POPULARITY OF CRIME FIGURE 'SHOWS COMPLEXITY OF CAPE GANGLAND'

Popular loyalty to millionaire fraudster and alleged drug baron Colin
Stanfield, who died of cancer at the weekend, underscores the complexity of
the Cape's extensive criminal underworld, and the need for a more
sophisticated response to it.

So argues researcher Andre Standing, who has been studying the Cape's
multimillion rand "gangland" economy for the past two years.

His preliminary research, published by the Institute of Security Studies
and extensively reported in the Cape Argus last year, emphasised that
simply putting gangsters behind bars would not do much to close down the
underworld economy because many thousands of poor people depended on this
economy for their living.

An element of this was the philanthropy that, to the poor of Valhalla Park,
made Colin Stanfield a generous benefactor who provided food when they were
hungry, and lent a sympathetic ear to their problems.

Though he bought his way into the southern suburbs, loyalty to him among
the poor remained fierce.

As Pastor Albert Martins, a "spiritual adviser" to Stanfield, put it
yesterday: "He has kept a community together, despite all the allegations
against him. We have lost a big man and the sorrow of the community will
attest to this."

A community worker told the Cape Argus: "I don't think there is someone in
Valhalla Park who can say that he ever turned them away. He was there for
us for 24 hours a day."

These comments come as no surprise to Standing.

"From my own work ... the one thing I would stress is that the case shows
that the relationship between so-called gangsters and the community has
always been a lot more complex than the state has tried to pretend.

"It is not as simplistic as 'them versus us'. If it were, the police's job
would be a lot easier."

He added: "I do think the police recognise that it's not as
straightforward. You cannot simply go in and remove them."

Standing, whose book on his research in the Cape is to be published towards
the end of the year or early in the new year, noted that it was not clear
whether Stanfield's case was atypical, but that there had been a few others
who have had similar relationships with the community.

There was a telling lesson in the popular response to Stanfield. "The big
question is how such a businessman can assume this significance in this
community, how poverty and low legitimacy of government structures create
such an opportunity."

It was "not unusual for rich businessmen to become philanthropic in their
old age. We see it all over the world all the time.

"People will say (that in Stanfield's case) it is purely to lend some
legitimacy to the drug trade, but I am not sure if that makes sense. I
cannot see the gain.

"You can see it where people are paid off not to give evidence as
witnesses, or to stash contraband, but for him, he was not particularly
threatened.

"I do not buy into the economic view that he was paying the community to
save himself."