Genocide Watch Article - 22 August 2003

This article can be found on Genocide Watch, Resources, By Region, Africa, Southern Africa, South Africa.

Farmers tortured and murdered due to "racial hatred" - farm attack official investigation report latest available SA government statistics:

1991 to 2001 - 6,112 farm attacks, 1,254 people killed
2001 - 1,011 farm attacks, 147 people killed
2002 - 1,000 farm attacks, 112 people killed
Totals: 9,154 farm attacks, 1,613 people killed

Names of victims and the farm deathsrecorded by Censorbugbear and Crime Busters of South Africa in 2003: http://www.100megspop2.com/crimebusters/FarmVictims.html

AUGUST 22, 2003 -- RACIAL HATRED is the main cause of the incredibly high violence- and cruelty level which specifically target the primarily Afrikaner victims of farm attacks. This is one of the shock findings of the long-awaited farm attack report, which the Afrikaans-language Beeld newspaper has managed to publish in spite of the decision yesterday by the South African government security and safety Minister to" hold back its publication".

This report by this independent commission of South African crime experts also confirms earlier findings and warnings which were issued by the international human rights organisation Genocide Watch in its December 2002 report -- when they warned that the attackers had racial motives for the violence which targetted Afrikaner -Boer farm dwellers, that this was ethnicbased violence which unless curbed by the authorities, could deteriorate into all-out genocide of this small, highly-visible South African minority group.

 (see http://www.genocidewatch.org/BoersSlain01.htm) According to the South African state advocates who were quoted in the independent commission's (still unpublished) formal report, racial hatred is an important factor in the violence and cruelty which mark the South African farm attacks targetting Afrikaner farm dwellers.

The racial hatred may not be the driving force of the farm attacks, the main motivation is "the desire to rob or steal." There are also farm attacks identified in this report which were carried out "with political undercurrents but these were in the minority." In 32 of 45 farm attacks studied they could also find "no rational motive for the deaths of the victims" whatsoever.

The committee says although its a misconception that hardly anything valuable is stolen during farm attacks - if attackers take nothing this is due to their having to escape in a hurry. There is no doubt that the farm attacks are being carried out with considerably more violence than routine robberies elsewhere. Victims of farm attacks "have a much greater chance of being murdered" than victims of in-transit robberies or robberies and burglaries carried out in urban homes.

Charles Nqakula, South Africa's safety and security minister confirmed that the report was held back for publication -- in spite of its previously-announced, formally scheduled release to the public on Wednesday. His spokesman Les Xingwa, would not say why the ministers were unhappy about it. And members of the independent commission which had been appointed by the government to investigate the undelrying causes of the farm violence, also denied claims by the Minsiter that the report had been sent back to them for a rewrite.
"The provincial Ministers in charge of safety and security for all nine provinces are planning a meeting with the independent commission to ask them questions and obtain further information," said a commission member.
The date for this meeting has not yet been set. The commission report's statistics claim that between 1991 and up to 2001 there had been 6,122 farm attacks in which 1,254 people were murdered.
In 2001 there were 147 people killed in 1,011 attacks.
In 2002 there were 112 people killed in 1,000 attacks.
This brings the total number of farm attacks since 1991 up to and including 2002 to 9,154 in which a total of 1,613 people were murdered.

The official 2003 farm attack statistics are not yet known. The commission report also confirmed a growing trend which has also been noticed by the Censorbugbears -- namely that in some cases such as in KwaZulu-Natal, illegal land occupations also lead to farm attacks and high levels of violence including torture, maiming and murders.

Furthermore, these illegal land occupations are on the increase and "this is a large source of concern" to the commission. In interviews with convicted farm attackers in prisons, it was also found that "young, unemployed black men with a low educational level are primarily involved in the vast majority of farm attacks. "Most of the attackers also come from 'disfunctional families'. Most of these attackers also told the interviewers that the victims "could escape violence if they did not resist..."

 However this comment did not explain why so many totally defenceless victims -- infants, frail elderly, sleeping farm dwellers -- had been murdered, or why so many farm dwellers had been tied up and extensively tortured.

 Convicted attackers, when questioned about this high level of cruelty and violence, admitted that they had been this violent because they hated their Afrikaner victims and saw them as "dogs" rather than people; and that they killed and tortured and raped for this reason.

The interviewed farm attackers also invaribly described the Afrikaner victims as "Maburu"(the Xhosa-Zulu word for Boers) and which was a term which they considered derogatory, a degrading term for this ethnic minority of South Africa. The report also noted that more than half of the farmers and farm dwellers did not
have "basic security measures" such as burglar bars, electrified fencing and vicious guard dogs.
http://www.news24.com/Beeld/Suid-Afrika/0,,3-975_1405425,00.html