SUMMARY
The conflict between Codeta (Cape Organization for a Democratic Taxi Association) and CATA (Cape Amalgamated Taxi Association) started soon after CATA broke away from Codeta in 1994. Almost immediately, CATA employed an aggressive strategy to gain access to routs, ranks, and local association members. The background to the separation can be found in the fractionalization within Codeta. The group was founded in 1992, when the taxi associations Webta and Lagunya joined forces. While joined in an umbrella organization, members stuck to their original alliance, with either Webta or Lagunya. The ex-members of Webta continuously felt ignored within Codeta, which eventually led to the foundation of CATA.
A more general background to fighting between different taxi associations in South Africa can be found in the apartheid regime. It is rooted in policies of deregulation and destabilization pursued during the late 1980s and early 1990s. The deregulation was on the one hand meant to strengthen the economy, and on the other hand implemented in order to give blacks enough of a voice in the system to mitigate the revolutionary atmosphere. Before deregulation, it was extremely difficult for black people to get licensed in order to operate a taxi business. After deregulation, the taxi industry, which was one of the first and few industries to provide an avenue of capital accumulation for black people, became swamped with operators. This resulted in heavy competition between operators, which laid the foundation for future conflicts between different taxi associations. Especially the organization of taxi drivers into more formal taxi associations played a major stake in the violence associated with the taxi industry in South Africa. Although the conflict was initially active during the mid-1990s, the conflict became active again in 2020, and reached its highest intensity in 2021. In 2023, some cases of non-state violence were attributed to the Cata - Codeta dyad. However, the taxi associations did not take any responsibility for the events.
Both CATA and Codeta used hit-squads, which had a financial incentive to kill members of the opposing taxi association. According to police, hitmen were paid R1 000 to kill a passenger, R2 000 to kill a taxi driver and R4 000 to kill a taxi owner of the opposing organization. Bounties for killing a member of the executive rank of the mother association could be as high as R80 000. Most victims in the conflict between CATA and Codeta resulted from shootouts. Consequently, a majority of the victims in the conflict were commuters, traveling with the taxi bus to and from work.
Since both CATA and Codeta strove to control the same area, the violence was concentrated on the Cape Peninsula.
The non-state conflict between CATA and Codeta is first included in UCDP data in 1996. In April of that year, violence between the two groups crossed the 25 battle-related deaths threshold.
