OWN CORRESPONDENT, Midrand | Friday
FARM killers are being paid and trained in an orchestrated onslaught on the farming community – which includes an instruction video on how to carry out attacks – agricultural bodies suggested this week.
The instruction video was allegedly found in the possession of six farm attack suspects, said Werner Weber on behalf of three agricultural unions.
Weber said he had also obtained an internal police document referring to a Gauteng organisation that paid R2 000 for every farmer murdered. Hired killers were supplied with weapons.
Weber chairs a committee dubbed Action Stop Farm Attacks that was formed last year by Agri SA, the Transvaal Agricultural Union, and the Agricultural Employers’ Organisation.
The police document on payments being made to farm killers, Weber said, was given to him by “someone from the defence structures”. Copies were given to reporters after the briefing.
Dated April 4 last year, the document apparently originated from the Northern Free State police and was sent to “the Farm Unit, Crime Prevention Unit and all other members on the ground”.
It reads, in part, “Information is received from an employee that a group of unknown black men told him that they belong to a group named Black Jack … from Johannesburg, and that they plan to kill all white employers (farmers).
“In exchange, the employees who commit these murders will receive R2_000 when the instruction is completed. Firearms will be made available to commit these crimes.
Weber says there is little doubt about the invalidity of police research concluding that mere criminality was behind farm attacks.
“If this was a matter of mere criminality, why do these perpetrators wait for hours for the farmers to return, then torture the man and rape the woman, only then to kill the farmer?”
Weber said 5_544 farm attacks had been recorded since 1991, which meant that every seventh farm household had already suffered an attack.
A total of 1_044 farmers had lost their lives in this way since 1991. The annual average of attacks came to 800, amounting to between two and three a day.
Weber said Action Stop Farm Attacks had repeatedly requested a meeting with President Thabo Mbeki to discuss farm killings. Mbeki was also provided with a summary of the committee’s research findings, which he referred to Safety and Security Minister Steve Tshwete.
“Farmers have started to question their future in agriculture. Ultimately, food security in South Africa and the region will be at stake.”
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