Senior traffic officer ‘calls for violence against farmers’
THE Western Cape’s Witzenberg municipality is investigating a senior traffic officer for allegedly posting calls for violence against farmers on a social network.
The municipality covers the towns of Ceres, Tulbagh and Wolseley. This comes during a period of high tension between farmers and workers in the Ceres fruit-growing area following a series of strikes for higher wages, which are set to resume today.
The alleged posts came to the attention of CensorBugbear.org, a right-wing news organisation based in the Netherlands which claims Afrikaners are victims of a genocide. They were re-posted on the organisation’s Facebook site on Sunday.
The officer’s Facebook page allegedly said, in Afrikaans, that “It looks like we must again pick up our AK47s here in the f*****g Western Cape. I am sick of farmers and the DA.” It continued: “The f*****g farmers know who our leaders are, and now our leaders are being targeted,” adding that the “DA wants to make the Western Cape a province for Boere”.
David Nasson, Witzenberg’s municipal manager, confirmed that the municipality received a complaint against the officer on Monday and is currently investigating the case, together with the SA Local Government Association (Salga).
Nasson says he views the matter “very seriously” but is still waiting to receive “all the evidence”. The officer hasn’t been charged yet and is still on active service. He couldn’t be reached for comment.
A local farmer, who did not want to be named due to possible “victimisation”, said the postings “amount to hate speech” and that “we are concerned that someone in such a
position can make threats like that.”
Porchia Adams, a spokeswoman for AgriSA, said they didn’t want to comment on the incident until more information had been received.
The posts were allegedly reproduced by means of a screenshot from the officer’s Facebook page. The original posts appear to have been deleted.
CensorBugbear.org, which reproduced screenshots of the posts, is a right-wing organisation which says it reports on “the secret genocide of the defeated 3m Afrikaner Boers”.
The postings sparked debate on Facebook and Twitter. “Race hatred!! Plain and simple!!” posted one user.
Another user advised people to not “rise to the bait”, but to rather “lodge formal hate speech charges”.
Others posted racist comments. Pictures, as well as the alleged name of the traffic officer, were also circulated.