AGRICULTURAL unions and South African opposition parties have slammed Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana?s warning to farmers who abuse their workers that they must “adapt or die” as hate speech which could spark more rural killings.
Mdladlana made the remark – shown on SABC television – while visiting farms in the Northern Cape to inspect labour conditions.
The opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) and the commercial farmers? union AgriSA have both condemned Mdladlana, with the DA saying the remarks appeared especially inflammatory against the background of a spate of attacks on farmers, who are mostly white.
Last week, AgriSA gave the government about two weeks to act decisively against rural killings. Failure to do so would compel farmers to form self-defence units, the union warned. At least 119 people died in more than 800 criminal farm attacks last year.
The DA said “under the circumstances, Minister Mdladlana’s statement can only be seen as an instigation for farm killings. It is not only extremely irresponsible and insensitive, but in fact criminal.”
?In general and in normal society, this expression would not have been interpreted as a death threat, but the picture is drastically changed by the characteristic of ANC [African National Congress] hatred against farmers in general,” said the DA.
Farmers accuse the government of not doing enough to ensure their safety and believe that blacks want to chase them from their land.
Government officials claim that some of the attacks are linked to the ill-treatment by white farmers of black farmworkers, which they say is still rife in the post apartheid era.
Whites still own more than 80% of agricultural land in South Africa and reform programmes to redress this have proceeded at a snail’s pace. – AFP