ANC MP faces racism charge

2008-01-19 07:22

Johannesburg - AfriForum has laid a charge against an ANC member of parliament and all other organisers of a demonstration held outside the Swartruggens Magistrate's Court on Thursday, the organisation said on Friday.

Kallie Kriel, AfriForum's CEO, said they lodged a complaint with the Human Rights Commission (HRC) against Patrick Chauke for alleged hate speech and the incitement of racial tension.

He said Chauke directed blame at the white community during the protest action, where protesters were yelling "Kill the Boer, Kill the farmer".

Johan Nel, 18, who allegedly shot and killed four people and wounded seven in the Skielik informal settlement, was appearing at the Swartruggens Magistrate's Court on Thursday.

The killings are alleged to have been racially motivated.

"If the HRC does not call leaders such as Chauke, who exploit the tragic events at Skielik to incite racial tension, to order, the racial instigators will continue stirring up polarisation in the community, which may eventually result in a spiral of racial violence," Kriel said.

Kriel emphasised that Chauke, who as a leader is supposed to act judiciously, had been responsible for ensuring that matters did not get out of hand during the protest.

"Instead of calming the protesters, Chauke incited them against whites."

AfriForum is a civil rights initiative established by labour organisation Solidarity.

Kriel said Chauke, as well as other "racial instigators," kept quiet at the time when one of Solidarity's members, Frans Pieterse, was cruelly tortured and killed in the presence of his wife and small children in his home just outside Swartruggens.

He said AfriForum's point of view was that all murders had to be condemned as strongly as possible, whether the murders were those of Frans Pieterse and other victims of farm murders, killed by black perpetrators, or those of black residents of Skielik, killed by a white perpetrator.

- SAPA