Farm Murders: Time for all parties to band together to demand immediate implementation of rural safety strategies

2 September 2020

Note to Editors: Please find the attached English soundbite from Dianne Kohler Barnard MP, DA Shadow Minister of State Security, as well as a video.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) calls on all political parties that pledged their support to the farming community in Parliament's Debate of National Importance on farm murders to band together and demand the immediate and effective implementation of the Rural Safety Plan.

We welcome the 180-degree turn by the ANC which has suddenly decided that the murderous farm attacks are serious and need to be addressed. First, it was the Premier of KwaZulu-Natal, SihleZikalala, who broke ranks, followed by a veritable deluge of ANC comments – culminating in a statement by Deputy President David Mabuza yesterday.

We want it on record that we are not concerned about the motivation behind this volte face, whether it is a reflection of ANC in-fighting with one faction attempting to show up current President Cyril Ramaphosa who denied that farm attacks are happening, or not.

The point is that our campaign has booted this issue off the back burner – where it has languished for some 20 years ignored by governing politicians and media alike. This nation swore in its Constitution to keep every South African safe and not just some of us, and it’s past time that these tortures and murders must be stopped.

The DA was most pleased that the ACDP, IFP, ANC, FF+, UDM and Al Jama’ah supported us in our Debate of National Importance in the National Assembly yesterday.

We did note that the Minister of Police Bheki Cele pulled out of the debate, which he was scheduled to close, but all we ask is that he does his job and pushes the National Police Commissioner to reintroduce rural safety units, and beef up our rural South African Police Service (SAPS) stations so that the fine words in the Rural Safety Plan can actually be lifted off the page and implemented.

As such we will be writing to the Chairperson of the Police Portfolio Committee, Tina Joemat-Pettersson, asking that she summons the Minister before the Committee at the earliest possible date to ensure that his promises are delivered on. We need to know the nuts and bolts of how these units will be funded, and how soon they will be put into operation. This is delivery on a promise made by the then President Thabo Mbeki who cut the Commandos of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) in 2003 with zero warning, and who promised that a specialised Rural Safety Unit would take their place. There has been no movement in this regard since.

Better late than never.

We would ask that all those parties which supported the DA in its debate yesterday, join us in demanding that the Government do more than just talk and make promises. Our rural communities – farmers, farm workers and their families – don’t have the luxury of time. They are being viciously attacked 24/7.

As thousands of bikers protested around the country, two farmers were murdered in KZN. As I was speaking in the National Assembly, an elderly couple and their carer were bludgeoned almost to death in the Free State.

Reports of attacks are a daily, sometimes hourly, occurrence.

To those who attempted, and failed, to make the debate yesterday about race: playing the same tired song over and over will never make it true. The DA has been crystal clear that farmers, of all races, are being attacked, that farm workers of all races are being attacked, and that visitors to farms, of all races, are being attacked.

We are in one South Africa together for better or for worse, and we need to stop the race-baiting and focus on keeping our citizens safe, and our agricultural output secure.

To that end we have called for a multi-portfolio summit including Agriculture, Police, Defence Force and State Security to work through the myriad rural security threats, find short-and-medium-term solutions to implement immediately, as well as a definitive long-term solution to what has now reached crisis proportions in our country.
We cannot sit back while our farmers are flooding out of the country to grow food for other nations – such as the United States and Zambia – we need them here.

Issued by Dianne Kohler Barnard,DA Shadow Minister of State Security, 2 September 2020