First came People Against Gangsterism and Drugs better known under its acronym Pagad

First came People Against Gangsterism and Drugs, better known under its acronym, Pagad.When Pagad, which has Islamist affiliations, became so powerful two years ago that Cape Town's unsuccessful 2004 Olympic bid committee asked for its endorsement, a bunch of hardened gangsters decided to get together and keep them in check. That's how you get respect, and once you've killed you need the gang to defend you.''Initiation rites in this brutal world include rape, and women are known as "pomp dinge'' (things for pumping). The other: "No excuses, no explanations, no apologies, not to anyone, not ever'.'Mr Pinnock said: "Being in a gang is about killing. Anyone who uses the suffix `Dog', as in American Dog, is a particularly brave and vicious gangster."At a shebeen in Belhar, a Flats area partly controlled by The Firm, children are offered juice and biscuits on feast days by the same men who are prone to driving through the streets, shooting randomly, at the mere whiff of a defection or territorial threat.In the Cape Flats, no one changes sides, and The Firm's painted shebeen mural provides a flavour of the prevailing morality: "Rumours are spread by jealous people'' is one slogan.

Besides, the gangsare more powerful than the police, especially when organised into super-syndicates, such as The Firm. Mr Scharf said: "New gangs are formed all the time because you have gang alliances and sub-groups. In the apartheid years, they used the gangs to mete out punishment beatings, so they are hardly considered impartial. No one has updated the figure and Mr Pinnock thinks it an under- estimate, given that nowadays only 20 per cent of Flats dwellers have jobs.Turning to the police is not much good. Fifteen years ago, Don Pinnock, then a Cape Town academic, said the Flats had 80,000 gangsters. But the incident could as easily involve The Sexy Boys, The Cobra Kids or any of the other dozens of gangs whose stars can rise or fall in the time it takes to score a crack "hit'' on the Cape Flats.Everyone knows the gangs are powerful - and kill dozens of people every year - but no one can rank them in importance. Police arrested one of the gang's members after the shooting and stabbing of two occupants of a Cape Town house used by The Americans.The day before, four people died in a clash involving The Terrible Gang.

From their location, from movies, from television or from their specialism. I am not sure where the British thing came in but it is very new."The Total Pipe Killers, now disbanded, were particular about their smoking styles. They worked out all sorts of ways to smoke dagga [marijuana] and mandrax through the broken necks of bottles.''The British Citizens came to national prominence this week in an everyday report of the violent war to control the drug and arms trades of one of the world's most lawless places. Both join a long line of wackily named killer groups, including JFK (The Junkie Funky Kids), The Naughty Boys and the Hard Livings. The Cleaver Kids are another group of newcomers and there is some dispute as to whether their correct name is actually the Clever Kids."Spelling is not really their big thing,'' said Wilfried Scharf, a Cape Town criminology professor who spent four years following the Total Pipe Killers "The gangs derive their names in many ways.

But they have got the message about Cool Britannia. In their short life, the British Citizens have already spawned another gang, Forever British. These new kids on the Cape Flats - a dusty, bleak area of two million people outside Cape Town - know not the joys of warm beer, cricket on village greens and New Labour. IN WEST SIDE Story, The Jets take on The Sharks. In the latest instalment of the far less lyrical Western Cape Story, The Americans, regarded as one of the most powerful gangs in South Africa, have a new challenger, the British Citizens.

However, the use of the Belize-based trust could be outlawed by plans to limit donations from trusts to those that carry on their business wholly or mainly in the UK. Labour MPs also plan to table amendments to toughen up the measure during its Commons passage, in the hope of outlawing gifts from wealthy tax exiles such as Mr Ashcroft.. These state that money can be accepted from people entitled to vote in parliamentary elections in the UK. Yesterday, the Tories said Florida-based Mr Ashcroft had been on the list of overseas voters in Maidenhead, Berkshire, where he used to live, since 1985. This means he would still be allowed to make donations to the Tories under the Bill to reform party funding that will be introduced by the Government in the current session of Parliament. The affair moved closer to farce when Alastair Campbell, Mr Blair's official spokesman, said: "I can't hack into my own computer, let alone anybody else's." More prosaically, the Tories insisted that the £666,500 received through the Belize-based trust since this summer was not "foreign money" but part of the £1m personal donation already pledged by Mr Ashcroft for this financial year. Tory officials claimed that the treasurer's donations did not breach the guidelines introduced by Mr Hague to fulfil his 1997 pledge to end foreign gifts. Labour MPs enjoyed the Tory turmoil, delighted to see the Ken Livingstone mayoral bid eclipsed by the Archer and Ashcroft affairs. He insisted Mr Hague had shown "bad judgement" over Lord Archer, Mr Ashcroft and a range of policy issues. Mr Blair said voters would now realise that the Opposition "hasn't listened, hasn't learnt". That's something the police will have to look into." That task will fall to James O'Connell, head of the computer crime unit at Scotland Yard.