OWN CORRESPONDENT, Midrand | Sunday 9.00pm.
A PRESIDENTIAL summit to discuss farm attacks has ended with all parties in agreement on a 10-point plan to tackle the problem, the Sunday Independent reports.
Delegates adopted a resolution committing all parties — government, opposotion parties, labour unions and farmin organisations — to co-operation and mobilisation of their resources to fight farm violence.
In a rare admission, that paper said, farming organisations recognised the role poor living and working conditions played in fostering crime.
Although farmers denounced the summit as a “talk shop” when it was first announced, the paper quoted jaapie grobler, the deputy president of the SA Agricultural Union, as saying the summit was “historic” and showed the political will to deal with crime.
Minister of Safety and Security Sydney Mufamadi is to chair a steering committee which will report to President Nelson Mandela.
Addressing the summit, Mandela said: “The strongest shield for each farm, or the farming cmmunity as a whole, are the people who reside on the farms: farmers and workers, landowners and tenants alike. The conditions under which they live do affect the way they respnd in the event of attack.”
The participants of the summit agreed not to make inflammatory statements that might exacerbate the violence.