KwaZulu-Natal farmers who have resorted to radical private security measures “are fuelling racial tensions, reports Ann Eveleth
EX-KOEVOET soldiers are patrolling the rugged terrain of Weenen after a spate of farm murders in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands, say prominent farmers and police in this frontier town.
The Weenen Farmers’ Association hired the guards after the son of local farming patriarch Philip Buys was gunned down two months ago by robbers allegedly hired by his business competitors, say locals.
Buys’s 41-year-old son, Philip (Jr), was shot dead in September by two men while others robbed the cash register of his store on the border of the human “dumping ground” known as Tugela Estates, outside Weenen. Buys’s mechanic was wounded in the attack.
Buys senior told the Mail & Guardian this week his son’s death was the last straw for local farmers who had buried several colleagues in recent years. “At this stage, as farmers of Weenen, we are busy bringing in our own security. We currently employ six Koevoet guards, and are looking at expanding security,” he said.
Buys said the preferred option of four permanent security schemes under consideration in Weenen would comprise “one European leader with five `muntu’ trackers and a vehicle”. The former Koevoet soldiers are currently under the control of local commandos.
The Weenen unit is only one of several in action or under consideration by local farmers’ groups, according to National Party provincial MP Rudi Redinger. The units are expected to include former security force members or private security companies.
Redinger said the nearby Dalton Farmers’ Association had held talks with private security firm Saracen, which he described as “a leg of Executive Outcomes”, with a view to contracting its members. He said Dalton farmers had “basically decided we will have to protect ourselves, [but] there are still some farmers who are interested” in hiring them.
The growing militarism among members of the Natal Agricultural Union follows calls for the return of the death penalty and a state of emergency in the region to stamp out crime.
While some farmers have recently attempted to shift the focus to crime across the racial divide, the issue is clearly racially divisive. Last month African National Congress MP Bheki Cele was censured by NP, Democratic Party and Inkatha Freedom Party members of the provincial safety and security committee he chairs for saying farmers were “crying like babies” over the death of their colleagues although they had not complained about the deaths of thousands of blacks in the province. Cele had been speaking in his party-political capacity.
The Weenen South African Police Service station commander, Inspector Johan Nortje, dismissed the perception that farmers were being specifically targeted in his area. “Only one of the 17 murder victims in Weenen this year was a white man. Two of 17 attempted murders were white males and out of 21 armed robberies, maybe five were white victims. In my area, any person killed is a tragedy, but it’s not specific to farmers,” he said.
Local land activist Patrick Masoga, a founder member of the Weenen Peace and Development Committee which successfully lobbied for Weenen’s inclusion in the province’s pilot land-reform programme, said it was “a pity these farmers are only complaining about attacks on their members as if they are the only ones affected. In truth, both sides are affected.
“We need each other here. Farm work is basically the only work available, but the problem is many farmers don’t want to see black farmers succeeding as their neighbours.”
It’s hard to miss the continuing racial gulf in Weenen, however. The barbed wire protecting nearly every property in the town’s main street highlights the siege mentality of many whites who feel they are under threat from black criminals, black farmworkers, black squatters and the black government.
Farmers like Buys trace their problems to the new South Africa. “Farmers are dying because the law is not enforced anymore. There’s no punishment, no death sentence and the jails have become free hotels. The whole thing was running smoothly and we prospered before everything went haywire with the new government.”
Buys’s grandfather was one of the first Afrikaner settlers in “The Place of Weeping” in the wake of Zulu King Shaka’s attack on the followers of Piet Retief and, like most of the estimated 500 white farmers now living in Weenen, he is an old-style Afrikaner. “Me and my black workers were happy, but now with these illegal occupations and stock theft, I’ve had to sell most of my cattle, and now I’m selling some of my land. They intimidate you until you want to sell,” he said.
Nortje agreed the biggest crime problem in Weenen was stock theft, with 37 cases reported in the past three months: “That’s probably why the farmers hired Koevoet. They’re good trackers,” he said, adding the unit would work closely with the local police stock theft unit.
There are signs, however, that the unit will play a greater role in policing than tracing stolen cows. Women in a mushrooming tent- town on the outskirts of Weenen said they were puzzled when the group which came to evict them from a farm last week comprised more than just the farmer.
“There was a station commander, police and amasosha [soldiers], and they were armed with guns and a bulldozer,” said Sebezile Nene. “We don’t know if they were the Koevoet soldiers, but they didn’t speak any Zulu.”