AfriForum wants Malema investigated for ‘role’ in farm murders

Minority rights group AfriForum wants police to investigate whether Economic Freedom Fighters’ leader Julius Malema has offered to help an imprisoned gang member to murder white farmers when he gets out of jail.

The group made this claim yesterday at the launch of their book, Kill The Boer, authored by the group’s deputy CEO Ernst Roets.

In a gruesome presentation on the brutality of attacks on farmers in isolated areas, a sound clip that was part of a Carte Blanche investigation last year has a man speaking in Afrikaans saying Malema promised to help him continue killing farmers when he was released from prison. The person is supposedly a member of the brutal prison gang the 28s.

“We have not decided what the charge will be,” said Roets, about the plan to bring Malema to book. “The point is that we want this allegation to be investigated … We hope the investigation will find this person is lying.

“But given the reality of farmers being attacked and tortured … and politicians singing songs like Kill the Boer, which has been sung many times since the start of this year, a statement like this cannot just be left.”

The book paints a picture of white farmers who have been subjected to widespread vilification and politically led vitriol. In the chapter Zeitgeist, Roets concludes that white farmers are unfairly associated with depravity and brutality, a sentiment encapsulated in the chant “kill the farmer, kill the boer”.

The book refers to several examples of black politicians making public statements that show white farmers in a bad light. This includes a section dedicated to examples of “anti-western sentiment”.

Roets said there was a definite correlation between the singing of the song Kill the Boer at political gatherings and subsequent murders of white farmers.

He added that AfriForum took exception to people who believed there was a “white genocide” in South Africa being called “idiots”. He believed that because it could not be labelled “genocide”, it did not mean people shouldn’t object to farm murders.

“The reason we say farm attacks should be prioritised has nothing to do with the identity of the victims.

“The point I make in the book is that these attacks are unique … and deserve a unique counter-strategy. There are other crimes in South Africa that are also unique. One is gang-related violence.

“We are not arguing that victims of murder or assault who are not farmers are not important.”

INFO:

• Politicians were reluctant to take the allegations made against Malema and others seriously enough to comment yesterday.
• EFF MP Hlengiwe Mkhize dismissed the allegation. “They are mad,” she said.
• DA federal executive deputy chairperson Thomas Walter said: “The sooner we stop using farm murders as a political ploy, the better it will be for our society and the sooner we can start to come up with solutions to this issue.”
• ANC Youth League spokesperson Mondli Mkhize expressed suspicion of an agenda behind the call to have Malema investigated. “If there is a case to be made that (Malema) did incite violence then that must be proven in a court of law. But we must guard against people who seek to deligitimise the land question and associate it with a person they want to discredit. That allegation may be even true, but the call for land in South Africa is still a legitimate one.”

– simnikiweh@citizen.co.za

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