South African farm attacks

This article includes salvaged content from past revisions of the Wikipedia article, which has since been rewritten and is now much more politically correct.

The South African farm attacks (Afrikaans: plaasmoorde; "plaas" = farm, "moorde" = murders) are an ongoing trend of violent attacks on farmers in South Africa. Since 1994, the country's farming community has been subject to numerous murders. The majority of the attackers have been young black men, and the majority of the victims have been Afrikaner farmers, with claims of death tolls of up to 3,000 cited in the national and international media, though these claims have been heavily disputed. While the government describes the attacks as simply part of the bigger picture of crime in South Africa, white farmers point to brutal attacks and incidents involving self-declared anti-white motivations as evidence of a campaign to drive them off their land. The disbandment of the Commandos has been linked to the escalating level of farm attacks.

Since the 2010s, the issue has garnered greater international attention, initially starting in light of the murder of the far-right political figure Eugène Terre'Blanche on his farm in 2010. Much like with attacks from mostly male fighting age migrants on the native white people, mostly women, in European and other Western countries, the attacks have been largely unreported in the mainstream media and other politically correct organizations, in an argued case of race censorship, though they have been addressed by some politicians, including the former President of the United States, Donald Trump.

Terminology and definition

South African statutory law does not define a "farm attack" as a specific crime. Rather, the term is used to refer to a number of different crimes committed against persons specifically on commercial farms or smallholdings.

According to the South African Police Service National Operational Co-co-ordinating Committee:

Attacks on farms and smallholdings refer to acts aimed at the person of residents, workers and visitors to farms and smallholdings, whether with the intent to murder, rape, rob or inflict bodily harm. In addition, all actions aimed at disrupting farming activities as a commercial concern, whether for motives related to ideology, labour disputes, land issues, revenge, grievances, intimidation, should be included.

This definition excludes "social fabric crimes", that is those crimes committed by members of the farming community on one another, such as domestic or workplace violence, and focuses on outsiders entering the farms to commit specific criminal acts. The safety and security Member of the Executive Council (MEC) for Mpumalanga Province, Dina Pule, has disagreed with this definition and has stated that "farm attacks" only included those cases "where farm residents were murdered, and not cases of robberies or attempted murders." Human Rights Watch has criticised the use of the term "farm attacks", which they regard as "suggesting a terrorist or military purpose", which they consider to not be the primary motivation for most farm attacks. According to media reports, as of December 2011, approximately 3,158 – 3,811 South African farmers have been murdered in these attacks. However, self-reported data from the Transvaal Agricultural Union state that 1,544 people were killed in farm attacks from 1990 to 2012.

In 2012, Reuters reported that the number of the farmers of European descent had decreased by a third since 1997, citing news headlines about farm killings as an incentive to sell.

Committee of Inquiry

A Committee of Inquiry into Farm Attacks was appointed in 2001 by the National Commissioner of Police. The purpose of the committee was to "inquire into the ongoing spate of attacks on farms, which include violent criminal acts such as murder, robbery, rape, etc, to determine the motives and factors behind these attacks and to make recommendations on their findings". The Committee used the definition for farm attacks as that supplied by the SAPS. The findings were published on 31 July 2003, and the main conclusions of the report were that:

• Perpetrators tended to be young, unemployed black men overwhelmingly from dysfunctional family backgrounds
• Only a small proportion of attacks involved murder.
• Monetary theft occurred in 31.2% of the attacks, firearms were stolen in 23.0%, and 16.0% of farm attacks involved vehicular thefts. The committee noted that "there is a common misconception that in a large proportion of farm attacks little is stolen" and "various items are stolen in by far the greater majority of cases, and, in those cases where nothing is taken, there is almost always a logical explanation, such as that the attackers had to leave quickly because help arrived."
• White people were the majority of the victims of these attacks, but others were also victims; in 2001 61% of farm attack victims were White. While this is disproportionate to the overall white population of South Africa (9.2%), it is in line with the demographics of the country's landowners, of which whites are a strong majority.
• The total number of reported attacks was about 2,500, while farmers’ organizations state the figure to be closer to 3,000.

The Transvaal Agricultural Union (TAU) questioned a number of the report's findings, claiming that theft and desire for land did not adequately explain some of the attacks. Additionally, between 2005 and 2009, the rate of rural murders had increased by 25%.

Criticism of response

• Gideon Meiring, chairperson of the Transvaal Agricultural Union's safety and security committee, criticised the South African Police Service for failing to prevent farm attacks, stating that the police "are not part of the solution but part of the bloody problem". Meiring has assisted farming communities in setting up private armed patrols in their area.
• Kallie Kriel of AfriForum accused politicians, including Agriculture Minister Lulu Xingwana and her deputy Dirk du Toit, of inciting hatred against farmers, saying "Those who inflame hate and aggression towards farmers have to be regarded as accomplices to the murders of farmers." In particular, Kriel condemned claims that violence against farm workers by farmers was endemic. Kriel also highlighted a court case in which ANC MP Patrick Chauke publicly blamed White people for murders and at which ANC demonstrators displayed slogans such as "One settler, one bullet!", "Kill the Boer, kill the farmer!" and "Maak dood die wit man" (Kill the white man). Simple theft could not be used to explain the full motive of the attacks as it was not necessary to torture or murder victims to rob them.
• Johan Burger of the Institute for Security Studies has stated that the dismantling of the commando system had created a vacuum which the current rural safety plan was not addressing adequately. Although no reason was given for phasing out the system it is thought that the government did so due to their suspicions that they were aligned to right-wing groups. A suspicion that has been criticised as incorrect due to the system's inclusion of black South Africans as well as white South Africans.
• Human Rights Watch criticised the government for placing too much emphasis on protecting farmers, at the expense of protecting farm workers from abuse by farm owners. They suggest that "farm attacks" are given a disproportionately high media and political focus. "Murders on farms (of owners, or of workers by owners) are given an individual attention that some other killings are not."
• In 2004, former South African journalist Jani Allan appeared on the Jeff Rense radio show to 7 million listeners. She denounced the attacks and accused the South African government of a genocidal campaign. She encouraged Americans to sponsor the emigration of poverty-stricken Afrikaner families. Ronnie Mamoepa, the spokesperson for the South African foreign affairs department, said the department would refuse to respond to Allan's claims, as this would give her "undue attention she does not deserve". Afrikaner Hermann Giliomee has also slammed Allan. He said Allan should not be taken seriously. While there had been large numbers of farm murders, there was no evidence to prove that the killings were an orchestrated political campaign, he said.
• Shortly before his death in 2005, Samuel T. Francis, the former editor of the conservative Washington Times, warned about the possibility of a white genocide in South Africa.
• Simon Roche, an Afrikaner nationalist from South Africa and a spokesman for the survivalist group, the Suidlanders, that exists in his words "to prepare a Protestant Christian South African Minority for a coming violent revolution," visited the United States in 2017 to give warning that the white minority in South Africa is faced with the threat of genocide.
• Willem Petzer appeared on a guest on Gavin McInnes's podcast, accusing the African National Congress government in South Africa of planning genocide.
• AfriForum had its chief executive Kallie Kriel and deputy executive Ernst Roets, visit the United States in May 2018 seeking support from the Trump administration. Roets met with U.S. National Security Adviser, John Bolton, and according to him gave him a copy of his book, Kill the Boar, which claims the ANC government is behind the murders of Afrikaner farmers.
• In March 2018, then-Queensland senator Fraser Anning urged the Australian government to take in White South African refugees instead of solely taking in mostly male Muslim immigrants from the Third World. He stated that white South African farmers are suffering a ‘state-sponsored genocide’ at the hands of their black countrymen.

Tensions

The Natives' Land Act adopted in 1913, awarded the ownership of 87 percent of land to South Africans of European descent. The modern discontent among the black South Africans has caused the populists to call for a confiscation of white-owned farms in the north. In 2013, eighty percent of the farming lands was owned by one-tenth of the South African population. The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party, founded by Julius Malema, demanded redistribution of the land and wealth. Despite this, however, supposed "white privilege" is still being touted as a source of blame.

Although the government believes that biggest motive for attacks is robbery, there is racial discontent on some farms. White farmers believe that attacks are racially motivated. Singer Steve Hofmeyr has claimed that a "white genocide" is taking place in the country. In January 2017, media reported that Hofmeyr was set to meet then-President-elect Donald Trump to discuss "white genocide" in South Africa.

Prevention

While the police are supposed to regularly visit commercial farms to ensure security, they claim they cannot provide effective protection due to the wide areas that need to be covered and a lack of funding. The protection gap has been filled by 'Farmwatch' groups which link together by radio nearby farmers who can provide mutual assistance, local Commando volunteers, and private security companies. These forces are more likely to be able to respond rapidly to security alarms than widely distributed police stations. The particular mix of groups that operate varies by area, with border zones continuing a strong history of Commando volunteers, while wealthier farmers are more likely to employ private security firms. The police and these groups are linked together as part of the Rural Protection Plan, created in 1997 by President Nelson Mandela. However, in 2003 the government began disbanding commando units, on the pretext that they had been "part of the apartheid state's security apparatus".

The disbandment of the Commandos has been cited as a factor in the escalation of farm attacks. Afrikaners able to flee have been forced to migrate to countries they consider safer, such as England, the United States and Australia.

Shoot the Boer controversy

In March 2010, at a rally on a university campus, the former president of the African National Congress Youth League, Julius Malema, sang the lyrics to "Shoot the Boer" ("Boer" is the Afrikaans word for "farmer", but is also used by Afrikaners as a self-identifying term of their ethnicity. His singing was compared to similar chants by deceased Youth League leader Peter Mokaba in the early 1990s, "Kill the Boer", which had previously been defined as hate speech by the South African Human Rights Commission. Malema was summoned for the criminal offence of hate speech by Solidarity and AfriForum in the Southern Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg to explain his actions. On 16 May 2011, the judge in the case ruled that the use of the phrase was incitement to genocide. In 2011, AfriForum youth and the Transvaal Agricultural Union (TAU-SA) brought an application forward against ANC youth league leader Julius Malema at the equality court over his singing of the song. AfriForum argued that "Boer" referred either to Afrikaners or farmers and that Malema was a public and influential leader, openly singing lyrics that incited violence towards an ethnic group, which constituted hate speech. TAU said, that it was not about the intent but how the message was perceived by the targeted group or the group that felt targeted. ANC lawyers argued that the contentious lyrics were taken completely out of context and that the word "ibhunu" or even "boer" did not refer to Afrikaners, but to the system of apartheid. Expert witnesses stated that the chant, the words, could spur to violence, especially marginalised people. On 12 September 2011, Judge Lamont ruled that the singing of the words shoot the boer amounted to hate speech. He also declared the singing of the song in any capacity to be illegal stating that he finds no possible justifications for singing the song. The ANC announced that they would appeal the ruling.

On 8 January 2012, after giving a speech at the ANC Centennial 2012 celebrations in Bloemfontein, South Africa, then-president Jacob Zuma sang the same "shoot the Boer" song that had been the subject of Julius Malema's hate speech conviction.

See also

• Black on White violence
• Mass killings under Communist regimes
• Race censorship
• Racism in Zimbabwe
• White genocide