by Ernst Roets
In March 2017, during a session of the National Assembly, where the crisis of farm murders was discussed for the first time in the South African parliament, ANC MP Duduzile Promise Manana shouted ‘Bury them alive!’ during a speech by Pieter Groenewald, leader of the Freedom Front Plus (FF Plus), in which he pleaded for the prioritising of farm murders.32
‘This is proof that the utterances of political leaders could lead to violence and murders and that the issue of farm murders is of little importance to the ANC,’ says Ian Cameron, Head of Community Safety at AfriForum. ‘Certain members of the ANC were chatting during the debate and not listening nor partaking at all. Political parties, such as the ANC and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), that do not want to accept that farm murders are a major issue, kept emphasising a single occurrence during which a farm worker was shot on a farm in Letsitele.’ 33
‘The onus and responsibility are not only on the police and communities in rural areas to prevent farm attacks. Those who are in charge of our country particularly cannot make statements such as “Bury them alive!”. Members of Parliament must be held accountable for utterances that encourage and incite violence against any person,’ adds Lorraine Claasen, researcher at the AfriForum Research Institute (ANI).34
The ANC refused to take disciplinary action against Manana.
POLICE INCITEMENT
The public incitement of farm murders is, however, not limited to members of the public and politicians. In some cases, members of the South African Police Service also publicly encourage farm murders.
Mveleli Molwane Gwabeni, a police officer in the Eastern Cape, posted on Facebook that ‘[W]e must continue to kill more of their farmers atleast to make up for what they did to us’.35 Chris Gumotso, who works at the Gauteng Youth Crime Prevention Desk of the SAPS, stated that ‘All white man…deserve to die…in future…fuck u…Mr white man…’. He also posted pictures of firearms and ammunition lying on a desk in a police station and added: ‘I predict th civil war.. in mzansi [English: South Africa] …by 2019…take out ur guns… fighters coz Asijiki [English: We won’t turn back]’. Separate criminal charges were filed against Gwabeni and Gumotso,36 but no progress about either of these cases is known to the public.
Another police officer, Constable Elvis Thabiso Sithole, was charged for posting the following on Facebook: ‘I normally suffocate a bit with a refuse bag this kind of racists, before booking them in the holdings cells, b coz it doesn’t leave any marks. They just become red and after doing the paperwork I lock them up and take the docket home so that no one can release them until they meet with the Honourable Magistrate in court the next court date’.37 (The comment was made in response to a video clip of a white person making a racist statement.) When he was told that his comments would be reported to his station commander, he responded by saying ‘Great news indeed…’38 A complaint was also lodged with the SAHRC but the SAHRC ‘finalised its investigation’ seven months later by simply concluding that the messages ‘may not have been posted’ by Sithole, but by his brother.39 When Sithole denied making the statement, the station commander immediately accepted his version and stated that the matter was considered to have been resolved.40
TARGETING BOER HERITAGE
The destruction and vandalising of statues that are perceived to represent white people erupted in 2015 under the banner of the so-called Rhodes Must Fall movement. The movement gained momentum after Chumani Maxwele hurled a bucket of faeces at the statue of Cecil John Rhodes at the University of Cape Town (UCT).41 Statues that have been targeted include that of Cecil John Rhodes in Cape Town, Paul Kruger in Pretoria and CR Swart in Bloemfontein. Even the Horse Memorial statue in Port Elizabeth (a statue raised in memory of horses that died during the Anglo-Boer War) was attacked and broken down by the EFF, who claimed that the statue was a ‘symbol of an economic system that has been imposed on (black people) by foreigner settlers.’42
In fact, the movement was inundated with anti-white racist rhetoric. The statement ‘One settler, one bullet!’ has become associated with the movement.43 Mcebo Dlamini, former president of the Student Representative Council (SRC) at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) and leader in the movement, stated on Facebook that he loved Adolf Hitler.44 Members of the movement were also seen on campus wearing T-shirts with the words ‘Kill the whites’ written on it.45
AfriForum was present together with various stakeholders at a consultative meeting to discuss the future of Afrikaner heritage in South Africa, following on the campaign by the Rhodes Must Fall movement. At the meeting, a senior representative of the Department of Arts and Culture (DAC) asked all who were present to stand up and applaud the leaders of the Rhodes Must Fall movement who were present at the meeting, praising them as ‘national heroes’.
MURDERING FARMERS
There have also been many cases where white farmers in particular were murdered and where the attackers openly acknowledged that they had committed murder because that had been their intention. Other than that, many cases of farm attacks during which the attackers chanted political slogans or made racist or political statements towards their victims have also been reported.
In April 2010, Leon Koekemoer (39) was attacked on his farm near Cullinan in Gauteng (See Chapter 15). The attackers screamed the words: ‘Die, white man! Viva Malema!’ as they were attacking Koekemoer.46
In June 2014, Knowledge Paulus Mandlazi (28) admitted to murdering five white farmers in three months between March and June 2014. ‘My hate for white people made me do it,’ he said. He described his conduct as merely ‘going to work’ and boasted in the courtroom about the fact that he now had six murders under his belt. ‘They also had money, which he wanted,’ the judge said,47 once again proving that a murderer can have a racist motive, as well as a simultaneous motive to commit robbery disproving the notion that a farm attacker can only have a single motivation, as was assumed by the Committee of Inquiry into Farm Attacks of 2003 (See Chapter 8).
On 10 May 2017 a person who goes by the name Mdu Bantubemzonda Mzelemu posted the following message on Twitter: ‘Me and my hommies planning to attack these farmers around south coast of kzn ……they r shooting everything down we gona shoot back since police r friends with these famers.’48
That evening, KwaZulu-Natal farm owner Michael Kernick (64) was attacked by unknown suspects while he was alone. He was stabbed and his body was then set alight. The house was ransacked. The police stated that they could not determine the motive for the attack and that it was not clear if anything had been taken from the house.49
When Mike Bonnette (70) was attacked and tortured on his Gauteng farm in April 2018, his attackers referred to him as a ‘white shit’ and accused him of having stolen the land.50
In 2017, a copy of a conversation between a National Intelligence Agency (NIA) agent and a so-called general of the notorious prison gang, the 28s, was broadcast on Carte Blanche. The gang leader spent more than 20 years in prison for farm murders and was released in December. On the audio clip, he makes the following statement:
They also told me while I was on the inside that when I get out, I have to contact Julius Malema, the guy from Limpopo, from the EFF. Because he was also here now in September. Julius Malema was in Pretoria, in New Lock. When he got there, at New Lock, he asked, he said, when you gangs want a golden team, when you want a team, come and see me in Limpopo. I can give you a team. What I will give you is a balaclava, a gun, and cash. He says straight that he is against the farmers, Julius Malema. He says you only have to murder a few farmers, on farms.51
Malema was invited to respond. His spokesperson Mbuyiseni Ndlozi only responded that he was unable to respond to these allegations, due to his busy schedule.52 The story soon faded away and there was no media outcry about this.
I have also personally experienced a similar conversation. In 2014, I received a phone call from a prison in Gauteng. The person introduced himself as John Jackson (pseudonym used for security purposes). Jackson told me
that he had read about our campaign against farm murders and that he urgently needed to speak to me. He told me that he was in prison for murdering a white farmer and that there was important information that I should take note of. Together with a colleague and former detective in the SAPS, I went to visit Jackson. He gave us the details about the farmer he had murdered (details that could be verified by us) and told us that there was an important part of the story that was not public knowledge. He then said that the leadership of the ANC was fully aware of the farm attacks and were also involved.
He told us that he was a veteran of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the ANC’s military wing, and that he was actively involved in the activities of the ANC. He had been in conversation with the ‘Top Six’ (the leadership of the ANC), who had asked him to murder that particular farmer. They did so because they wanted to send a message to white farmers and to scare them off their land. He then gave us a little piece of paper with a telephone number on it, saying that this was the number from which he had been called to get instructions (we were able to verify that the number was in fact a number in Luthuli House, the ANC’s headquarters). Jackson said that he would soon be out of prison and once that happened, he would have to go back to Luthuli House to report to the Top Six.
We questioned why he would give this information to us and how we could know if he was telling the truth.
Jackson said that he sought revenge for the fact that he had been given instructions to murder a white farmer, and once he had done so, he had been deserted by the party leadership, who pretended that they did not even know who he was.
He also agreed to testify to this under oath and that I would have to come back to discuss the matter with him at a later stage. Shortly thereafter, I was back to continue talks with Jackson. He then gave me his precondition for making an affidavit as discussed: AfriForum had to buy him a house and pay for him to study at a tertiary institution.
I told him that there was no way in which AfriForum could use the money donated to us by people whose loved ones had been attacked and killed on farms, to buy a house for a farm murderer. From there on, we were not able to make progress.
Whether Jackson was telling the truth or not is still an open question. What should be taken note of is that there have been several incidents where prisoners openly spoke of political involvement in farm murders. This is something that should be investigated as a matter of extreme urgency.
While these claims are a matter that a reasonable person would regard as a potential national crisis, it is also a matter that appears to be simply swept under the carpet by the South African government.
Former President Jacob Zuma at the ANC Centenary where he sang a variation of ‘Shoot the Boer’.
Photo: Getty Images/AFP/ Alexander Joe
They took the blowtorch and started burning Robert. They started at his feet, moving up slowly.
‘I was screaming too much, so they took the red throw that was draped over Susan’s chair and started wrapping it around me. It was so tight. I thought I’m going to die in any case, because I can’t breathe.
‘They realised I couldn’t speak and that was defeating the whole object of tying the rug around me, so then they let me go.’ They made Robert sit on the couch again. They started burning him again.
CHAPTER 12
A scourge of racism
While the focus of this book is on farm attacks and not on broader societal problems in South Africa, it is necessary to briefly shed light on those issues that can never be fully untethered from the topic of farm attacks. Three issues stand out in particular: racism, labour relations on farms and land reform. There is of course a degree of overlap between these issues. The reality is, however, that all these topics have become political ploys, flooded with fabricated figures and clearly embedded in the interest of a particular ideological narrative.
These issues are frequently described as ticking time bombs by political commentators and activists – a notion that certainly seems justifiable if one were to turn to social media for an indication of what people in South Africa feel like.
These issues will now be dealt with one by one.
A SCOURGE OF RACISM
Judging from Facebook and Twitter, it is fair to conclude that racism is in fact a major crisis in South Africa. Frans Cronje, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Institute of Race Relations (IRR), makes the argument about racism and violent protests: Between 2007 and 2017, the level of violent anti-government protests more than doubled, and since 2015 South Africa has seen the sharpest increase in violent protests in the world.1
The focus of these protests has shifted in recent years from mostly local service-delivery issues to become more about national issues, such as university fees and corruption. In 2013, 19,6% of people indicated that they either would use, or have used, violence for a political cause. This number had increased to 30,3% by 2017.2 ‘Protest leaders are often guilty of the crudest form of race baiting and racial nationalist incitement,’ says Cronje. With regard to the university riots, he points out:
When almost 80% of students of the University of the Witwatersrand voted to return to class in late 2016, the protest leaders said the vote revealed the racism of white students and a message was circulated calling for the killing of white students. F&#$ the whites was a slogan seen on T-shirts worn by student protesters and shouted in lecture theaters. When warnings were issued of the harm being caused to higher education, the protest leaders responded that this showed how whites dominated the university community.3
Intellectuals and so-called thought leaders have become major contributors in this debate. ‘It is all about power. Who has the power?’ asks Pierre de Vos from the Law Faculty at the University of Cape Town (UCT). ‘And power is not just about whether you have political power. It’s whether you have economic power, whether you have social power. If you have a white skin in a racist society you have more social power,’ says De Vos.4
Conferences and discussions about whiteness, white privilege and white supremacy have become a popular intellectual activity. The focus of these discussions is usually on white racism exclusively, and we have found that black racism tends to be glossed over in South Africa, or at the very least, not condemned consistently.
At one such conference, Dirk Hermann, Chief Executive of Solidarity, and I were invited to speak on the topic of whiteness. In the audience were former President Kgalema Motlanthe and several other senior ANC members. We decided to point out what we regard to be a double standard in conversations about race and to make a plea for consistent condemnation against racism, regardless of whether the perpetrator was black or white.5 We were severely chastised and accused of inflicting sorrow upon the audience with views that opposed theirs.6
‘I’m fucking angry,’ says radio host and political commentator, Eusebius McKaiser.7 ‘Just like men can pretend that sexism isn’t a thing, and just like homophobes can pretend that being gay “isn’t an issue anymore”; so, too, white people can afford to be wilfully ignorant about the reality of racism.’8 McKaiser makes the argument that South Africa is an inherently anti-black country, despite the fact that the government is run by a black nationalist liberation movement. ‘We live in a country that is saturated with racism: institutional racism, systemic racism, racism in all our social spaces, interpersonal racism.’9
His views are echoed by the president of the extremist movement Black First Land First (BLF), Andile Mngxitama – a man who constantly appears to make no effort to check his facts before speaking: ‘South Africa is a racist country. What we see from time to time is just a flaring up of individual acts of racism, but South Africa has institutionalized racism. If you want to understand it better, go to the distribution of wealth in this country and even just earnings … Only 35 000 white farmers and trusts own about 80% of the land and we are the black majority who are landless in our own country.’10
‘Everywhere I turn, a generation born free is talking as if it is at once obsessed by and
imprisoned by whiteness and white supremacy,’ says Ferial Haffajee, editor-at-large for Huffington Post South Africa. ‘The black obsession with whiteness and white privilege is all, it seems, we ever talk about in sustained ways in our national conversations. To my ear it sounds as if whites are spoken of as if they are a majority in power, rather than a small group of varied political sentiments.’11
‘It is truly frightening to read some of the things that are written – not by drunken louts but by educated people in what one might have thought were respectable publications,’ says Cronje. ‘Lectures are held at universities, the transcripts of which read like a throwback to Germany in November of 1938. When a university building is burned to the ground, media commentators write reams about the emotional pain that must have driven the students to embark upon such an act of vandalism. This is nonsense. Arrest the vandals and tell the rest to grow up.’12
‘Where will it end if “feeling unhappy” is sufficient justification for arson? The entire country will be burned to the ground,’ says Cronje.13
Consequently, people have turned to social media to vent their anger about racism. There are several well-known cases of white racism that have received substantial coverage in the media, largely as a result of posts that went viral on social media. These include the cases of Penny Sparrow, Matthew Theunissen and Vicki Momberg. Incidents of white racism are usually met with fierce condemnation and severe consequences for the person involved.
After Sparrow referred to black people as monkeys on Facebook, she was fined R150 000 ($12 000).14 Theunissen settled a lawsuit by the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) to do community work after he had placed a post on Facebook that contained the derogatory ‘k-word’ as a reference to black people.15 When Momberg repeatedly used the word after she had been robbed in a smash-and-grab incident, she was convicted on four counts of crimen injuria.16 She was directed to pay the police officer to whom she had used this word R100 000 ($8 000) as damages.17 On top of that, Momberg became the first person to be sent to prison for racism. In March 2018 she was sentenced to an effective two years in prison.18