THE African National Congress leadership in the Western Cape yesterday called for a state of emergency in the province to counter the threat posed to law and order by vigilantes and the gangsters they are threatening to "take out".
The call which had the backing of the Democratic Party and the minuscule African Christian Democratic Party - was made by the ANC provincial leader Mr Chris Nissen, during a snap debate in the provincial legislature.
It was rejected by the majority National Party, whose leader, Mr Hernus Kriel, instead proposed the formation of a metropolitan police force to combat crime.
Mr Kriel simultaneously fired a verbal fusillade at the ANC controlled central government, accusing it of failing to provide the NP dominated Western Cape government with sufficient funds for adequate policing.
The debate in the provincial legislature occurred as a leader of the Muslim based vigilante movement Pagad (People Against Gangsterism and Drugs) threatened to declare a jihad, or holy war, against both gangsters and the government unless authorities took decisive action on the crime front within a fortnight.
The Pagad leader, Mr Farouk Jaffer, hinted that Pagad would call on its allies in Muslim countries if necessary, naming the Lebanon based Hizbullah specifically.
Pagad sprang to national prominence barely 10 days ago, when its followers marched on the Western Cape home of an alleged gangster, Rashaad Staggie, shot him, doused him with petrol and set him alight. Television cameras recorded the attack and made Pagad a household name within hours. Since then a Pagad mass march in Cape Town on Sunday, during which nine people were injured in a shoot out with police, has won the movement further prominence.
An ANC parliamentarian, Mr Willie Hofmeyr, has raised the question of whether there is a connection between Pagad and Qiblah, a militant Muslim based organisation which was loosely linked to the Pan Africanist Congress during the armed struggle against minority rule.
Qiblah was founded in 1979 by student admirers of Imam Haroon, a Muslim leader who lived in a black township and who died in detention during the 1960s after "filling down the stairs".