THE GREAT DIVIDE
Furious fallout over farm murder
● The two men accused of the brutal murder of young Free State farmer Brendin Horner are wellknown to the local community police forum, although they have never been arrested before, locals say.
Sekwetje Isaiah Mahlamba, 32, and Sekola Piet Matlaletsa, 44, appeared in the Senekal magistrate’s court on Tuesday, when angry farmers sparked mayhem.
The case has blown open a chasm in the community, stoking racial tensions and anger at police. Frustrated farmers say police don’t care about their safety and are unwilling, or unable, to protect them from attacks.
Adding fuel to the tensions, some townsfolk accuse police of having been too soft on the protesting white farmers who caused chaos outside court, trying to force their way into the holding cells and setting a police van alight.
Horner, 21, was killed one year to the day after he began working for the Scheepers family at Bloukruin Boerdery, close to the small Free State town of Paul Roux.
At 7pm on Thursday last week, as he drove home from visiting his father, he phoned his girlfriend, asking her to warm his food. But he never made it home.
The next day his father, Robbie Horner, and a good friend and colleague, Jaco Kleingeld, found his body a few metres from his gate.
Fight to the death
Farm owner Gilly Scheepers suspects Horner was attacked while seated in his bakkie.
“The left door handle of his van was broken off and they tried to force themselves into his vehicle. They opened the back window,” Scheepers said.
“The fight took place at the gate; there was a lot of blood in the road. He was a fit and strong young man. He was a tough little guy and we are thinking it can’t only be two people who attacked him.”
Scheepers said Horner’s attackers strangled him with a nylon rope, dragged him a few metres and fastened his body to a fence pole in the veld with the rope that was around his neck.
“We think they [the attackers] came to steal the sheep and Brendin must have bumped into them.”
Emotions ran high at Mahlamba and Matlaletsa’s court appearance on Tuesday, with hundreds of farmers flocking to the court.
Some of them stormed the building and demanded the suspects be handed over to them. Members of the group damaged court property while forcing their way to the cells.
A 51-year-old construction company owner was arrested in connection with the fracas and appeared in the court on Friday. The magistrate ruled that his identity be withheld until the outcome of his bail application, expected on Tuesday.
This is definitely not a black and white problem. This is a problem between what is right and wrong Farmer Herkie Viljoen, Chairperson of a farmers’ safety committee
‘God has answered our prayers’
Paul Roux community leader Johnny Maseko said he knew the murder suspects well, and that he had often encountered them during his 17-year spell as chair of the community policing forum.
“God has answered our prayers that they are caught, but unfortunately it came at the expense of the life of an innocent young person who had a future ahead of him. I felt very bad.”
Maseko said racial elements “come into the picture” in crimes against farmers because many of the perpetrators were black.
“The people at the receiving end are white, but there are also black people affected by this. It is a question of the haves and have-nots — they have what the criminals want.”
Maseko criticised the local police record on combating crime and accused officers of failing to act decisively to end the mayhem on Tuesday, which he said was not good for democracy or law and order.
Farmer Herkie Viljoen, who is chair of a safety committee representing about 400 farmers in the area, said most farmers were frustrated due to the lack of help from the government and police.
He said years of frustration lay behind the fracas at the court.
“This ‘enough is enough’ thing was said a year or two years ago, but there is no response. What makes people angry is that they don’t get help to resolve problems,” Viljoen said.
“I think what triggered this outrage is that Horner was young and had a lot of passion. He was young and defenceless and the way they killed and strangled him was just inhumane,” he said.
“This is definitely not a black and white problem. This is a problem between what is right and wrong. There are murders of black farmworkers and black farmers and there’s murders and rapes in townships as well.
“The police in this country have lost total control over the criminals. The criminals lost all their fear for the police and the justice system. The police don’t have enough resources to do their work and [some] police are part of the problem.”
Joint effort by all is needed
The Black Farmers Association of SA said it condemned the killing of farmers, but believed the cause was “the abuse and ill-treatment of black farmworkers, which result in these attacks as a form of revenge or retaliation”.
“A joint effort by black and white farmers, farmworkers and police is very important,” the chair of the association, Brenda Baba, said.
Selena Mosai, who farms in the Paul Roux area, said she did not understand why those who raided farms killed their victims.
“Many black people said they wanted the land back and we have farms now, but the people who hurt us are black people.”
Mosai said she had also fallen victim to crime on her farm. “I was lucky, God protected me that night.”
Mosai said in recent months, 70 of her cows had been stolen, with only 30 of them recovered.
“I don’t understand why people make farm attacks about colour, because we are all South Africans and I don’t know why we fight about that.
“The times when I cry after my cattle have been stolen, it is the white farmers who come and console me, and tell me everything will be OK,” she said.
“But when I go to the township, the black people don’t like me because I have a farm.”
Institute of Race Relations associate Gabriel Crouse condemned Tuesday’s violence, saying “violent and destructive protesters” should always be prosecuted in the same way, “though this is unfortunately not the case”.
“Most South Africans are perfectly aware that members of all races can be victimised on the basis of race, and distressed by populists’ attempt to scapegoat their own failings onto minorities,” Crouse said.
“Law enforcement and political representatives must realise this too if SA is to guard the basic principle that racism is wrong.
“Equality before the law, the disciplined administration of law and order, and the speedy pursuit of justice on an evidence-based approach will protect the vulnerable of all colours from criminals of all kinds.”
Earlier this week, representatives of the police — including the national commissioner, Gen Khehla Sitole — AfriForum and farmer associations Agri SA and TLU SA met in Pretoria to address “matters of criminality” affecting rural communities.
A joint statement afterwards described the discussions as “robust” but said parties agreed to formalise the establishment of national and local joint rural safety command centres.
Extra personnel and resources, including helicopters and drones, were needed, national police spokesperson Brig Vishnu Naidoo said.