Wonder Hlongwa
The family of Muzikayifani Zingubo say he was repairing the door of his shack when the commandos of Weenen, KwaZulu-Natal, arrived at the squatter camp.
Assigned by the farming community to provide security, the armed commandos accused 49-year- old Zingubo of shooting dead Aleta Vanenberg and wounding her husband, Piet, on their Weenen farm two weeks ago.
Zingubo was dragged into a bush and allegedly executed with a shot in the forehead. Police charged a member of the commando, Henry Carter, with Zingubo’s murder. Carter was released on bail and is due to appear in court on February 26.
The attack on the Vanenbergs and the apparent revenge killing of Zingubo have intensified the already tinderbox race relations in the Weenen area.
“The race issue is explosive,” said Weenen mayor Elphas Nyoka. “We need to handle it with care. The commandos should be taught or be given a few weeks orientation of the area so that they can understand what they are doing. A number of newly recruited black commandos are harassing other black people.”
The Weenen commandos are made up mostly of former security force police and members of Koevoet, a killer South African unit that operated in northern Namibia in the 1980s.
“We accept their presence,” said Nyoka. “They help everybody. But what they did to the Zingubo family is outrageous and criminal. It’s not acceptable.”
In the past three years, there have been 10 attacks on Weenen farmers, resulting in three deaths. The attacks stem from sour race relations in the area. And the white farmers’ attempt to put the blame only on black criminals has made the issue even more divisive.
Racial tensions began to rise in 1995 when white farmers, fearful of land claims from people who had lived on their farms for decades, evicted scores of black families, impounding their cattle and burning their homesteads.
The workers responded by threatening an armed invasion of white-owned land. On white farms, cattle were hamstrung, fences ripped down and two farmers killed.
The farmers responded by bringing in the commandos. They were assigned to track down stolen livestock and to keep law and order in the area.
Harko de Boer, chair of the Weenen Farmers Association, denies racial tensions exist in the area.
“Weenen is not a very bad place to live,” he said. “We have a crime problem, like the rest of the country. We are not a community at each other’s throats.”
De Boer said the commandos’ tactics benefit everyone in Weenen – even if the hired enforcers make a fatal mistake. He contends Zingubo was found next to the Vanenberg’s residence immediately after the attack.
“They tried to stop him,” said De Boer. “But he didn’t stop, even after a warning shot. If it was a mistake, it’s unfortunate. But in this crime-ridden society mistakes are possible.”
Stanley Dladla, chair of the Weenen Peace and Development Committee, asserts Zingubo’s murder was a revenge attack by angry Afrikaners.
“How can someone be shot in the forehead when he was running away?” Dladla asked. “Even the Vanenberg’s maid said the attackers were young boys in their early 20s. But they shot a 49- year-old man.”
Last week violence nearly broke out between farm tenants and commandos after the “arrest” of a man caught in possession of an unlicensed firearm. In an arrangement with police, the commandos were supposed to take the man to the police station.
The angry tenants demanded that the man be released by the commandos. After a verbal confrontation, the commandos agreed.
Conflicts of this nature have become chronic around Weenen. The tension is rooted in the invasion by Boer settlers in the 1830s. In a series of bitter battles, the Boers broke the Zulu power in the area and took the land. After they seized vast tracts of prime cattle country, the settlers forced the local inhabitants to work on white farms for six months of the year in return for a small plot and some land to graze their cattle.
The system of labour tenancy, known colloquially as isithupha (Zulu for six), has survived in a modified form. Today, the locals still complain of poor working conditions and unacceptable wages.
“People here still earn R4 or R5 a day,” said John Mthembu, a peace committee member. He complains that child labour is rife in the area.
As the social conflicts that isithupha has always generated sharpened after the 1994 elections, Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs Derek Hanekom was forced to step in. In 1995 he brokered a deal where farmers agreed to a moratorium on evictions while workers promised to hold off invasions. But that agreement has shattered.
The situation became more explosive last week. Farmers threatened to evict squatters who invaded Weenen Transitional Local Council land. “It’s not their land,” said one of the squatters, Nomvula Zondi. “It’s the town council’s land.”
De Boer said the mayor and the councillors won’t evict the squatters because the officials have vested political interests in the issue.
“They can’t evict people who elected them,” said De Boer. “And another election is already around the corner.”
“I’m in a difficult position because if I don’t go to the scene of the attack on a white farmer I’m accused of being racially biased. When I don’t do it for black tenants they accuse me of being in cahoots with the boers.”
De Boer thinks the tense atmosphere that prevails in Weenen resulted from irresponsible political speeches. He said when Hanekom came to Weenen in 1995, he made a number of promises to the people but he has not kept even one.
However, Dladla feels that local farmers don’t want to sell land to the black people.
“There are no willing sellers in this area,” he said. “We have secured loans from the Department of Land Affairs, but there is no land for sale.” Dladla said black people have asked the government to expropriate farms.
“It’s not that we are not willing to sell,” De Boer said. “They don’t have enough money to buy all the land. They buy small pieces and at the end of the day a farmer is left with a small piece which is not commercially viable. If they buy they must buy the whole farm.”