attacks
Marion Edmunds
Western Cape police have put rural landowners in the Boland on a security alert for fear of attacks on farms by the Pan Africanist Congress’s disbanded armed wing, the Azanian People’s Liberation Army (Apla).
Police have been visiting owners of farms and smallholdings, warning them of the possibility of attack, encouraging extra security measures and asking for names of employees to be written on a special form.
David Frost, representative of Western Cape MEC for Police Services Gerald Morkel, said the visits had been prompted by unconfirmed intelligence reports that a faction of Apla was identifying targets for attack and robbery. “Apla’s name was mentioned but no proof could be obtained to indicate how serious the threat was. In the light of what was happening in the other provinces, no sensible government or policing service could ignore these rumours,” he said.
Frost said there had also been concern that Operation Recoil, an anti-gang operation by the police in Cape Town, had pushed gangsters out into the Boland.
The PAC’s Patricia de Lille has slammed Western Cape police for taking rumours of Apla seriously. “I have also heard these rumours and I wanted to call a meeting with farmers in the Western Cape, to clear this up. It is absolute nonsense. We were told by senior police officers that they had found the attacks on the farms nationally were, in the first instance, revenge attacks from workers who had been fired, or kicked off the farms; secondly, attacks by illegal aliens who were former Renamo or Frelimo; and thirdly from people who wanted weapons. This talk of Apla is nothing more than a campaign against us,” she said.
De Lille and PAC president Stanley Mogoba recently met agricultural union representatives to condemn attacks on farmers, particularly in the Free State, Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Northern Province.
The Western Cape police provincial commissioner’s office refused to comment, except to say: “All information received from intelligence sources is constantly evaluated and monitored.”
Said Captain John Sterrenberg: “Police in the Western Cape are acting proactively to prevent attacks on farmers. The recording of details of servants and workers is merely a preventative measure to be able to distinguish between farm workers and suspect persons who may be loitering in the area.”
When asked whether the police suspected that possible attackers may have political motives, Sterrenberg said police investigated all criminal activities, irrespective of the motives. As for politically motivated attacks, the commissioner’s office said there have been no such attacks so far: “All crimes reported have been normal crime-related incidents.”