Still no farm attack report
2002-12-27 17:02
Pretoria - The Department of Safety and Security said on Friday that an independent committee of inquiry into farm attacks - appointed in April last year - had not yet submitted a report to the minister.
The committee was established by former safety and security minister Steve Tshwete before his death. The report was to be presented during the course of this year.
Department spokeswoman Kiddy Moroke said on Friday that Minister Charles Nqakula had not yet received the report.
"If it was available to the minister we would have made a date available for the announcement."
Meanwhile, Afrikaner Unity Movement spokesman Cassie Aucamp reminded Nqakula that he had only three days left to release the report of the commission.
In a statement, Aucamp said: "The commission already completed its report in June this year, but for inexplicable reasons the report has been held back by the minister. He however promised that the report would be released before the end of the year.
"In the meantime the wave of farm attacks still has not decreased. The cruel murder of the Van Dyk family in the Limpopo province is the youngest addition to this shocking list of farm attacks in South Africa.
"After every farm murder, the police are quickly on the scene, with reasonable success in the arrest of the murderers. Unfortunately then it is too late already, as in the case of the Van Dyks, whose family have to spend the festive season mourning."
Preliminary statistics showed that 103 people were killed in 651 attacks on farms and smallholdings in the first nine months of last year.
During the whole of 2000, 144 people were murdered during 905 such attacks.
- SAPA