‘Shouldn’t blacks be officially declared monkeys?’ asks Mngxitama

Leader of Black First Land First (BLF) Andile Mngxitama is apparently tired of incidents in which white people shoot black people they claim they thought were monkeys.

Out of apparent frustration, the BLF leader asked whether blacks shouldn’t officially be declared monkeys and be done with it.

“Another black person killed ‘mistaken’ for a monkey by land thieves. Shouldn’t blacks be officially declared monkeys? Maybe they will stop,” wrote Mngxitama.

He was responding to the fact that police in KwaZulu-Natal reported that a child had been shot dead by a man who “mistook” the 12-year-old for a monkey. Bongumusa Duma, while climbing a tree in search of fresh guavas in Braemar, was hit in the upper body and head. He died at the scene.

The South Coast Herald reported that Scottburgh SAPS communications officer Captain Vincent Pandaru said: “An 87-year-old man mistook the boy in the tree for a monkey and shot him with a licensed shotgun.”

The shotgun was seized by police as an exhibit and the police have been investigating a case of murder.

Incidents of this nature are not unprecedented in South Africa.

In 2014, a farmer convicted for unlawful handling of a firearm was jailed for six months by the Musina Regional Court in Limpopo. Johannes Fourie shot and injured one of his workers, who he claimed he mistook for a baboon.

In 2011, the owner of Doorn Poort Farm in KwaZulu-Natal gunned down Sipho Mbatha, whom he apparently thought was a dog.

In a separate court case a farmer in 2011, Julie Crossberg shot dead his Zimbabwean farm worker. Crossberg also claimed he mistook his target for a baboon.

Last month, a 39-year-old Pretoria man was charged with murder for killing a 23-year-old farm worker in Modimolle, Limpopo, who he allegedly mistook for a warthog.

It’s believed Hepburn and his wife were out hunting at a friend’s farm in Limpopo when he shot at the direction of a noise, thinking it was a warthog.