by Ernst Roets
It is my intention to write this book with the deliberate aim of not falling into any of these traps. I will be guided by proven facts and reliable figures in the reaching of conclusions. For this reason, my conclusions are conservative. I will not draw any conclusions without having proof to back it up. When I do find myself speculating, I will state so clearly. I will make a deliberate effort to empathetically tell as many stories of farm attacks as are applicable, while also making a deliberate effort to analyse this phenomenon with as much data and as many statistics as I can.
Farm attacks should not be dealt with in isolation, but should be seen as part of a bigger picture and treated as such. That is why I will touch on several controversial topics that are often brought into discussions on farm attacks, such as hate speech, the history of land ownership, land reform, racism, working conditions on farms, media reporting and the state of the South African Police Service (SAPS).
A particular point of concern is that many of South Africa’s mainstream commentators ignore the topic altogether, or only comment on farm attacks when they are confronted about this during live discussions, or when they find reason to criticise the campaign for the prioritising of these attacks. Even then, their comments are usually disparaging and critical of those who call for farm attacks to stop.
This might be because the topic is regarded as political, or even worse, that a discussion about the reality of farm attacks may result in these commentators having to deflect from their own preconceived political ideas, or to acknowledge certain things that seem to be contrary to the mainstream narrative in South Africa – the zeitgeist.
This zeitgeist is certainly one in which the stereotype of the ‘brutal farmer’ and the ‘land thief’ is aggressively promoted.6 Farmers are continuously slandered and depicted as racist oppressors who ‘stole the land’ and who exploit their workers. Acknowledging that these farmers are disproportionately targeted by violent crime, including torture and murder, forces commentators to discuss the ‘victimhood’ of these farmers – a reality that many commentators are simply not prepared to face.
We constantly find people who are trying to downplay farm attacks in order to focus on other issues, many of which are certainly less extreme. Many argue, for example, that the cause of farm attacks should rather be regarded as part of a general decay of law and order in South Africa, as opposed to looking for political or other reasons.7 Furthermore, there appear to be thousands of people in South Africa who either believe that the genocide has already started, or that such a process is about to start. These are people who sincerely fear for their lives. In response to this, they are frequently mocked or ridiculed by mainstream commentators and members of the media, as will be pointed out in Chapter 22. The ridiculing of people who believe that their imminent death is near, is nothing short of a reprehensible act. Other than that, there is an alarming number of people who actively and publicly encourage the slaughter of white farmers on social media, or who are prepared to defend those who call for the killing of farmers (or white people, for that matter).
We also find, especially in the mainstream media, that a severe double standard exists with regard to the reporting of farm attacks and also that there is a strong push for a recognition of farm murders as something that happens regardless of politics or race and that it is in fact a ‘normal crime’.
Other than that, the role of the South African government, and especially the SAPS, is particularly concerning. Since 1990, we have witnessed a firm acknowledgement by the South African government of the vastness of the crisis and a process of government prioritisation, followed by a systematic process of deprioritisation and an aggressive denial of the problem, followed again by a brief prioritisation of farm attacks by an acting national police commissioner who seemed like a lone voice in a wilderness of denial. The prioritisation of farm attacks by Lt Gen Khomotso Phahlane (acting National Police Commissioner October 2015 to June 2017) was, however, done in isolation, as the South African government did not follow suit and those in power continued discounting the crisis. Consequently the brief prioritisation of farm attacks in 2016 yielded no real results.
There is also a case to be made with regard to the direct involvement of the SAPS in these attacks, as this book will point out.
As you can see, writing about the topic of farm killings in South Africa is like venturing into a booby-trapped maze. This might explain why no one has ever attempted to write a current affairs book on the topic.
But nonetheless, here we go.
Martin Coetzee (82) next to the wooden pole to which he was tied during an attack
on 26 May 2014 on his farm Suikerboskop near Belfast in Mpumalanga.
(Photo: Gallo Images/Foto24/Theana Breugem)
PART 1
FARM ATTACKS ARE DIFFERENT
The Irish farmer Robert Lynn (66) and his British wife, Sue (Susan) Howarth (64), the daughter of a Royal Navy Officer, were fast asleep on their farm near Dullstroom in Mpumalanga. The couple had been together for 40 years and married for 32 years. Looking back, Robert recalls the day when he asked her to marry him. ‘When I went down on my knee and said “Will you marry me?” Susan said: “It’s about bloody time!”’
Suddenly they heard a commotion at their bedroom window. The dogs were barking. The glass in the bedroom window broke.
CHAPTER 2
What is a farm attack?
The terms farm murder and farm attack are regularly used in news reports, articles, interviews, academic reports, blogs, documentary films and on social media. Yet, those terms are not defined in South African law, nor do they exist as a distinct category of crime. For that matter, if you had no knowledge of the realities in South Africa and you were to study South African law, you would have no knowledge of even the existence of this problem.
If you were to read the speeches and statements by officials of the South African government, you would realise that there is such a thing as farm attacks; and if this was your only source of information you would probably conclude that:
The problem is not that serious.
People who complain about this do so because they are racist apartheid apologists who demand special treatment.
There is agreement that farm attacks should stop, but also that there are many other, more important issues to deal with, such as land reform, the plight of farm workers and people from other sections of society who are also murdered.
A vast number of officials who have spoken about this topic believe that in some way farmers are oppressors who ‘stole the land’.
Some believe that farmers even deserve what is coming to them.
When talking about farm attacks, we should therefore acknowledge that we are not talking about a particular crime that is categorised as such, but rather as a crime phenomenon that can manifest in a variety of serious crime categories, including murder, attempted murder, assault, robbery and rape.1
The type of criminal activity that is usually prevalent in farm attacks is in many ways similar to what the South African Police Service (SAPS) refers to as ‘robbery at residential premises’ (or ‘house robbery’), which is regarded as a sub-category of ‘aggravated robbery’, writes Johan Burger of the Institute for Security Studies (ISS).2 The official definition of house robbery is: ‘the unlawful and intentional forceful removal and appropriation of property from the residential premises of another person.’3
‘This definition should have been sufficient to describe a robbery at the residence of a farm or smallholding, but it would obviously not be descriptive of all the other acts of violence and crime that are committed in the process,’ writes Burger.4 That is why, in 1997, as a result of a steady increase in farm attacks and related crimes since the early 1990s, and at the instigation of Agri SA, a working group of the National Operational Coordinating Committee (NOCOC) was instructed to develop a rural protection plan (RPP).5 This document included a definition of what constitutes a farm attack. In 1997, Agri SA was still known as the S
outh African Agricultural Union (SAAU). NOCOC comprised of the SAPS and the South African Defence Force (SADF). Agri SA was coopted with regard to rural safety.
The definition has been updated with slight changes in the National Rural Safety Strategy (NRSS) of 2011. The definition of farm attacks provided in the NRSS and that is applied from here on, is as follows:
Acts of violence against persons on farms and smallholdings refer to acts aimed at persons residing on, working on or visiting farms and smallholdings, whether with the intent to murder, rape, rob or to inflict bodily harm.
In addition, all acts of violence against the infrastructure and property in the rural community aimed at disrupting legal farming activities as a commercial concern, whether the motives are related to ideology, land disputes, land issues, revenge, grievances, racist concerns or intimidation are included.6
The updated definition is slightly different in the sense that it refers to ‘acts of violence against persons on farms and smallholdings’, where the RPP simply referred to ‘attacks on farms and smallholdings’
If we were to dissect this definition for clarification purposes, the following can be outlined with reference to the term farm attack:
Farm attacks are neither limited to commercial farms, nor only to farms, but also include smallholdings.
Farm attacks deal with particular acts of violence and not with all crimes on farms and smallholdings.
Farm attacks are not limited to farmers only, but include acts of violence against farm workers and people visiting farms.
Farm attacks can manifest as one or a combination of a variety of crimes.
Farm attacks can also refer to acts of violence against infrastructure and property in the rural community, where the aim was to disrupt legal farming activities as a commercial concern.
Farm attacks can be committed with one or a combination of various motives, including ideology, land disputes, revenge, grievances, racist concerns or intimidation.
The government-initiated Committee of Inquiry into Farm Attacks has further elaborated that specific crimes that are included in the definition are murder, attempted murder, rape, assault with the intent to do grievous bodily harm, robbery, vehicle hijacking, malicious damage to property where the damage exceeds R10 000 ($800), and arson.7
Furthermore, it is equally important to note what is excluded from the definition of a farm attack, and therefore what does not constitute a farm attack. Cases on farms or smallholdings relating to domestic violence or drunkenness, or resulting from commonplace social interaction between people – often where victims and offenders are known to one another – are specifically excluded from the definition.8
As a result, the case of the notorious Griekwastad murders, where a young man, Don Steenkamp, was found guilty of the murder of both his parents and his sister, does not constitute a farm attack as per the definition, because cases of domestic violence – even on farms or smallholdings – are excluded from the definition.9 (This tragedy took place on 6 April 2012 on a farm in the Northern Cape.)
CRITICISM
The definition is of course not without shortcomings and has consequently attracted criticism. Human Rights Watch (HRW), an international non-governmental organisation (NGO) that conducts research and advocacy on human rights, in particular has levelled several points of criticism at this definition, of which only a summary is provided below.
In the first place, the HRW takes issue with the bundling together of farms and smallholdings in one definition, because the terms farm and smallholding are not defined to a point of general agreement. According to the HRW, people living on smallholdings are particularly vulnerable to attacks since they are effectively part of the city crime environment. As a result of the bundling together of farms and smallholdings, a picture of remote commercial farms is generated that is based on information derived partly from a very different environment, namely smallholdings in semi-rural areas surrounding the cities.10
Secondly, the HRW argues that ‘while the definition does not refer to race, in practice racial issues dominate the way the statistics are collected – just as they dominated the decision to start collecting the statistics in the first place’.11
Thirdly, the HRW takes issue with the fact that crimes resulting from commonplace social interaction (including murder as a result of a drunken brawl on a farm, for example) are excluded from the definition.12
In the fourth place, the HRW is concerned that the term farm attack reinforces ‘through the use of the word “attack” the idea that there is a military or terrorist basis for the crimes, rather than a criminal one’.13
The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) has also expressed a degree of criticism, stating that ‘the most limiting aspect of the definition … appears to be the exclusion of victims of domestic violence, or specific reference to violence inflicted on farm workers by farm owners’.14
While there is merit in the criticisms levelled by the HRW and the SAHRC, these criticisms are also not free from criticism. If all the criticisms of the HRW were to be incorporated into the definition, the result would be that there would not be much of the definition left – at least not a definition that would be workable on the road to addressing the problem at hand. If incidents of domestic violence were to be included, as is emphasised by the SAHRC, it would result in a higher frequency of farm attacks, but also in a definition that would be severely restricted. The bigger issue when it comes to farm attacks is not the extent to which people are attacking and murdering their own families, but rather the extent to which these crimes are committed by attackers. The definition would undoubtedly be clouded if domestic violence were to be included.
On the issue of whether the term attack is appropriate, Burger responds with: ‘Why can’t we talk about “farm attacks”… House robberies might just as well be described as “house attacks”, since you’re attacked in your house. If someone attacks you with a weapon, you can call it an attack, even if you don’t get hurt.’15
Farm attacks are a contentious and controversial phenomenon. As is the case with all contentious issues, any proposed definition will result in a degree of scrutiny and criticism. There is no possible definition for the term farm attack that would be free from criticism. The question then is: How do we deal with this problem?
When dealing with theoretical challenges with regard to the solving of practical problems, it is important to bear in mind that the law is supposed to be a system of instruments created by ourselves with the aim of enabling us to protect our interests.16 Koos Malan, a professor of public law at the University of Pretoria (UP), argues that the limitations that certain legal instruments offer may never prohibit the protection of the interests of the people in question:
When the law is incapable of accommodating changing needs and phenomena, uncontrolled social disruption may follow. Once the law surrenders its social functionality through its inability to provide facilities, law as such is failing … While it is incumbent on law as a set of practical facilities effectively to accommodate changing social reality, the focus of legal science (among others) is to systematise and explain but also to analyse and critique positive law and to conceive explanatory conceptual frameworks including – very importantly – conceptual frameworks for the legal and just accommodation of changing needs within social reality.17
When we conclude that a particular need of protection cannot be dealt with within the framework of the existing legal order, it is the legal order that should be adjusted to serve the interests of those who need protection, not the other way around. If we were to convey to vulnerable communities that they are not deserving of protection because of some technical issue with the defining of concepts, we would also have to conclude that we exist to serve the legal order and not the other way around. We cannot accept this without then also acknowledging that the law has failed us.
We ought thus to be focused on solving the problem through practical measures without allowing ourselves t
o become entangled in theoretical intricacies and trick questions. Unfortunately, many academics prefer this entanglement because they appear to have (rather selfishly) discovered a sense of joy in arguing that the solutions at our disposal do not really exist and that we should rather entrap ourselves in a theoretical debate that is of no benefit to anyone. This is the type of academic waffling that often occurs in air-conditioned libraries or over cheese-and-wine events, while people in the real world are being attacked and killed.
Fortunately, and despite the criticism, the definition provided is already in use by virtually all the major role players involved with this matter. The reasons put forward to dismiss the definition are unconvincing. That is why, in this book, I will refer to farm attacks as a crime phenomenon and not as a crime in itself, on the basis of the NRSS definition of 2011.
FARM ATTACKS ARE DIFFERENT
In November 2012, I had a meeting with the Tshwane Metro Police about a planned protest against farm attacks. In terms of the applicable legislation,18 we gave notice of our intention to organise a protest rally against farm murders through the streets of South Africa’s capital city, Pretoria. Our aim was to march to the police headquarters to present a memorandum to the Minister of Police, Nathi Mthethwa.
I met with the local authorities in order to deal with the logistics of the march. At the meeting, we were joined by a colonel of whose name I regrettably did not make a note. He introduced himself as being in charge of implementing the NRSS and that he had been sent by the Minister to participate in the meeting. The colonel confronted me about our plans to protest. He regarded the protest as unnecessary and pointless, as the SAPS had already drafted the NRSS which, by implication, also deals with the safety of farmers (although the document does not outline a strategy to prevent farm attacks). His message was that there was no point in marching for the prioritising of a particular crime phenomenon when the crimes committed during that phenomenon were already regarded as a crime. The argument was that the NRSS deals with crime in rural areas in general, but that ‘preferential treatment’ of farmers would not be acceptable.