Farmer murders 'genocide'

2003-07-10 22:17

Marietie Louw

Pretoria - Victims of farm attacks have formed a committee to collect complaints and horror photographs of these attacks to send to the human rights commission of the United Nations (UN) in Geneva, Switzerland.

Phillip du Toit, a lawyer from Pretoria, said the committee would "show the world" how farmers are treated in South Africa.

"The attacks on farmers are nothing but the violation of human rights. It is time that the UN's human rights commission investigate the matter."

Lita Fourie, founder of the Tabita support organisation for farm attacks, was one of the first to report a farm attack to the UN's human rights commission.

Her parents, John Cross, 77, and his wife, Bina, 76, were murdered on their farm in Limpopo three years ago.

"My parents' rights were terribly violated by the barbaric way in which they were murdered. We kept such cases from the world for too long," Fourie said.

She said victims of farm attacks should send in complete reports of the attacks.

Willie Lewies, chairperson of the Transvaal Agricultural Union's northern region, said earlier this week that the country's farmers were being wiped out.

"Farm attacks are ethnic cleansing. More than 1 400 farmers have already been murdered, it is genocide," he said.

The independent report on the causes of farm attacks could be released later in July.

- Beeld