Farmers demand action against attacks

A South African farmers’ union urged its members on Wednesday to improve their marksmanship to counter continuing attacks by criminals, news reports said. “We are encouraging farmers unequivocally to behave as if a national state of emergency is in place,” the Transvaal Agricultural Union said in a statement.

Latest statistics show that 88 South African farmers were killed in 586 attacks between January and August, with another 288 people wounded. The union said it had urged farmers’ groups to organise meetings on self-protection and hold sessions to improve proficiency with their weapons.

“There appears to be a lack of will on the part of the government to look after the safety of farmers,” it added.

An agricultural action committee, which has collected 376,000 signatures countrywide against rural killings, said on Wednesday it would seek an urgent meeting with President Thabo Mbeki. It hoped to present Mbeki with new research findings on the motives for farm attacks. The researchers have not made details of their findings public, but claim that rural attacks are largely an orchestrated effort to drive farmers off their land. This contradicts a report commissioned in 1998 by then president Nelson Mandela that found that the attacks were mostly purely criminal. Some 80 percent of farmland in South Africa is still owned by whites, although they make up only 13 percent of the population, and the government is buying up farmland at agreed prices for distribution.