South African Police Commissioner George Fivaz, reportedly favoured by the Commission on Policing in Northern Ireland as a candidate to transform the Royal Ulster Constabulary, reminds one of the idiom of the half-full or half-empty hourglass. Like the proverbial hourglass, Commissioner Fivaz, who served as a police officer under the white minority regime, can be interpreted in two contradictory ways _ positively and negatively. The positive interpretation concentrates on Mr Fivaz's role in initiating the transformation of the old white-dominated South African Police Force, and the auxiliary police forces which functioned under it, into the new non-racial South African Police Service.
South African human rights lawyer Mr Brian Currin, who is the joint chairman of the Sentence Review Commission in Northern Ireland, endorses the positive view of Mr Fivaz, noting that he was selected to serve as National Police Commissioner by no less a person than former president Nelson Mandela.But, against that, it must be noted that Mr Fivaz, a university graduate, served in the old SAP for years without any qualms, even though the police were widely seen as a buttress of the apartheid government and its first line of defence against resistance.
But In fairness to Mr Fivaz, it should be recorded that he was praised by Judge Richard Goldstone in March 1994, when the African National Congress loomed large in South Africa as the future government, for helping to expose the role of some police officers in the murder and harassment of ANC members and sympathisers.
But those inclined to take a more jaundiced view of Mr Fivaz will find plenty to support their perceptions in an current question-and-answer interview in the Financial Mail with the new Minister of Safety and Security, Mr Steve Tshwete. A former commissar in the ANC guerrilla army, Mr Tshwete complains about low morale in the police service, continuing racism in its ranks and the recurring problem of corrupt police in league with criminals.
These blights on the police service can be seen either as evidence of Mr Fivaz's incompetence as a manager of transformation or as testimony to the magnitude of the problem. Mr Fivaz has declined to comment on a report in Britain's Mail on Sunday in Britain that he is a strong candidate for the Northern Ireland post. His spokesperson says that he considers himself legally and morally responsible to the SA Police Service until January, when his contract ends in January.