South African farmers block highways in ‘Black Monday’ protest against farm murders
MAJOR roads in South Africa were brought to a crawl on Monday amid protests against brutal attacks on white farmers.
MAJOR roads in South Africa were brought to a crawl on Monday by thousands of white farmers protesting a wave of brutal farm attacks in the country.
The Black Monday protest, backed by civil rights group AfriForum, saw convoys of hundreds of slow-moving trucks blocking traffic on highways leading to farming areas in Cape Town, Pretoria and Johannesburg, the Associated Press reported.
Participants wore black in memory of those killed. At the same time the protests were taking place, an elderly man was hacked to death with a machete on his vegetable farm in the northern town of Vryheid.
According to AfriForum, the murder of Bokkie Potgieter brings the total number of white farmers killed this year to 72 in more than 340 farm attacks, which are typically characterised by extreme brutality, rape and torture.
“A farmer has 4.5 times more chance of being murdered in South Africa, than an average South African,” AfriForum spokesman Ian Cameron told a crowd of hundreds gathered at the Afrikaners’ Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria, according to the African News Agency.
“That means a farmer is three times more likely to be murdered in South Africa than a police officer in this country. So farmers have by far have the most dangerous job of all people in this country, at the moment. We cannot allow this to continue the way it is.”
Pumza Fihlani, a South African journalist with the BBC — which dismissed the “idea that white farmers are being targeted” as one that had “been going around for some time” but was not supported by the statistics — accused the protesters of causing racial divisions after some were seen carrying the apartheid-era flag.
“We strongly condemn the racism on display at the #BlackMonday protest with the brandishing of the apartheid flag,” South Africa’s Arts and Culture Minister Nathi Mthethwa tweeted on Monday. “This is unacceptable.”
Human rights groups have previously accused Mr Mthethwa’s party, the ruling African National Congress, and President Jacob Zuma of inciting attacks on farmers through anti-white hate speech, including Mr Zuma’s singing of the controversial “Shoot the Farmer, Kill the Boer” revolutionary song.
Earlier this year, Mr Zuma called for the confiscation of white-owned land without compensation, echoing rhetoric from Julius Malema, leader of the left-wing Economic Freedom Fighters party. Mr Malema was last year slammed for telling supporters the he was “not calling for the slaughter of white people‚ at least for now”.
The protests came just days after two white farmers were each sentenced to more than 10 years in prison for beating and forcing into a coffin Victor Mlotswa, who they accused of trespassing on their land.
Daniel Lotter, spokesman for the right-wing Front National party, said in a statement that such behaviour “cannot go unpunished” but described the sentences as “extremely harsh [when compared to] sentences where rape and torture of farming families took place”.
“We reject, with contempt, the BLF [Black First Land First party] using this case as an example to imply that it shows the general treatment of farm workers or black people by our farming community,” Mr Lotter said. “It is simply not true.
“BLF, [Deputy President] Cyril Ramaphosa, Julius Malema and [Opposition Leader] Mmusi Maimane should keep one thing in mind: if those two farmers, or any other farmer for that matter, truly are what they are accused of being, Victor Mlotswa would not have climbed out of the coffin alive.”
Mr Lotter said others were “still inside theirs”, including Bokkie Potgieter, 47-year-old wine farmer Joubert Conradie — whose murder last week partly prompted Monday’s protest — and nine-year-old Rodora family massacre victim Kayla Meyer.
AfriForum says it is planning an international day of protest against farm murders on 21 November, followed by a protest march on 25 November to deliver a memorandum to the president.
In a statement, AfriForum deputy chief executive Ernst Roets described Police Minister Fikile Mbalula as “an accessory to the crisis”. “Farmers are tortured to death on farms in unusual ratios, and the best that the minister can do is to warn that those who transgress the law while protesting against this, will be arrested,” he said.
Earlier this year, UK public relations agency Bell Pottinger collapsed after revelations of its involvement in a racially charged smear campaign targeting wealthy white South Africans and corporations on behalf of the ANC and the influential Gupta family.
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