Farmers are under siege and must protect themselves, says FF Plus leader in Parliament

8 June 2023

South African farmers are under siege and no-one can blame them if they take the law into their own hands to protect themselves.

South Africa has seen a bloody week as regards farm murders.

Eight farmers were murdered in just one week. That is the same as the number that was murdered during the first three months of this year, according to the police's latest crime statistics.

Government is too quick to label farm murders as ordinary criminality. This excuse has been held up for far too long now.

Burning farm murder victims alive does not amount to ordinary criminality.

It is also not ordinary criminality when six attackers with assault rifles, like AK47s, descend upon farmers and brutally kill them.

The farming community is under siege. The past four years' statistics show that at least one farm murder is committed for every eight attacks.

It provides some perspective on the pervasiveness of farm attacks.

It also makes it very clear that the murder rate would have been much higher if the farming community did not implement their own security measures.

The FF Plus is calling on the Minister of Police to ensure that farm attacks are thoroughly investigated seeing as they clearly fall under organised crime.

Farm attacks ought to be a priority for the police. Thus far, that has not been the case. Theoretically speaking, the police force has a good rural safety plan, but it is not effectively implemented in practice.

I want to make it abundantly clear that if the police do not take swift, decisive action to address farm attacks, no-one should be surprised if farmers increasingly start taking the law into their own hands.

No-one can blame people for protecting themselves against bloody attacks by whatever means necessary.

Issued by Pieter Groenewald, FF Plus leader, 8 June 2023