PRETORIA, South Africa — The cavernous courtroom was nearly empty, with only four spectators and reporters watching as a DNA expert patiently explained the techniques of his trade.
Even the defendant, 32-year-old Moses Sithole, appeared bored. Smartly dressed in a double-breasted suit, he adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses and read a newspaper as the witness droned on.
So goes the trial of the man accused of being South Africa's worst known serial killer.
Police have charged Sithole with 38 murders and 40 rapes, all allegedly committed in less than two years. In addition, police say Sithole has confessed to scores of other murders--perhaps 70 in all--that they can't prove in court.
Sithole's case probably would draw huge crowds and big headlines anywhere else. But it has been overshadowed here by the daily reminders of grisly violence and mayhem in one of the world's most crime-ridden societies.
South Africa has the industrialized world's highest reported rates of murder and rape. The wave of lawlessness, which cuts across economic and racial lines, has terrified residents and frightened tourists and foreign investors since apartheid ended in 1994.
The government has indicated that it is taking the concerns seriously.
The 1997-98 budget, announced last week, includes spending increases of nearly 15% for police, prisons and courts. Last year, their budgets saw only nominal increases.
For the first time, more money will be spent on policing than on national defense. Only the education and housing departments had larger spending increases, and most government bureaus had cuts.
Experts blame the crime wave partly on the culture of violence engendered during the bitter struggle against institutionalized white oppression. But criminal syndicates, drug traffickers and guns have flooded into the country under democratic rule. So have illegal immigrants, adding to the estimated 40% black unemployment.
Crimes such as the theft of an entire automatic teller machine from police headquarters here and the burglary of Safety and Security Minister Sydney Mufamadi's home by a corrupt policeman, have done little to reassure a nervous public that increasingly lives behind high walls and barred windows.
President Nelson Mandela, among others, has accused the police force of corruption and incompetence.
