A report has found that the criminal justice system fails to uphold the rights of farm labourers
Marianne Merten
“That Sunday the farmer called him to the farm. When he got there, the boer got out of his bakkie and hit him. When he was finished hitting him, he had to help the farmer.”
Hendrik Witbooi* of Citrusdal reported the assault to police the same night it happened several months ago, but to date no one knows whether there has been an investigation, relatives say.
Witbooi left the farm because of irregular payment. He returned when he could not find employment elsewhere and continues to work for the farmer who assaulted him.
This is just one of hundreds of accounts reported by farm workers to NGOs dealing with rural issues across South Africa against the backdrop of wages as low as R150 a month, evictions in contravention of security of tenure laws and poor living conditions in farm workers’ homes.
Yet in June the Freedom Front announced it intended lodging a formal complaint with the International Human Rights Commission over the government’s failure to protect Afrikaners as an estimated 1 000 farmers have been killed since 1994.
On Wednesday Human Rights Watch said black rural residents particularly women bore the brunt of the South African government’s failure to protect those living on farms from violent crime.
“The criminal justice system fails to ensure that police and court officials investigate, prosecute and punish murder, rape and other serious crimes against black South Africans with the same vigour as when these crimes are committed against whites,” said the report titled Unequal Protection: The State Response to Violent Crime on South African Farms.
According to the report the 1998 rural protection plan has ensured relatively speedy arrests in the wake of “farm attacks” on owners or managers. However, such protection is not extended to farm workers.
“Farm workers and other rural dwellers are more vulnerable to violence, including from their employers, and less likely to get help from the police and courts,” said Human Rights Watch Africa division deputy director Bronwen Manby.
The report recounts how police station commissioners often could name the victims of all recent farm attacks, “but were unaware of similarly serious cases of assault or murder of black people on the same farms”.
It quotes a police inspector from Levubu police station near Louis Trichardt: “We trust farm owners. If they say there are no problems on the farm, then it means the situation is okay.”
When farm workers lay charges, dockets frequently “go missing”, police fail to investigate properly, particularly in cases of alleged rape or sexual assault, or the state declines to prosecute.
Human Rights Watch noted concern over alleged abuses committed by groups like farm watches and commandos units of army reserves established during apartheid like the Wakkerstroom Commando.
The commando was found to be responsible for at least 14 assaults in late 1996 although accused farmers were either acquitted in court or their cases were dismissed.
In 1999 farm worker Moses Mayisela instituted legal action against three white farmers belonging to the Wakkerstroom Commando for allegedly blinding and torturing him in October 1996. The army agreed to pay to defend the suit.
Responding to the report, organised agriculture under AgriSA said it shared the concern over the apparent inability of the criminal justice system to cope with rural crime.
The organisation has and would continue to condemn all forms of violence in rural areas no matter who was the perpetrator or victim.
AgriSA is expected to submit its suggestions on improving the rural protection plan for the benefit of all rural residents to Minister of Safety and Security Steve Tshwete soon.
Earlier this year it conducted a survey of the nine provincial coordinating structures to pinpoint difficulties and develop a more proactive stance against crime involving everybody in rural areas.
“We condemn any human rights abuse in rural areas and have done that in the past,” said AgriSA director of government services Kobus Visser, citing the case of a Potchefstroom farmer accused of poisoning more than 40 workers earlier this year.
The Human Rights Watch report makes several recommendations to improve rural safety, including a revision of the rural protection plan, legislation to regulate the role of private security firms and farm watches, the establishment of legal aid centres in rural areas, the allocation of more resources to rural police stations and courts, training court and police officials to deal with sexual abuse and the collection of data.
It also recommends the removal from policing of soldiers and commando units and an investigation into the activities of such units in southern Mpumalanga and northern KwaZulu-Natal.
But an improvement of law enforcement in rural areas was linked to “a reduction in the stark economic inequalities so obvious in the South African countryside”, Human Rights Watch said.
* Name has been changed