Described by Francis Drake in 1580 as the "the fairest cape in the whole circumference of the earth" Cape Town has long since been the jewel in South Africa's crown. Set at the southern most tip of the continent against the majestic backdrop of Table Mountain, the city's cosmopolitan attitude and eclectic charm has seen it rise in popularity in recent years. Frequently topping tourism polls to covet a place as one of the world's top five destinations, it has also usurped the likes of traditional favourites such as Australia and New Zealand as a "must see" destination for backpackers.

In a country still recovering from the bloody legacy of apartheid, Cape Town is certainly South Africa's most picturesque location. Earning over R9 billion (£694.3 million) annually in tourism, the city acts as the cover girl of the new South Africa, anxious to attract the attention of the Western world, and compete with traditional harbour cities such as San Francisco and Sydney as the darling of global tourism.

But unlike its coastal counterparts, Cape Town really is a modern day "tale of two cities. A stones throw away from the luxury of the prestigious Waterfront development and the art-house bohemia of Long Street's café strip, lie scenes straight from the third-world. What most visitors to the "Mother City" do not see, and what Cape Town Tourism (CTT) do not advertise on their website, is the reality of South Africa's transition to majority rule. A reality that finds over two million of Cape Towns three million residents inhabiting the barren, windswept land to the east of the city, the area collectively known as the "Cape Flats."

The Flats, comprised of townships and informal squatter camps, house the majority of the city's black-African and coloured population and stands as a bitter hangover from years of minority rule. Deliberately located on the outskirts of the city by the architects of apartheid, the sprawling urban ghettos were originally intended to segregate blacks from affluent "whites only" areas surrounding the CBD, and were carefully located so that they could not be viewed by anyone driving into the city from the airport.

But twelve years into democracy, the population of Cape Town remains visibly polarised; the politics that created such social fragmentation may have been dismantled but topography and economics have ensured that the city remains deeply divided, both spatially and racially. Far from the idea of an integrated "Rainbow Nation" proffered by Mbeki's ruling African National Congress (ANC), the reality in Cape Town is anything but.

Affluent whites still almost exclusively inhabit the salubrious suburbs at the base of Table Mountain and along the coast. Pretty colonial brick houses stand proudly at the end of sweeping driveways on tree lined streets; walking amongst Cape Towns privileged suburbia you could be almost anywhere in Europe, until you notice that every property is gated, alarmed and protected by armed private security firms. Brick walls topped off with electric fences or rolls of barbed wire; the only black or coloured faces to be seen in these areas are those of the domestic help tending to the gardens, scrubbing the floors and guarding the parked cars of busy white residents.

But life in the Flats is very different. Under the apartheid regime's Group Area's Act, which separated the community into three classifications of race - white, black and 'coloured' (a term coined to describe the Afrikaans speaking mixed-race migrants to the Cape) - the vast majority of Cape Towns population were forcibly displaced from their homes and relocated to "housing projects" on the barren plains of the Flats.

Combined with growing numbers of migrants flooding into the city in search of work, sprawling informal settlements, consisting of thousands of tiny corrugated iron and cardboard shacks, soon sprung up and the townships' dusty streets became the canvas upon which much of the resistance struggle was forged.

In the twenty-first century however, township life has altered very little and remains incongruously impoverished. Apartheid, no longer an issue of race, has instead translated itself into an economic division, creating a nation of haves and have-nots as the first and third-world live side by side.

Against the backdrop of such fractured communities the Cape Flats have increasingly developed a disturbing culture of social exclusion, whereby unemployment, disease and rising crime has become rife. In a study for the Institute of Security Studies (ISS) into organised crime in the area, Andre Standing has noted; "On the Cape Flats the criminal economy is substantial, its various boundaries blur with other economic and social activities and it involves thousands of people. It is therefore a core dimension of the community."

Placing the Flats within a global context comparable with Brazils notorious favelas, Standing cites "ill health, stress, the adverse effects of drug dependency, family fragmentation, school truancy and exceptionally high levels of inter-personal conflict, especially domestic violence and assaults involving knives and guns" as key components in the Flats' spiralling crime rate.

The statistics appear to bear out these claims with a 2004 ISS crime survey reporting that the Western Cape has "by far the nation's highest rate of murder: 85 murders per 100,000 citizens in 2002/3." While a United Nations report has posited South Africa to have the third highest murder rate in the world, after Colombia and Swaziland.

In 2001, over 100 murders were recorded on the Cape Flats, while in 2003 37 murders were attributed to gang violence alone. In March 2003, on separate evenings, stray bullets from gang fights hit five children, four of whom died from their injuries. And in March of this year the South African Police Service (SAPS) were deployed on two separate occasions to two schools in the coloured township of Hanover Park to ensure the safety of pupils when gangsters wielding guns chased each other through school grounds.

Inspector Bernadine Steyn of the SAPS acknowledges that the problem is immense; "The ever present gangsterism phenomenon has been in existence for years in the Cape Flats," she says. "In the Western Cape it has grown to be more than just a way to create a sense of belonging or a manner of survival.

Exacerbating the problem, says Steyn, is the worsening social problems affecting the Flats; "The high unemployment rate is a factor," she says. "Drug lords and gang leaders create job opportunities for individuals seeking a means to support their families financially." But, she goes on to say, "Gangsterism is in fact a very lucrative business. There is a sustainable market for substances such as Dagga [Marijuana], Mandrax and alcohol. Because of the lucrativeness of the drug trade, a constant struggle for markets exists. For one group to expand their 'business,' the market or turf of another must be taken. It is this expansion that leads to violent clashes between opposing groups."

Indeed, it is the type of violent clashes of which Steyn speaks that have led Western Cape Education Minister, Cameron Dugmore to tell the provincial legislature that more than one in four schools in the province are considered to be at "high risk." Whilst in 2003 the Safe Schools Call Centre (SSCC) recorded 1561 incidents ranging from abuse, burglary, vandalism and other crimes related to gang violence. This figure rose to 1958 in 2004 and 2778 in 2005. In partnership with the Community Safety Department (CSD), the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) has since identified 400 "high risk" schools needing additional resources to control crime.

In the wake of such disturbing statistics, Tony Leon, Leader of the opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), has publicly called for the ANC to crack down on crime in the area by "aggressively" enforcing South Africa's Prevention of Organised Crime Act - which makes being a member of a criminal gang illegal and liable to a fine or up to six years imprisonment.

Noting the ISS's estimate that up to 70 percent of all crime on the Flats is perpetrated by criminal gangs, Leon also added that there is estimated to be over 130 gangs operating in the area, with a combined membership of approximately 100,000.

Of the numerous townships on the Flats, it is the coloured areas of Manenberg, Mitchell's Plain and Hanover Park that have cemented South Africa's crime syndicates most profoundly in the country's consciousness. And their meteoric rise from crude street gangs to multi-faceted criminal 'organisations' can once again be traced back to the peculiar contradictions entrenched in minority rule.

During the final days of apartheid, as the old regime increasingly buckled in the wake of international trade sanctions and resistance uprisings, the Nationalist government released prominent coloured gang leaders who had been formerly incarcerated under the old police state. This tactical move exemplified the governments 'divide and conquer' ethos - designed to divert attention from the crumbling regime and provoke further race tension between the ANC led resistance struggle and the coloured community.

Amidst this volatile climate, coloured gangsters developed tacit relationships with the governments' security forces, who had already nurtured links with the Chinese Triads and the Italian Mafia in complex smuggling operations and currency frauds, as a means to circumvent sanctions. Gang leaders, such as the infamous Rashaad and Rashid Staggie of the notorious Hard Livings gang carried out state-sanctioned political assassinations in exchange for firearms and freedom to conduct illicit trades in drugs, extortion and money laundering rackets.

It was these covert liaisons developed during apartheid that enabled criminal empires such as the Staggie's to flourish after the ANC's historic election in 1994, and ensured the expansion of their 'turf' to include the wealthier, formerly 'white' areas such as Sea Point and City Bowl.

Additionally, the opening of South Africa's borders once more, coupled with stricter customs controls in the USA and Europe, catapulted the country to a prime destination on global drugs and arms trafficking routes.

Gangs such as the Hard Livings, and their rival the Americans, became power bases within their townships, and amidst the transition to democracy, which inevitably involved a weakening of security structures as the new government found its feet, gangsters such as the Staggie's became the unofficial gatekeepers of their fragmented communities.

"There have been consistent allegations of police complicity with gang members," said criminologist Irvin Kinnes of the continued involvement between the criminal elite and key law enforcement figures. "This was once more revealed in January 2000 when police officers assisted the Hard Livings gang to break into a police base in Faure to steal firearms."

One person who has also witnessed such endemic corruption first hand is acclaimed Capetonian filmmaker John Fredericks. Born and bred in the Flats, Fredericks has widely documented gang culture through his films, and has also worked extensively with Section 21 Non Government Organisation (NGO) Creative Education with Youth at Risk (CRED). "There is always corruption," he says, "because some SAPS members are in cahoots with the gangs and will supply confiscated drugs to their gang buddies. It is even present within the prison system," he continues, "as warders are also initiated into the gangs and will smuggle drugs into the prisons for inmates."

According to Steyn though, measures are already being implemented within the police force to reduce corruption within the ranks; "We have a 'zero-tolerance' drive to purge the SAPS of fraud and corruption," she says. "There are also ongoing investigations to identify corrupt police officials and arrest them. Corruption is caused by a small minority of our members and these members are arrested by the SAPS and successfully prosecuted.

In addition to this, she continues, we have implemented the People Orientation Sustainable Strategy (POSS), which focuses on the police stations where serious crime and violence is most prevalent. We have empowered these stations by providing adequate personnel, vehicles and technology.

Operational centres have been put in place at 10 of our stations in the Western Cape where serious and violent crimes are more prevalent and sector policing has been implemented at all our stations to improve service delivery on a 24-hour basis."

However, despite such moves, disillusionment at the complicity and past incompetence of the authorities has led to extreme acts of vigilantism within the townships, culminating with the televised murder of Rashaad Staggie by fundamentalist group People Against Gangsterism and Drugs (PAGAD) in 1996.

"PAGAD took out most of the gang bosses in the nineties," says Fredericks, "but there are always new chapters starting up in all the townships. Gang crime is always on the rise on the Cape Flats," he continues, citing the main causes as "poverty, unemployment and affirmative action. Children as young as ten are recruited into the gangs. They are persuaded to by the allure of drugs, sex and material things. There is widespread poverty; whole families have nothing at all. Not even food. The gangsters recruit children by buying them meals like KFC, and this entices them in, then, after a while they are asked to 'earn their keep' for the gang."

Such seemingly spontaneous acts of 'philanthropy' by gang chiefs are a well known phenomenon of Cape Towns crime syndicates. This has added an extra conundrum for the effective policing of their activities, which is frequently met with resistance from locals who often come to view gang bosses not as criminals but as benevolent benefactors, perpetrating outrageous acts of violence on one hand and yet offering financial support to the community on the other.

Crime bosses have been known to fund community centres that feed underprivileged children, sponsor local football teams and foot the bill for various community events - including the Cape Town Minstrel Carnival - a prestigious dance troop that has become a key tourist attraction due to the flamboyant costumes worn by the troops.

More crudely however is the practice of literally throwing money into the townships, of this custom Kinnes describes the act of "throwing money from a moving car… Staggie would first drive his car up and down the street and tell the children that he would be throwing money out when he returned.

As a consequence, hundreds of people, including adults, were drawn into the street. They would wait for the car to pass and everyone would scramble at the first sight of fluttering money. Adults, children old and young, would run around to get their hands on some money. In this way, the gang leader would sometimes throw up to R20 000 (£2,000) out of his car window for the community."

The hero status projected onto gang leaders was demonstrated once again in April this year at the funeral of prominent gang boss Gavin Atkins, who was shot dead in a shopping complex on the edge of Cape Town, allegedly by a rival gang. The Mail & Guardian (M&G) reported that as Atkins' "long white hearse cruised by, carrying a cream and maroon coffin with gleaming gold handles…scores of residents stood in hymn-singing tribute…commemorating not the thug and drug dealer, but the patron they went to for help when they were failed by what many see as an inadequate state support system."

Atkins, who was a well known dealer in methamphetamine (colloquially known as "tik") was an emblematic example of the mainstreaming of criminal activity, channelling ill-gotten proceeds into property and 'legitimate' business investments. Among his assets, Atkins is known to have bought a building and donated it to one of the Cape Flats' churches.

Speaking to reporters at the funeral, one onlooker described how "the laaities ('youngsters' in Afrikaans) were sitting with their guns on top of [a] bus." Whilst the M&G went on to describe the scene at the graveyard where the "mansskappe (gang members) who attended could have been ordinary working men, were it not for the uncovered tjappie (gang tattoo) and the American flag in the background."

Such vivid visual motifs to differentiate between gangs are, says Fredericks, very typical of the explicit ways in which gangs seek to reinforce their identities. Each gang adopts its own mythical uniforms, tattoos and salutes whilst adhering to a structured military-esque hierarchy made up of 'foot soldiers,' sergeants, captains and other assorted military personnel.

This practice seems largely derived from South Africa's notorious prison gangs, known as "The Numbers," whom enjoy a nationwide-organisation throughout the country's prisons. The Numbers consist of three major gangs, the 26's, 27's and 28's, which all operate different functions based on specific rank and disciplinary codes. According to Fredericks "the 26's are a money loving gang who rob and steal, the 27's take blood and are interested in murder, whilst the 28's are about sex and organise catamites or 'wyfies'." As with all of Cape Towns gangs, the reward for obedience within The Numbers is protection; the penalty for disloyalty is death.

"There is status to be gained from spending time in prison," continues Fredericks describing how members are often tattooed with their 'number' across the face, "new inmates are beaten up and need protection so are referred to gang leaders inside where allegiances are made. Once they are released they return to their communities and, if they're not already, are initiated into gangs on the outside."

It was through his work with CRED in Cape Towns notorious Pollsmoor prison that Fredericks met his protégé Mario van Rooy - a Capetonian hip-hop artist and activist whom was tragically murdered in the Flats in 2004 when he intercepted a mugging on his father. "Largely prisoners don't know their rights, because many are illiterate," continues Fredericks. "Mario applied for a job with CRED and began working within the prisons- educating prisoners. As a hip-hop artist he would make lyrics from their stories and in that way brought them awareness. He managed to turn a lot around and rehabilitate them."

Assisting CRED to communicate with youngsters through creative writing, drama and dance, Fredericks goes on to describe how "everyone became quiet when Mario spoke - he already had a following in the Flats. These children were in prison for murder, hijacking, rape and robbery - serious stuff. But they were often frightened, they are set up by older gangsters who know that as juveniles they will serve less jail time. We saw children as young as 14 coming into jail in their school uniforms."

As well as their work inside prisons Fredericks and van Rooy also held road-shows in the townships and worked with school groups. "We worked in the lions den," he says emphatically describing how the pair were often intimidated by gang members, "but," he continues, "we were passionate and wanted to make a difference. We were showing the children that they didn't have to walk to in fear all their lives. We were even asked by the headmaster of one school if we could speak to his staff too, because they 'needed inspiration.' "

"I shed a lot of tears watching this talented young man at work and then dying for some obscure reason at the hands of the very same youth that he dedicated his life to rehabilitating," says Fredericks when referring to van Rooy. "He almost started a revolution but there are a number of people in various other disciplines that still have the passion to make a difference in our society."

Although, he acknowledges, the road to rehabilitation is rarely smooth; "rehabilitated gang members are few and far between," he says. "Re-offending is quite likely for released prisoners, they are returned to the very same communities they left, with the same problems and their gang buddies will only come looking for them if they earned some status in prison that can be used to make the gang stronger."

But, he concedes, there are sources of inspiration to be found even amongst the most desolate of urban landscapes; "one of the most moving moments for me came whilst I was at work at a school in the township, turning to one of the teachers I asked him 'where is the hope?,' at that moment one of the children turned, looked at me, and said simply 'I am the hope."