DA launches #StopFarmAttacks website and calls on South Africa to sign open letter
27 July 2020
The Democratic Alliance (DA) has today launched its #StopFarmAttacks websites which can be accessed here: stopplaasaanvalle.co.za or stopfarmattacks.co.za.
The website contains an open letter to President Cyril Ramaphosa urging him to apologize for his untrue and hurtful remarks in a 2018 interview, when he denied that farm murders were taking place in South Africa, and calling on him to take urgent action regarding the perpetual fear and danger our rural men and women live and work in as they grow the very food we eat.
The DA urges all South Africans to visit these websites and co-sign our open letter to President Ramaphosa, calling on him to address the plight of these brave men and women.
Once we have collected your signatures, the DA will submit them to Parliament and demand action from the ANC government.
It cannot be that the Government and Parliament continue to turn a blind eye to the plight of farmers, farmworkers, their parents, wives, and children who suffer cruel, senseless and often deadly torture at the hands of criminals.
Recently an 80-year old woman was attacked on her farm in Zastron and left for dead across the border in Lesotho. She had to listen as her attackers made plans to kill her. One of her attackers was allegedly one of the 19 000 prisoners released in Minister of Justice and Correctional Services, Ronald Lamola’s bid to stop the spread of Covid-19 in prisons.
Despite the Minister and President's repeated assurances that only low-risk offenders would be released, clearly not enough was done to keep violent criminals off our streets.
Farm attacks are one of the symptoms of a sick Government. Corruption, greed and hunger for power have replaced the mandate of service. ANC politicians seem to forget that they are put in positions of power and influence to primarily take care of the needs of the citizens of this country. Had this been done, there would have been no need for cheap politicking, and trying to deny real problems for fear of upsetting their very lucrative apple cart.
Had the Government honoured the original restitution promises, invested in the economy and infrastructure, and built on the good work done in the years after the first democratic election in 1994, South Africa would have been a very different place today. There would have been less inequality and fewer citizens would walk the streets without a job or hope. If all the money looted by the ANC had instead been invested in the country, South Africa might well have been today very close to the utopia everyone envisaged in 1994.
Instead we have a Government always on the offense, on the back foot, because its legacy has become indefensible.
We ask South Africans to co-sign our letter to the President.
Issued by Dianne Kohler Barnard, Chairperson of the DA Rural Safety Workstream, 27 July 2020
