Shallow grave confirms worst fears

Missing farmworker’s body found in Lutzville

THE SEARCH for a missing Lutzville farmworker has ended in horror for his family who identified a body, found decomposing in a shallow grave, as belonging to 32-yearold Adam Pieterse, yesterday. Police said Pieterse had gone missing from his home in the West Coast village at the end of last month. According to Farmworkers South Africa, an NGO “working on social development issues” in the area, the walls inside his house were covered in blood.

It said the police were led to the shallow grave in a remote section of Die Hoek farm on Wednesday after a resident spotted the hastily dug hole.

At the time of going to print, police spokesman Captain FC van Wyk said the circumstances of his death were still unknown.

But Farmworkers SA co-ordinator Billy Claasen told the Cape Argus it was likely that Pieterse had been assaulted and killed in his own home.

Pieterse worked on the Dassiesfontein Farm near Vredendal, which borders the farm where he was buried. He was not married, but had a girlfriend and a stepson.

Claasen said he visited Pieterse’s family yesterday after they had identified the body. They were “devastated by the news”, and reduced to tears.

Police remained tightlipped about the investigation, with detectives saying it was still at a “sensitive stage”.

But this did not stop local ward councillor Frans Bam pinning the blame on the area’s farmers, saying violence against workers “has become a norm in the area”.

There had been no suggestion at the time of going to print that the murder was the result of an altercation between a farmer and worker.

According to sources a 19-year-old Lutzville farmworker was killed in a drunken brawl with another worker.

Bam urged police to probe the case and make a swift arrest.

“Everyone is ignoring the plight of the farmworkers. It is as if they are being punished because they are poor and in some cases because they are drunkards.” –