Government urged to step up rural safety interventions

By Glenneis Kriel |2 July 2024 | 3:02 pm

Farm attacks and murders spiked in June and have continued with a bloody start in July. A 65-year-old farm manager was stabbed to death in the early morning hours of Monday on a farm near Porterville in the Western Cape.

Bennie van Zyl, general manager of TLU SA, told Farmer’s Weekly that their records revealed there had been about 60 farm attacks and 10 farm murders in South Africa from January until May, and 13 farm attacks and five farm murders in June.

According to AfriForum’s report, ‘Farm attacks and murder in South Africa (2023)’, there were 296 farm attacks and 49 murders last year.

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Jacques Broodryk, AfriForum’s community safety spokesperson, told Farmer’s Weekly that it was too early to make any conclusions about whether incidents were declining or increasing, as monthly statistics greatly varied from one year to another.

December was usually the worst month: “The bottom line is that one farm attack or murder is one too many.”

Broodryk said AfriForum did not believe that one murder should take precedence over another, but also that one type of murder should not be made “less important than another” as government is currently doing with farm murders.

He explained that political killings, illicit mining and cash-in-transit robberies were some of the crimes that had received special attention from the authorities over the past couple of years, which should be welcomed.

However, there were 40 cases of political assassination, compared to 50 farm murders, in 2022, and 41 murders related to illicit mining, compared to 49 farm murders, in 2023.

In 2023, there were 234 cash-in-transit robberies, compared to 296 in 2023 and 339 in 2022.

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“We are not asking for special treatment, just equal treatment. This would start with government acknowledging the seriousness of farm attacks and murders, and the creation of a special task force to address the problem. Government should also join hands with rural communities and organisations to improve rural safety,” Broodryk said.

Van Zyl said the new Minister of Police, Senzo Mchunu, would hopefully do a better job at the police than he did at water and sanitation: “Mchunu should start by restoring faith in the police by getting rid of corrupt police force members. Currently, most people speak to one police officer with whom they have a relationship. They won’t phone the police station because they are afraid of not getting a positive response.”

Economic problems also needed to be addressed to alleviate poverty and jobs: “The eradication of poverty and creation of jobs could help to reduce crimes done out of desperation, to put food on the table. The problem, however, is that many of the farm attacks do not fit these profiles. Many of the attacks are extremely

violent, with attackers using heavy armour and even waiting for farmers to arrive on the farm.”

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He added that farm attacks not only affected farming communities but also food security, rural development and economic growth.

Jannie Strydom, CEO of Agri Western Cape, expressed his concern over the South African Police Service’s inability to implement the National Rural Safety Strategy: “The failure and laxity to put effective safety measures in place have led to tragic instances, such as that of the farm manager on the farm Tevrede in the Porterville district. We urge authorities to redouble their efforts to secure rural areas and to take decisive action against crime.”