Rural safety must become a priority

Robertson is a former member of parliament and a former deputy shadow minister of rural development and land reform

“One would have thought that the poor land distribution policies and war that have affected our closest neighbours, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, would be a lesson to all South Africans regarding the protection of our national interests, yet our farmers and their labourers continuously become victims of political sabotage and violent crimes.

“Some South Africans have clearly prioritised party agendas above the necessity to eat. It is a problem.

“However, the SAPS’ highest echelons have promulgated their plan to protect our rural South Africans. In fact for longer than the last 10 years, there has been a rural safety strategy in place that was drafted and designed to increase policing outside of our high density areas. What is clearly lacking is the implementation of this document’s policies and the political will to make it effective.

“South Africans have two options. The first is to politically apply pressure on the SAPS so that they accept that safety in farming and rural communities requires the resources stipulated in the SAPS’ own rural safety strategy.

Surely by now the SAPS must realise that the document was adopted with intent to protect and serve, not to just to impress it readers,” said Robertson.

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The following needs to be addressed:

• The recruitment and training of police reservists
• Adhering to formulas stipulating how many police members should be responsible for example, 10 000 civilians
• The SAPS must conform to how many police patrol vehicles must be allocated to each sector in that responsible area.
• Station commanders must be vigilant in documenting rural crimes as such, and not treat the theft of produce and stock with disdain. It is these statistics that help contribute to larger budgets and resources meant for rural crimes.
• Borders must be properly controlled to stop the invasions of illegal immigrants working on farms and such. Often enough, the employment of illegal immigrants leads to serious problems on properties because the system has no control and it creates problems with trying to apprehend foreign suspects due to the lack of forensics.
“The second is that farmers need to self protect and by all means necessary.”

Farmers should:

• Ensure that staff acquire their own SAPS clearance certificates before employing unknown staff, either temporary or permanently.

“Statistics often indicate that staff, both temporary or permanent has been implicated in sharing information with syndicates or committing the crimes and employers should have the right to know whom they are employing.

“Please get involved with improving communications with the SAPS through joining effective CPFs and get involved in priority meetings with the SAPS. Similarly, it is the SAPS’ mandate that the police must initiate and encourage this strategy.

“Lastly, the greatest contributor to hate crimes and the violence and torture used against farmers during attacks, is loaded political rhetoric meant to insight violence and hatred against farmers.

“This needs to be stopped immediately as there is no justice system outside of SA that condones this, so why do the SAPS and ANC condone this behaviour here?” concluded Robertson.

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