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  On 22 December 1999, Aldo Wessels (or oom Aldo2 as we knew him) and his wife, tannie Alta, were attacked on their farm Koelkloof in George’s Valley, Limpopo. Aldo (63) was shot in the stomach. Alta (61) suffered head injuries. They survived, but Aldo was paralysed for the rest of his life.3

  On 16 April 2000, John (77) and Bina Cross (76), the grandparents of a young woman who worked in the office of the farm on which I had grown up, were attacked on their farm near Gravelotte in Limpopo. They were ambushed by two men waiting for them to return home from church. Bina was shot three times – through her knees and back. She was then left to die slowly as she bled out, while the attackers continued torturing her husband. While she was still alive, the attackers also poured boiling water from the kettle over her body. John suffered gunshot wounds to his kidneys. A noose was tied around his neck and used drag him around the house. He was then tied up in the bathroom and put in the bath. The shower nozzle was forced down his throat and the hot water tap was opened. After several hours, he was shot in the head at close range with a shotgun. The post-mortem examination revealed that his internal organs had been burned and that his stomach was filled with water.4

  On 6 January 2002, a member of our church congregation, Susan van den Heever (71), was attacked and murdered on their farm near Tzaneen, Limpopo by two young men in their twenties. Van den Heever was beaten to death with a hammer. Her skull was crushed and her face was beaten beyond recognition. She was then dragged into the house and tied up.5 She had stayed home that Sunday morning and her husband, oom Tobie, had gone to church alone. The sermon was interrupted when someone came running into the church to inform him what had happened to his wife.

  In February 2003, a young man who had gone to school with me, Joseph Greyling, was murdered at the age of 19 on a farm near Hoedspruit, Limpopo. He and his partner, Johannes Swart (30), were shot through the head while they were sleeping. A 28-year-old Zimbabwean man, Peter Ndlovu, was handed down two life sentences for the double murder.6

  On 2 February 2011, the body of Frik Hermann (78), the uncle of my colleague Dirk Hermann, was found on his farm near Bela-Bela (previously Warmbaths) in Limpopo. His hands had been tied behind his back. He had been kicked, his ribs had been broken and his lungs had been perforated as a result of stab wounds. He had been dead for about a week before his body was discovered by a friend. He had died a very painful, lonely death.7

  On 5 December 2012, Arina Muller (29), the sister of Johannes Muller, a friend of mine, was murdered. She was shot point blank as she entered the house on their smallholding near Centurion in Gauteng. Arina was then shot again in front of her mother when she entered the hallway. The attackers ran away.8

  On 30 October 2016, my father’s cousin was murdered on a farm near Ventersdorp, North West. It was early on a Sunday morning when Annerie Grobler (55) went out to feed the animals and was confronted by three attackers. She resisted, after which she was stoned and a garden fork was pierced through her head.9

  In June 2017, Elsa Erasmus (74) – my neighbour’s aunt – went missing from her farm near Schweizer-Reneke in North West. The community searched for her for several days. Her body was eventually found. She had been attacked by three young men, raped and shot in the head, presumably with her own .22 rifle. The police investigation found that the last thing she had done before the incident had been to lay a wreath of flowers at the spot where her husband had died three years before.10

  On 24 September 2017 my mother-in-law’s cousin Johnny Muller and his wife, Dalene, were attacked on their farm near Frankfort in the Free State. Johnny was shot through the head and Dalene was left to deal with the attackers herself. Eventually she managed to press the panic button, which caused the attackers to flee. The bullet that had struck Johnny entered above his right eye and exited close to a main artery on the left side of his neck. Johnny miraculously survived and I was able to sit down with him and Dalene after he had been discharged from hospital. They explained all the details of the attack on camera.11

  On 20 November 2017 I received a text message from a friend from high school: ‘With sadness I would like to share this with you today Ernst … Our neighbour and dear family friend was murdered here at Hoedspruit last night.’ Christo Redelinghuys (60) had been a well-known farmer in the area. Redelinghuys and his daughter, Retha (29), had been confronted by three men on the evening of 19 November as they went out to close a farm gate. Redelinghuys asked them what they were doing there. Without answering, they immediately fired at him with a shotgun, murdering him in front of his daughter. They attackers then left the scene, without stealing anything.12 My friend described Redelinghuys as a beloved man who had been close to their hearts.

  On 25 January 2018, Dries Steenkamp (77), the grandfather of my colleague Philip Robinson’s girlfriend, was attacked on his farm near Lydenburg in Mpumalanga. Steenkamp was overpowered by three attackers before daybreak. He was shot three times. The attackers left the scene without stealing anything. Steenkamp passed away in hospital a day later.13

  But perhaps the most mysterious story of all is what happened to my mother-in-law in December 2009.

  My mother-in-law resided on her family’s farm near Frankfort in the Free State. She woke up in the middle of the night when she heard people walking around the house, whispering to one another. Her fear was confirmed when someone shone a light through the window of the main bedroom in which she slept. The intruders seemed not to have noticed her and continued walking around the house. She immediately sent a message to the neighbours and the local community safety structure for help. Shortly thereafter, she could hear the intruders breaking a window in the living room. Around that time, help arrived, rushing to the farmhouse. Upon their arrival, the two intruders casually walked towards them and explained that they were police officers and that they had just come to the house to check if everything was okay. They were not dressed in uniform and they did not have badges with them. Eventually nothing came of the incident and the police were not able to explain what had actually happened that night.

  If the reception of this book is what I hope it to be, I will certainly consider publishing a second, updated edition in due course. For the purpose of updating the book, I encourage you, the reader, to contact me with your comments regarding anything that you read in it. While I already personally know many of the victims whose stories are told in this book, I would particularly like to encourage any victim – or the loved ones of any victim – whose name is mentioned in this book to contact me so that we can stay in touch regarding future developments.

  Also, together with the teams at AfriForum and Kraal Uitgewers, we have uploaded sharable content regarding a variety of issues dealt with in this book to the website at www.killtheboerbook.com. Once you have read the book, I encourage you to visit the website and to share the content that you find there with your friends and family on social media. By participating in the campaign to raise awareness about farm murders, you might contribute to the saving of lives and to the achievement of the necessary interventions that are required to curb these attacks.

  Lastly, I encourage you to participate in the discussion. You can do this by emailing me with your thoughts after reading this book. You can also contact me via the websites of AfriForum and Kraal Uitgewers, as well as on social media.

  I look forward to hearing from you.

  Ernst Roets

  June 2018

  Ernst Roets

  @ErnstRoets

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I wish to thank

  my wife Lelanie and our three boys for their patience and support

  Lorraine Claasen, for her research

  everyone who in some way contributed to my own insights or who commented on the text during the writing phase, including Kallie Kriel, Flip Buys, Dirk Hermann, Barend Uys, Ian Cameron, Caty van der Merwe, Nantes Kelder, Roland de Vries, Johan Burger, Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Frans Cronje, Russell Lamberti, Mark Oppenheimer, Mosioua Lekota, Chris Chameleon and Steve Ho
fmeyr

  those who took the courage to personally share their experience with me, including my brother Pieter Roets, Martin Coetzee, my friend Henk (name changed), Robert Lynn, Mariandra Heunis, Johnny and Dalene Muller, Johan Kuneke, Bernadette Hall, Susan Nortjé, Corrie Nel, Hibbe van der Veen, Belinda van Noord and Gawie Stols

  the team who made this book possible, including the entire team at Kraal Uitgewers and the entire team at AfriForum’s communications department.

  The author

  June 2018

  EDITOR’S NOTES

  This book is divided into three parts. Part 1 deals with the phenomenon of farm attacks and why the author argues that farm attacks are unique by nature. Part 2 deals with the political climate in South Africa and several topics that overlap with the issue of farm attacks. The author refers to this political climate as the zeitgeist (English: the spirit of the times). Part 3 deals with the South African government’s official reaction to farm attacks and what should be done to address the problem. The book concludes with a chapter that pulls all of these threads together. There are several overarching themes in this book. The two major themes are:

  Farm attacks are unique for a variety of reasons, which justifies the prioritising of these attacks by responding with a focused counter-strategy.

  The South African government is complicit in the problem for at least ten reasons. These include the systematic deprioritisation of farm attacks, negative stereotyping of white farmers in particular, justification of murders, romanticising of violence and in extreme cases even direct involvement of the police in the execution of these attacks.

  The book was written to be read as a whole, although it is also outlined to make it easy for the reader to skip to particular sections. For this purpose, the chapters have been organised according to different pieces of the puzzle that makes up the brutal reality of farm murders in South Africa. Farm attacks are unique by nature and deserving of a unique counter strategy. Other than using the table of contents, it is also recommend to use the index as a reference, since there is a degree of overlap between the topics covered in the different chapters.

  Considering the fact that the South African government frequently accuses AfriForum of lying about farm attacks, a special effort was put into source references for this book. Many of the source references are not necessary, but the author added them to neutralise the criticism that this book is sure to receive. Even despite effort with source references, it is expected that some people will still describe this book as propaganda of some sort and of engaging with a topic that should not be taken seriously. This is expected especially from the South African government, the ruling African National Congress (ANC), the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), some so-called progressive think tanks, and, most unfortunately, certain noteworthy so-called opinion formers in the media. It is expected that this book will be criticised not so much for its researched content, but for the narrative, which is contrary to the narrative produced by many in the mainstream, and which will therefore be described as counter-productive.

  A lot of effort was made to include the ages of murdered victims who are mentioned in this book and also to state where these murders were committed by mentioning the closest town and the province. A map is added at the beginning of this chapter for those readers who are unfamiliar with South Africa’s provinces as they are currently known.

  References to the South African rand include references on the value in US dollar (abbreviated as $ for the purpose of this book), and references to US dollar include reference on the value in South African rand. A set exchange rate of R12,50 for $1 was used throughout this publication.

  A deliberate effort was made to combine as many of the victims’ stories as possible with a data-driven analysis to clarify the bigger picture regarding farm attacks. According to the author there are two major components to effectively addressing this crisis – knowing the problem and fighting it effectively. For this reason he mentioned some examples of measures that have been taken to date in the campaign against farm attacks where they are relevant to the topics addressed throughout this book.

  Any reference to ‘we’ in this book is a reference to AfriForum, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise.

  In this book the author deliberately refrained from using the word ‘African’ to refer to black people, given that he has a fundamental problem with the underlying notion that people who are not black cannot also be Africans. In South African legislation ‘Black people’ are defined in the Employment Equity Act as ‘a generic term which means Africans, Coloureds and Indians,’14 implying that it is only people of a dark complexion who have the right to be called Africans. This is a historical, philosophical and genealogical fallacy. In Chapter 9 it is explained that white people can rightly claim to be Africans. Therefore the word ‘black’ is used to refer to black people who are not coloureds or Indian.

  All quotations from social media platforms are printed verbatim and unedited.

  Because farm murders is a topic that can easily be misused for personal gain or profit, the author declined to accept any proceeds or royalties from the sales of this book.

  CHAPTER 1

  A land of sorrow

  Martin Coetzee noticed that the ceilings and roof panels of the old farmhouse had been stripped. Being a part-time sheep and cattle farmer, the 82-year-old Coetzee was not permanently based on his farm. Suikerboskop, as it is known, was a fairly small farm near Belfast in Mpumalanga that had been in the Coetzee family for generations. Upon visiting the farm he had the habit of inspecting the land to ensure that everything was still in order.

  Within a few hundred metres of the old farmhouse, a village was being constructed. Coetzee had been aware of this prior to his arrival on the farm and had refrained from taking legal action to remove the inhabitants from his land.

  Visibly frustrated by the destruction of his property, the 82-year-old approached the village, which consisted of about a dozen or so houses. Villagers were busy constructing new homes from ceiling and roof panels when Coetzee arrived. Not knowing who most of these people were, Coetzee started questioning them, asking what they were doing on his farm and why they were destroying the farmhouse. Suddenly, Coetzee was hit over the head with a wooden object. The attacker continued, hitting him on the arms and legs. As Coetzee dropped to the ground, he was attacked by a group of women of the village, who bound his hands and tied him with his back to a large wooden pole, erected in the middle of the village.

  Over the five hours that followed, Coetzee was repeatedly beaten by a man who went by the name of Sipho. During the attack, Coetzee managed to loosen the grip of the ropes and unfasten the knot, which only resulted in more severe beatings. When Coetzee noted for a second time that he was able to untether the bindings, he decided not to do so, knowing that any attempt to set himself free would only be followed by more severe beatings.

  However, the most appalling part of the attack on Martin Coetzee was what followed. After several hours of beatings, Coetzee was lying flat in the dirt, soaked in blood and with a fractured arm. By that time, the attackers started making phone calls. Despite his condition, Coetzee was still conscious and quite aware of his surroundings.

  The first vehicle arrived, and two unidentified men got out. The men were clothed in business attire.

  Coetzee could not understand all their conversations, which were in Zulu, but from their talk he concluded that these men were either from the local ANC branch or the local government (which was run by the ANC), and that they had discussed something about ‘taking the farm’. They looked at Coetzee from several metres away, but never spoke to him. Shortly after these men had left, the police arrived. Upon their arrival, Coetzee started struggling again to loosen the grip of the ropes. This time, his attempts were not followed by continued beatings. The police exited their vehicle and approached the crime scene. To Coetzee’s distress, the police seemed not to be interested in him. In fact, they casually approached the attac
kers and engaged in conversation with them. This was when Coetzee realised that the police had arrived not to rescue him, but because they had been called to the scene by the very people who had been torturing him for several hours.

  From the manner in which the police officers engaged in discussions with the attackers, it was clear that they knew each other, recalls Coetzee. After having been in conversation for about 15 minutes or so, the officers turned to Coetzee, who was now sitting on the ground, dripping with blood, loosened ropes around his hands and arms. ‘What are you doing here?’ one police officer asked. ‘This is my farm. I was assaulted by these men,’ he replied. The officer then turned his head towards Sipho, continuing in casual discussion, as if Coetzee had not said anything. About 15 minutes later, they strolled back to their vehicle, driving around the farm before leaving.

  By this time, the attackers had clearly lost interest in Coetzee. After a while he managed to get up, stumbling towards his old bakkie (English: pickup truck). Not knowing what to do, he got into the vehicle and pulled away towards Pretoria. After having driven more than 200 kilometres (124 miles) in an old farm bakkie with a fractured arm, Coetzee checked himself in at the Unitas Hospital in Centurion.

  The attack on Martin Coetzee took place on 26 May 2014. On 26 June that year – a day of the year that has been declared International Day in Support of Victims of Torture by the United Nations – AfriForum hosted a conference to raise international awareness about the torture that so many of South Africa’s farmers have had to experience in the past two decades. Coetzee, now with his arm in a sling, had decided to attend the conference. He told his story in private to delegates who were present, as he was not prepared to take the stage on this issue.