A lot has transpired since Robert Frost wrote that good fences make good neighbours.
For one thing, the reality of cross-border crimes or of criminals committing crimes in one country and fleeing to another has caused that there be protocols to manage such eventualities. These days it takes more than good fences to make good neighbours.
It requires that each state develop a proper appreciation that criminals may not use their country to launch criminal raids into another country and return to the base country with the confidence that they cannot be touched.
Reports, if true, that the five men wanted for the murder of patrons in a tavern in Soweto in July are in hiding in Lesotho demand both countries cooperate to find them and bring them to justice. This means that the SA police authorities must urgently comply with requirements for finding and arresting suspects in a different country.
This is not the first time Lesotho nationals have found themselves accused of crimes in SA. It is common to implicate Basotho men in the growing illicit mining industry.
Lesotho nationals are not unique in being accused of committing crimes in SA. The xenophobic and by implication irrational view that foreign nationals are responsible for the high levels of crime in SA is deeply etched in the collective national psyche.
The SAPS must use resources available to it such as Interpol to help find the men. It is concerning that the minister of police, Bheki Cele, met with one of the most wanted men in SA but allowed him to go because he did not know at the time that he was in the company of a man police see as a key figure in heinous crimes against South Africans.
It is equally worrying that the men are said to enjoy the protection of the governing party in Lesotho, the All Basotho Convention. The risks to either protecting the men from facing justice or from sloppy policing are immense. These implications go beyond having a diplomatic impasse between two nations with historic ties.
SA already has a growing anti-foreign national sentiment. This manifests in sporadic and organised xenophobic attacks, mainly against African foreign nationals.
If the view that foreign nationals who commit crimes in SA are beyond the reach of law enforcement, it is reasonable to expect communities to resort to do-it-yourself measures to punish those they believe are guilty of crimes. It cannot end well.
Police ineptitude or political partisanship bodes ill for SA and Lesotho's abilities to manage relations between them.
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