Berg Alert 2018

tiska wrote:
Best advice would be not to tent anywhere in this region. An attack is yet to take place in the Berg on hikers in a cave. There have been dozens of attacks on tents in the Berg - across the length of the escarpment. You stand little chance of defending yourself in a tent - something these guys know all too well.

Adding a qualification to a point I made in my earlier post:
In the case of the location of the April 2018 'Fangs Pass' attack, I would not recommend Rat Hole Cave (though Fangs and Mbundini Caves I would still trust). The reason is that Rat Hole Cave is very much like a tent in its structure with one extremely narrow entrance/exit and the need for everyone to come out in single file. It is too easy for attackers to focus their rock throwing at that narrow entrance. Unlike the Berg Pass Caves (in this instance both Mbundini and Fangs) it is difficult to slip into Rat Hole Cave unnoticed and difficult to hang out there without being seen.

Jim wrote: Hey Everyone

Quite worrying, all these attacks.

5 of us are going down the last weekend in April and staying both nights in Keith's bush camp. Anything to worry about?

Thanks

There is an interesting distinction between the safety record of hikers camping on the escarpment/in Lesotho and the lower Berg.
There have been attacks on people in the lower Berg in the past but there are far more attacks on hikers overnighting in tents on the escarpment even though the numbers of hikers on the escarpment is far lower than the number of hikers in the lower Berg and therefore the prior probability of an attack on escarpment hikers should be theoretically lower. In practice it is not lower.

Why should this be so?
Possible reasons include:
a) land border regions without hard-frontiers like fences are often lawless places because it is unclear to two nation-states who is responsible for crime with the result that there is either inaction on the part of authorities to respond to a crime or at the very least a long delay in response. The criminals only need a few hours to get away. The institutional response of the state takes months to happen and most often nothing happens. From this perspective the criminals can operate more freely near the SA/Lesotho border. The criminals will know that the follow-up to crime is minimal. Crime pays. In some parts of Africa targeting open border regions is a specific tactic on the part of criminals.
b) Many of the people living along or near the escarpment in Lesotho would have had no direct experience of the law or policing. In many ways the area is lawless. This is another reason that crime pays.
c) the lower Berg is firmly in SA. If a Basutho committed a crime in the lower Berg it is clear that they would be potentially being prosecuted and punished by another country. This is less attractive to the criminal.
d) Basuthos moving through the lower Berg are on a mission - often smuggling valuable drugs or at least crossing borders illegally. They are less interested in crime while on the move. The evidence suggests that they avoid hikers by creating different paths through passes or even opening different passes.This has been a theme of the last decade in the Berg.
e) the need for stealing kit such as warm sleeping bags and down jackets is far higher on the escarpment where the winter snow events can, and do, lead to the death of shepherds. Imagine a raid involving 4 or 5 criminals, such as the April 2018 incident, where one bag is taken. That might yield one down jacket - less likely a sleeping bag unless the hiking party is driven off from the tent camp. For the other 3 or 4 criminals to benefit from the raid, given that there is only one down jacket to go round, 3 or 4 more raids would be needed. That doesn't bode well.

After reading this....
Who has thought of the idea, with rubber and pepper bullets to teach these guys a lesson?

Please don't take this the wrong way.. but get a small team together, full kit and go to that area. I'm sure you can fill the rest on this idea and how everything could pan out!!!.



Or would this cause bigger issues???

Gudstff wrote: After reading this....
Who has thought of the idea, with rubber and pepper bullets to teach these guys a lesson?

Please don't take this the wrong way.. but get a small team together, full kit and go to that area. I'm sure you can fill the rest on this idea and how everything could pan out!!!.



Or would this cause bigger issues???

That’s pure dumb idea! Seriously?! How old are you?

Gudstff wrote: After reading this....
Who has thought of the idea, with rubber and pepper bullets to teach these guys a lesson?

Please don't take this the wrong way.. but get a small team together, full kit and go to that area. I'm sure you can fill the rest on this idea and how everything could pan out!!!.

Or would this cause bigger issues???

The principle here is that the raids on hikers have no negative consequence to the raiders - only benefits. Not being part of a crime on hikers means you suffer through the high altitude winter. Not so those with the newly stolen jacket or sleeping bag. Crime pays. As a result, that will encourage more raids. How best then to stop crime from paying?

The purest response from the hiker's perspective is not to make the crime any easier to commit than it already is. That means don't tent in the known hot spots. Pass through them and/or hide carefully at night.

The alternative is some retribution on the criminals. The conventional policing approach is largely implausible in remote areas. Under these conditions, vigilante responses often emerge. The downside is that there is a likely escalation from the criminals. Instead of 4-5 criminals with rocks, it might become 9-10 with rocks, sticks, dogs and their own firearms. We have already seen rocks, sticks and dogs. Firearms not yet, though they have been frequently sighted in connection with drug smuggling - so they do exist in the region.

Although I firmly believe there should be consequence for crime, getting the right kind of consequence is key. Previously we have discussed intervention through the social structure in Lesotho - e.g. discussion with elders of what is going on. My guess is that a lot of the shepherds in the region are cut-loose for months at a time and don't have the connection with elders that would be needed to make this work.

tonymarshall wrote: Hi ghaznavid,

Can you just explain your post in a bit more detail please. What Military is patrolling where, and where have kraals sprung up, and why are these related issues? Why and where were shepherds forced to relocate?

I am aware of three military camps (military camp in the crude sense, more like a hiking camp than anything else) - I won't share specific locations on this post as I don't know who is reading this, but I'll say all three are in the Free State Drakensberg.

The kraals I am refering to were an observation from when I did the Northern High Traverse in a day in September last year - I had hiked through that area twice about 9 months earlier on the Double GT, and I recall at least two kraals near the junction of the two rivers just below Rat Hole Cave that I hadn't seen before (4 kraals in total, as far as I remember, as oppose to the two that I remember always having been there).

The military guys are actively chasing the locals away - although I'm not entirely sure why. My source on that is what one of the soldiers told me on my Free State traverse last year when we told him that we were planning on walking to Afriski. I imagine a bunch of people moving in with weapons and chasing people away is more likely to cause hostility that leads to further attacks

@Tiska re Rat Hole: I'm not sure I agree. If they have firearms or use smoke, sure - otherwise I don't see how they could force hikers out of Rat Hole.

@Gudstuff: two reasons why that won't work:
1) are you sleeping with it under your pillow? How are you planning on deploying it through the walls of a tent as rocks come hurtling down on you?
2) if people see you carrying what looks like weapons, I think they are more likely to attack you in the hope of taking your weapons.

@Dangerdave: the WHS stops at Mount Amery and restarts at Ntonjelana Ridge, so it is much more than just the area around Nguza Pass. But most of the escarpment is in Lesotho, and the only section of Lesotho that is included in the WHS is Sehlabathebe National Park near Bushman's Nek. WHS status has very little to do with security issues - seeing as I wouldn't even consider camping on top of the Giants Massif due to the amount of traffic in the area, and that is comfortably within the WHS. People have reported hunters heading down passes at Vergelegen into South Africa to hunt eland and taking the meat back into Lesotho (obviously illegal, but it is happening).

Gudstff wrote: After reading this....
Who has thought of the idea, with rubber and pepper bullets to teach these guys a lesson?

Please don't take this the wrong way.. but get a small team together, full kit and go to that area. I'm sure you can fill the rest on this idea and how everything could pan out!!!.



Or would this cause bigger issues???

No, just no....

A- it escalates the situation
B- if they are armed and shoot you dead they can claim self defence as at that time they mistook the paintball gun and thought you were armed
C- can you imagine meeting the Lesotho Army up there when you are running around in cammo shooting people?
D- a pepperball yo an unprotected eye and you are going to be paying someone elses medical bills

I can carry on listing issues for hours if you want

tiska wrote:
The alternative is some retribution on the criminals. The conventional policing approach is largely implausible in remote areas. Under these conditions, vigilante responses often emerge. The downside is that there is a likely escalation from the criminals. Instead of 4-5 criminals with rocks, it might become 9-10 with rocks, sticks, dogs and their own firearms. We have already seen rocks, sticks and dogs. Firearms not yet, though they have been frequently sighted in connection with drug smuggling - so they do exist in the region.

Although I firmly believe there should be consequence for crime, getting the right kind of consequence is key. Previously we have discussed intervention through the social structure in Lesotho - e.g. discussion with elders of what is going on. My guess is that a lot of the shepherds in the region are cut-loose for months at a time and don't have the connection with elders that would be needed to make this work.

This was the response I was hoping for...Thanks

It's just hard to process the fact the me/you or whoever is next.....

I guess that prayer is the best source of weapon here.

ghaznavid wrote: @Tiska re Rat Hole: I'm not sure I agree. If they have firearms or use smoke, sure - otherwise I don't see how they could force hikers out of Rat Hole.

Ghaz - the person sleeping at the entrance of the Rat Hole tube will be the first one to take a rock on the head. The other hikers further down the tube may be a bit more protected, granted, but it would be a little hard on their mate at the entrance to lie there doing nothing. Sooner or later everyone is going to exit the pipe.

Caves are avoided by the attackers because the movement and action of the hikers, post attack, is unpredictable. In a tent and in Rat Hole there is only one point of escape. That becomes the focus of the attack. It's a simple enough tactic.

In the bigger picture - it would be daft for someone to overnight on the escarpment in the Fangs area. It's the same guys wanting stuff and mail order is just too slow to those valleys. We are their couriers.

Gudstff wrote:

tiska wrote:
The alternative is some retribution on the criminals. The conventional policing approach is largely implausible in remote areas. Under these conditions, vigilante responses often emerge. The downside is that there is a likely escalation from the criminals. Instead of 4-5 criminals with rocks, it might become 9-10 with rocks, sticks, dogs and their own firearms. We have already seen rocks, sticks and dogs. Firearms not yet, though they have been frequently sighted in connection with drug smuggling - so they do exist in the region.

Although I firmly believe there should be consequence for crime, getting the right kind of consequence is key. Previously we have discussed intervention through the social structure in Lesotho - e.g. discussion with elders of what is going on. My guess is that a lot of the shepherds in the region are cut-loose for months at a time and don't have the connection with elders that would be needed to make this work.

This was the response I was hoping for...Thanks

It's just hard to process the fact the me/you or whoever is next.....

I guess that prayer is the best source of weapon here.

Perhaps an ideal, though particularly difficult response to enact, would be to nab one of them, on the SA side of the watershed, and get a chopper in to lift them out to police. I don't suppose much would happen at the prosecution end, but it would be a long walk home from Maritzburg.