafra Kam­bon, chair­man of the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee (ESC), who said the Gov­ern­ment, in its an­ti-crime ini­tia­tive dur­ing the present state of emer­gency is "tread­ing on slip­pery slopes." "African com­mu­ni­ties are be­ing tar­get­ed," Kam­bon said at a press con­fer­ence at the ESC's of­fice at Berg­er­ac Road, Mar­aval, yes­ter­day. "I can't say it's be­cause they are African...Crime is not an African prob­lem but I see our com­mu­ni­ties as be­ing more crime prone. "The prison pop­u­la­tion sta­tis­tics and what I read in the news­pa­pers sup­port that. "It's dis­turb­ing to see the racial im­bal­ance in the prison pop­u­la­tion. "It strikes me as an in­di­ca­tion that too much crime is con­cen­trat­ed among our peo­ple. "A lot of the crimes (in the African com­mu­ni­ties) are be­ing com­mit­ted against each oth­er." Kam­bon said, how­ev­er, that sev­er­al moth­ers were re­port­ing to the ESC that in­no­cent peo­ple were al­so be­ing ar­rest­ed.

He claimed that it was not just 15 boys from a crime hot spot that were be­ing de­tained, but the whole com­mu­ni­ty was be­ing treat­ed bad­ly by law en­force­ment agen­cies. "From many re­ports reach­ing us and things be­ing said, the com­mit­tee al­so feels it is not crim­i­nals that are be­ing tar­get­ed but com­mu­ni­ties," Kam­bon said. "Nor­mal res­i­dents liv­ing in these com­mu­ni­ties are afraid, not know­ing who will be next. "They are main­ly African com­mu­ni­ties and peo­ple are be­gin­ning to think of it in racial terms." He said many peo­ple re­port­ed that their rel­a­tives were be­ing thrown in­to "Guan­tanamo," a sec­tion of the Gold­en Grove Prison in an old, aban­doned build­ing un­fit for hous­ing pris­on­ers. He said oth­ers com­plained that they had no idea where their rel­a­tives were im­pris­oned. "One moth­er said her son did not have a change of cloth­ing for days be­cause she could not reach him," Kam­bon said. "When she fi­nal­ly found him at Guan­tanamo, she found out he did not bathe for days be­cause bath­room fa­cil­i­ties were not prop­er­ly set up there."

He ex­pressed con­cern about where the grow­ing num­ber of ar­rest­ed peo­ple were go­ing to be de­tained and un­der what con­di­tions. "Yes­ter­day's (Mon­day's) fig­ure was 820 and at the rate of 100 a day, by tonight it will cross 900," he said. "Most of these de­tainees are from African com­mu­ni­ties." He said the ESC had al­so be­gun to doc­u­ment and in­ves­ti­gate com­plaints of abuse by law en­force­ment of­fi­cers against ar­rest­ed peo­ple. He said the com­mit­tee was meet­ing with a team of lawyers to guide mem­bers on the rights of peo­ple dur­ing a state of emer­gency. He said a pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion pro­gramme would fol­low. Kam­bon ap­pealed to the Gov­ern­ment to di­a­logue with non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions on how to treat with the is­sue of crime. He said the ESC com­prised some 200 com­mu­ni­ty or­gan­i­sa­tions and since the Gov­ern­ment came in­to of­fice, the com­mit­tee in­formed them they were open to di­a­logue on com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment.