'Clever kids' rule Karoo school

"God forgives, Geweld don't ... f**k the law," is scrawled on a classroom wall.

This is Aurial College, a government school of 750 pupils in the Brighton township of Oudtshoorn, Western Cape.

"Geweld" (violence) is the nickname of a notorious gang leader in the town.

Gangsterism is so rampant in this part of the Karoo that the school was closed last week for the safety of its teachers and pupils.

The gangs have marked the school as part of their territory, as the graffiti on the walls show.

Among the graffiti, this message: "The lord gave all of us freedom, why must the judge take it away? Not guilty."

Another reads: "CK. Clever Kids. Rule 1 - P*ssy, Rule 2 - Money. Rule 3 - Weed. We got all that."

Clever Kids is a gang; also active at the school are the Shottas and the STBs.

Pupils and teachers live in fear of gangsters operating inside and outside the school.

Forget tattoos, pit bulls are the new status symbol for gang members who freely enter classrooms with their fearsome dogs when they want to intimidate pupils or find one of them.

Police spokesman Captain Malcolm Pojie said, that though the police had responded to a number of calls to deal with incidents at the school, no cases had ever been opened.

All classes were suspended last week when it was decided at a parents' meeting that the school was not safe for pupils.

But the Western Cape government intervened and teaching resumed on Monday.

School governing body chairman Desmond George said the gangs could do as they pleased because the school has had no security guards since September, when a guard was stabbed. The wounded guard and his sole colleague resigned.

The school has been plundered for cable, copper wire, fences, doors, windows, teaching materials and tools. After class, the gangs rummage through the premises looking for anything they can sell to buy drugs, said George.

Tik is the favoured drug in the poor parts of the Karoo.

Three temporary classrooms have been burned down and there is no water supply because the pipes have been stolen.

Said George: "Last Friday the gangsters came in here and one of the dogs nearly bit the vice-principal.

"They use these premises for substance abuse."

Vice-principal Collen Swigelaar said a g angster unleashed a pit bull after he asked the man to leave the school's premises.

Swigelaar said: "I only had a pen in my hand. He was about 40m away from me, but he then whistled and the dog turned back.

"Imagine if it didn't."

Western Cape department of education spokesman Paddy Attwell said his department had approved additional security for the school and had prioritised fixing the toilets and restoring water and electricity supplies.

He said two security guards were posted at the school last week.

"The department has approved a budget for other repairs, including the fence," he said.

The repair work could take up to two months.

Violence and fear haunt classrooms

Locals describe Aurial College as a "gangster school".

Grade 11 pupil Peter Wagenaar, 17, says that when in class he constantly looks out the window, worried about gangsters invading their classroom.

"It's not a safe place," he said. Another pupil, Luciano Witbooi, 18, says he fears for his life. "We don't like that the people broke down the school because we want to go there to learn," he said.

Witbooi recently got caught up in a gang fight over a shoe brush between the Clever Kids, the Shottas and the STBs.

He says he has also been attacked while on his way home from school with his friend, a member of the Clever Kids gang. He says he shivers every time he sets foot on school grounds.

"They [gangs] come in and tell the teacher: 'We have no problem with you, we are just looking for so and so'."