SA farmers under siege

2001-03-28 18:32

Klapmuts - In a country with one of the highest murder rates in the world, their profession is rated the most dangerous; they are almost twice as likely to be killed as police.

Many white farmers believe it's a campaign to drive them off the land. Police say they see no evidence of that. But in general, South Africa's farm violence is a political minefield, rooted in murky apartheid laws that forced the 89 percent black majority onto just 13 percent of the land, much of it bad for farming.

Residents of the small farming community of Klapmuts say the violence has turned them into prisoners in their own homes. Many carry guns. Razor wire rings several farms, and armed guards and fierce dogs patrol at night.

Carlo Litsenborgh, a pig and sheep farmer, was shot and killed in his bed in September.

"I woke up from the shots and they held a gun to my head and said they needed money and guns," said his 62-year-old wife, Peggy.

She gave them what they wanted. They then tied her up so tightly that the ropes scarred her arms.

"It was plain robbery, but I can't understand why people must be killed to get their possessions," she said.

Since Litsenborgh's killing, three other people have been killed in the green, hilly wine-growing area about 48km north of Cape Town.

Last year farm attacks took a heavy toll on farmers, labourers and their families; 119 people killed and thousands injured in 804 attacks, according to AgriSA, a national farmers' organisation.

In neighbouring Zimbabwe, eight white farmers have been killed in the past year in land seizures by ruling party militants.

Werner Weber, chairman of the 6 000 member Agricultural Employers' Organisation says attackers mostly target South Africa's 40 000 white commercial farmers. "We find ourselves as a minority virtually being wiped out," he said.

The police and government say the killers are ordinary criminals and isolated farms make easy targets.

This explanation is simplistic, AgriSA's Kobus Visser said.

"Why do they brutally murder and torture farm people?" he asked. "Crimes in the towns are not so brutal."

In April, three armed men entered 53-year-old Otto Smith's cattle farm in the town of Hluhluwe in the eastern KwaZulu-Natal province. They demanded money and weapons.

He had neither, so they dripped burning plastic onto his legs, tied him up, put him in the bath, turned on the hot water and left him there while they searched the house.

Smith was saved by his neighbours, who shot one of the robbers to death, injured another and arrested the third.

The government is giving land to black farmers, but the process has been slow. Most of it comes from white farmers who sell their land willingly to authorities, but the law allows for expropriation in cases of deadlock.

This month, the government resorted to that option for the first time after farmer Willem Pretorius demanded more than double what authorities offered for his farm in the northeastern Mpumalanga province.

Pretorius has threatened to sue. The government says it followed the law and hopes never again to have to resort to expropriation.

Mahlubi Mbandazayo, a member of the left-wing Pan Africanist Congress, suspects the killings are organised. He says he does not know who is responsible, but adds that disillusionment in land-starved rural communities over the slow pace of reform has made the farm killings "unfortunate but inevitable".

Mbandazayo said abuse of farmhands could also be a factor; in one recent incident, a farmer was charged with tethering a man to his truck and dragging him.

But Weber rejected this notion, saying that in 90 percent of incidents, attackers and victims had never had contact.

Moses Mushi, spokesperson for the Agriculture and Land Affairs Ministry, said not only farmers but workers are being attacked. "The violence is purely criminal activity and should be been as that," he said.

Police agree.

Ben van Deventer, who heads the unit tackling rural violence, said no pattern is evident and "no proof that the violence is orchestrated and aimed at driving farmers from their land".

AgriSA's Visser said farmers work well with the police and have an efficient community watch system, but the criminal justice system is failing them. Few criminals are caught and successfully prosecuted, he said.

Since her husband's killing, Peggy Litsenborgh has barricaded her bedrooms with iron bars, and she is adamant she will not be scared from her house of 21 years.

"They will have to kill me," she said. "This is my place." - Sapa-AP

- SAPA