Afrikaners: Minority Rights Parties Raise Concerns over Murder Rates in Traditional Farming Communities
One of the key issues South Africa faces in healing race relations is the adequate and equal spread of resources to maintain law and order across its territory. One of the great tragedies of apartheid South Africa was the strategy of the regime to ignore. Now, UNPO Member Freedom Front Plus is raising the issue again, only this time over the lack of action against a swathe of murders in traditional Afrikaner communities. The FFP+ called for a release of the data on murders against Afrikaner farmers and the rate is alarming.
The article below was published by The Citizen:
The South African government has released its first stats on farm attacks in more than a decade.
Since Police Minister Bheki Cele released statistics on farm attacks and murders dating back to 2012 this week [30 April-6 May 2018], two minority rights political parties have said the stats are evidence that not enough is being done to reduce these particular crimes.
Over recent years, some have gone as far as to characterise farm attacks as a form of genocide. Particularly in Australia, there have been marches calling for something to be done in South Africa, and the Australian government briefly considered the idea of offering South African farmers fast-track visas to their country.
This was soon withdrawn after a diplomatic outcry from the South African government.
This week [30 April-6 May 2018], in a written response to a parliamentary question from the Freedom Front Plus’ Pieter Groenewald, Cele and police commissioner General Khehla Sitole offered the first breakdown of farm attack statistics since they were last released in 2007.
These new statistics date back to the 2012/13 financial year and show that attacks have increased, though apparently the number of reported murders have overall been on the decline.
The police were able to determine their own criteria for what a farm attack is, and how this was arrived at was not clear from Cele’s statistics, however.
Since 2012, he said, there were a total of 3 059 attacks reported, averaging 510 attacks a year, in which about 56 farmers on average were killed per year.
North West had the highest number of attacks, at 722, followed by Gauteng with 644. However, in Gauteng, 69 murders occurred over the six-year period, the highest of any province.
According to all available definitions of genocide, however, farm murders do not fulfil the criteria to be categorised as such.
Groenewald nevertheless said in a statement on Saturday [5 May 2018]: “If these figures are compared to other available sources, then they seem to be fairly reliable. It is regrettable that these statistics were swept under the rug under the administration of former president Jacob Zuma.”
He said the FF Plus would continue with its “action plan to inform the international community of the exploits and particularly the cruelty of murders in South Africa by actively liaising with, amongst others, the European Parliament and governments as well as the United Nations (UN) through the FF Plus’ UNPO membership”.
Photo Courtesy of: Thobile Mathonsi 2016 @Pretoria News
