WeeklySA_AdminSPECTRE: Thousands of black families have even endured forced removals from farms…
By WSAM Reporter
Actions by the Afrikaans lobby group, AfriForum showed that they wanted the return of apartheid, an evil policy of segregation which was declared a crime against humanity by the United Nations fifty-two years ago although it continued rearing its head in South Africa even after the dawn of democracy in 1994.
Speaking during a plenary session of the National Assembly, Minister of Mineral and Petroleum Resources, Gwede Mantashe, condemned AfriForum for appealing to the United States of America’s President Donald Trump to intervene in South African affairs and provide humanitarian aid for Afrikaner development.
AfriForum has come under public scrutiny following its recent visit to the USA to meet with members of Trump’s administration to discuss what they believed were human rights violations against Afrikaners in this country. They complained about several issues that included land and educational policies and stated that they feared that Afrikaners were being targeted for violent acts – allegations that have been vehemently denied by the South African government and most of the political parties and individuals in this country.
It is ironic that during their meeting with Republican representatives in Washington, Afriforum did not report about white farmers who were torturing and killing black people in racist attacks as well as incidents in which their own member had been arrested for allegedly killing his wife on their farm and whose half-naked body was found near a railway line near Brits last year.
In another shocking incident, a white woman was arrested last year after she allegedly hired hitmen to murder her husband on their farm in Aliwal North and giving the killers instructions that the crime must look like a farm attack.
In his reaction to AfriForum’s recent visit to the USA, President Ramaphosa accused the lobby group of sowing divisions in the country by taking their grievances to foreign countries when there were avenues to resolve internal problems in this country.
He condemned both AfriForum and the Solidarity movement of undermining South Africa’s sovereignty.
The South African government and most of the political parties as well as a large number of locals lashed at the Afrikaner groups of a campaign to spread misinformation to the Trump administration. The Umkhonto we Sizwe political party has since laid a charge of treason against the lobby group.
Head of the Hawks, Lt.-Gen Godfrey Lebeya has confirmed that they were investigating several dockets of high treason following the alleged spread of misinformation overseas against certain groups. He promised to investigate the allegations.
AfriForum has reportedly announced that the treason charges were baseless. Their visit to Washington, they added, was in the best interest of South Africa . They were trying to prevent the country from becoming the next Zimbabwe.
Mantashe said the actions of AfriForum showed that they wanted a return to the days of apartheid in this country.
‘’ It is not an attack on the ANC or President Ramaphosa as they announced. It is an attack on the country and everybody must be concerned . We must mobilise our people to confront right-wing mobilisation that is emerging in the country.
“AfriForum is an anti-transformation programme, driven by the hope that apartheid will come back. It is a mirage and that mirage must be confronted by all South Africans, irrespective of colour, because it is going to hurt the country before we recover,” Mantashe said.
While the government, political parties and scores of locals condemned the lobby group of allegedly spreading misinformation – which has actually resulted in Trump offering them refugee status in the USA – questions have been raised why these groups failed to also disclose the torture and brutal killings of black people in South Africa by white farmers – the very people who claimed they were being persecuted in this country.
The South African Police Minister, Senzo Mchunu, have challenged AfriForum to provide evidence that the recent police statistics for farm murders were inaccurate. Releasing crime statistics for the period October to December last year, Mchunu said 12 farm murders were reported out of a total 6953 killings countrywide . It is ironic that in one of the cases, a white woman was arrested for allegedly plotting to murder her husband – and making it look like a farm attack – on a farm in Aliwal North in a bid to secure a multi-million rand insurance payout.
The government said farm attacks were part of a broader crime problem in the country and did not have a racial motivation.
Despite apartheid being declared a crime against humanity by the UN , black people especially in rural areas have been victims of racist brutal attacks, torture and murder by white farmers, some of whom were convicted and sentenced and others were awaiting trial.
*The latest gruesome incident is that of two black women who were allegedly shot dead while scavenging for expired food on a farm in Limpopo last year. The bodies of Mariah Makgatho (47) and Kudzai Ndlovu (34) were thrown into a pigsty. Limpopo farmer, Zacharia Olivier, farm supervisor, Adriaan Rudolph De Wet and farm employee, William Musora were arrested in connection with the horrible deed. They are awaiting trial.
* A 46-year-old white woman is due to appear in the Aliwal North Magistrate’s Court next month after she was arrested on January 9 this year for allegedly hiring hitmen in a plot to murder her husband (56) on their farm and staging it to look like a farm murder.
According to the National Prosecuting Authorities, Anelle de Bruin allegedly had given instructions to the hitmen that after the shooting, they must also shoot the family’s dogs and vehicle tyres to make it look like a farm attack. It is alleged that she stood to receive an insurance payout of nearly R50 million in the event of her husband’s death.
*Afriforum member, Johan Smith (55), who was also a primary school teacher in Brits, was arrested for allegedly murdering his wife, Theonette (57) on their farm. Her half-naked body was found next to a railway line in Rashoop on the morning of October 13, 2024. The accused had initially reported her missing. Smith was denied bail by Magistrate, Reagan Rosenberg after he ruled that the accused was a flight risk and if convicted, he could face life in prison.
* In October 2019, two white farmers, Theo Jackson and Willem Oosthuizen were sentenced to 16 and 19 years respectively after being convicted for kidnapping, assaulting and forcing Victor Mlotshwa into a coffin and threatening to douse him with petrol and burn him alive. They told the Middelburg High Court that they only wanted to scare and teach him a lesson after they accused him of stealing copper cables.
The conviction and sentences for alleged attempted murder and intimidation were later set aside by the Supreme Court of Appeal which sentenced each man to five years imprisonment and handed each a one-year jail term for kidnapping . Jackson was sentenced to a further year’s jail term for defeating the ends of justice by assaulting the sole witness in an attempt to stop him from testifying. The shorter jail terms ran concurrently with the 5-year sentence.
* A 70-year-old white farmer, Christoffel Stoman from Lutzville in the West Coast, is expected to appear in the Vredendal Regional Court on March 19 this year on charges of attempted murder and reckless and negligent driving. He was arrested in September last year after he allegedly drove over six-year-old Khwezi Jantjies breaking both his legs after he apparently accused him of stealing an orange he had picked up along the road near his farm. He was denied bail twice.
* Limpopo farmer, Mark Scott- Crossley was initially sentenced to life imprisonment in the Phalaborwa Circuit Court in October 2005 for assaulting and throwing farm labourer, Nelson Chisale into a pride of lions in Limpopo. Both the conviction and sentence were later set aside after the Supreme Court of Appeal ruled in September 2007 that the State had failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Chisale was still alive when he was thrown into the lion enclosure. The life sentence was substituted with a five-year jail term on a lesser charge of being an assessory after the fact.
* In August last year, a farmer and three of his three employees were arrested for the alleged murder of two men at a farm in Laersdrift outside Middleburg in Mpumalanga . The two victims, who were allegedly accused of having stolen sheep, were severely assaulted . Their bodies were later found burnt beyond recognition. The farmer, Reinhardt Steyn and his co-accused, Stephan Wilson, Dumisane Chrisnell Masilela and Dumisane Luthuli are all in custody awaiting trial after they were denied bail in the Middleburg Magistrate’s Court.
Maybe it is time for AfriForum to tell the whole truth about issues in this country which needs to be resolved internally instead of requesting other countries to intervene in matters that could be resolved by South Africa, a sovereign country.
