Sudden death in Skielik

Racial tension was on a knife-edge this week in the North West dorpie of Swartruggens, as the shocked community came to terms with Monday’s shoot out which left four people dead. A teenager, Johan Nel (18), was arrested. He is alleged to have gone on a shooting rampage in an informal settlement, Skielik, about 5km outside the town on Monday afternoon.

Outside court on Thursday morning about 100 protesters chanted anti-racist slogans. Addressing the protesters, ANC MP Patrick Chauke spoke about the racism the Swartruggens community encountered daily. A small number of protesters chanted ‘Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer”.

A protester told the Mail & Guardian: ‘White people are killing us.” On Tuesday Kgetleng River mayor Willemiena Moleko also spoke about racism in Swartruggens when she addressed the shocked community.

‘Racism is alive and well,” Chauke told the protesters. ‘White residents in Swartruggens could not even be bothered to come here today to show solidarity.”

But Ben Marais, DA councillor and Transvaal Agriculture Union chairperson for the North West, who heard Chauke’s speech, just shook his head.

‘How can we work with that,” he asked reporters. ‘That is hate speech; he is playing the racism card. The government is just centred on skin colour. If you are not black, you are no longer welcome in this country.”

He said the white community did not play the race card in the case of Frans Pieterse, a local landowner who was tortured and murdered last year.

Swartruggens’s white community is worried about the impact of the shootings in Skielik and that inflammatory statements made by politicians could lead to a barrage of farm attacks in the area. Local farmers said they feared that Swartruggens might now become a target for farm attacks.

Solidarity’s Kallie Kriel said: ‘Community members are concerned that [this will] lead to a spiral of violence and revenge attacks. People should realise the majority of the white community condemn this. It should be seen as an isolated incident and [people should] not generalise.”

Solly Phetoe, Cosatu provincial secretary of the North West province, disagreed and said the crime had a definite racist tone.

‘I don’t agree that the incident was isolated,” said Phetoe. ‘If it was, why not open fire on whites too?”

Phetoe claimed farm workers in the region faced continuing abuse and cruelty at the hands of farmers. On January 26 Cosatu will stage a march in Swartruggens to protest against the mauling of a farm worker by lions on a game farm earlier this month.

Farm attacks are a frequent topic of discussion in the town and family and friends of Nel speculate that this might have been the trigger that set off the attack. Townsfolk described the Nel family as ‘God-fearing” ordinary people, with no known right-wing connections or inclinations.

A family friend described Nel as a quiet introvert.

‘He had a definite interest in farm murders,” a friend said. ‘Each report of another attack depressed him.”

In 2001 the Nel family was involved in a farm attack when his brother, Heinrich, was held up at home while the family was at church. He managed to scare off the attackers with a revolver. Nel’s mother, Corrie, said the incident traumatised 11-year-old Nel.

In 2003 Nel was convicted of setting off a firearm by firing at someone cutting grass, but family and friends interviewed by the M&G claimed the shooting was in self-defence. Nel and Heinrich are members of the local skietklub (shooting club) for ‘recreational” purposes, said a resident of the town. Nel was described as a ‘crack shot”.

On the Sunday night before the attack, Nel and his family visited friends. One of the topics discussed at the gathering was crime. Family friends, who had young children, had been knocked out by gas and robbed. This apparently distressed Nel.

When another attack was mentioned on the news, Nel got up suddenly and left the room. Friends described him as visibly upset.

One of the family’s close friends was the first on the scene only minutes after the shooting at Skielik. The friend was initially reported to be a second suspect, but his arrival led to the suspect fleeing, as he thought the police had arrived.

The friend estimated that 30 shots had been fired. He immediately called the police, but the suspect had fled into the bushes, where he allegedly hid until Tuesday morning, when he made contact with a farmer in the area. The farmer called the police.

‘When I arrived at Skielik, the community started running away from me, because I was white,” the friend said. ‘I was the first outside person there and the police had not even arrived. I was told later that they were initially too scared to enter the settlement.”

He said he caught up with an old man, who was too slow to get away, and asked him what happened. He said he was taken to the injured and dead and tried to help them immediately.

The friend was visibly upset about the racial polarisation in Swartruggens since the incident.

‘What the suspect did was wrong, just as farm murders are wrong, but the racial divisions that are now being fired by politicians, are very dangerous,” he said.

The idea of the suspect being a ticking time bomb was also suggested by Wilhelm Rochér, the security chairperson of the Transvaal Agriculture Union for North West, who believed that crime in the area was getting too much for youngsters.

‘This is an alarm clock that has gone off that warns us that our youth are being exposed to horrific scenarios as a result of crime,” Rocher said.