‘We’re in the final days of white life in South Africa’

The gunman leant forward and pushed the pistol hard into Manie Potgieter’s neck. “Listen, you white bastard,” he whispered, his breath heavy with alcohol. “I have Aids. We are now going to rape your wife and give her Aids too. Then, we kill you, got it?”

From his position on the floor, hands tied behind his back, he could hear his assailant’s three accomplices pulling the tracksuit bottoms off his wife, Helena, 28.

“I was sure they were going to shoot me, but I just prayed she would be OK. She was telling me in Afrikaans not to worry. I just prayed,” Mr Potgieter, 30, a blond giant of a man, told The Times.

Suddenly, a clang of metal echoed through the early morning air — and the attackers took fright. They had been in the remote farmhouse for an hour and dawn was fast approaching. “Let’s go, someone is coming,” one of them shouted in panic. Without firing a shot they were suddenly gone.

The Potgieters’ nightmare was over — but it was one of the very few happy endings to a spate of attacks on South Africa’s white Afrikaner farming communities in which an estimated 3,000 people have been killed since 1994.

On another farm, a few miles away, Louis Boshoff, 65, and his wife, Elsabe, 57, were not so lucky. A few months ago, Mr Boshoff arose early one morning, as he has done for almost 47 years, to milk his small dairy herd.

“Two men were hiding in one of the outdoor sheds. They had balaclavas on and came at me. One had a gun and the other a catapult with ball bearings as shot,” he said.

When one of them fired at his barking dogs, Mr Boshoff saw red and tried to rush them, but he was shot twice. He lost his spleen, most of his pancreas and half his liver. His wife rushed to be at his side, tripped and suffered a broken leg.

The subject of attacks on white farmers is deeply disliked by the ruling African National Congress for the unflattering comparisons that it brings with neighbouring Zimbabwe, but it has come to the fore since the murder of the white supremacist leader Eugène Terre’Blanche a month ago. That incident followed a sharp deterioration in race relations after Julius Malema, the outspoken leader of the ANC’s Youth League, started singing at rallies an old anti-apartheid struggle song that includes the words “shoot the boer [farmer]”.

The High Court banned the song but the ruling is now under appeal. Mr Malema faces an ANC disciplinary hearing after he defied orders and continued to sing the song while visiting Zimbabwe, where he praised President Mugabe for land reform policies, under which 4,000 white commercial farmers have been driven off the land in the past decade.

Since Terre’Blanche’s murder the farm attacks have continued unabated. Last week another two white farmers were killed in separate attacks.

“The murder of TB [Terre’Blanche] was planned. They start singing ‘kill the boer’ — then the most famous boer of the lot is murdered. I did not support him, but do not tell me it is not linked,” said Ian Bothma, 47, a tradesman from Terre’Blanche’s home town who has recently applied to emigrate to Australia. “We are now in the final days of white life in this country.”

The Government points out that blacks are also the targets of farm attacks; black unions, for their part, emphasise that, 16 years after the end of apartheid, many black farm workers are still ill treated, with their white employers accused of fuelling the violence by paying derisory wages and using illegal migrant labour.

At the root of the problem is the Government’s failure to carry out land reforms that meet black aspirations without destroying the productive agricultural sector. It wants at least one third of productive farm land to be in black hands by 2014 but is way off target. The land bank set up to finance farm purchases is broke; fleeced by its own managers, with a corruption investigation under way.

Andre Botha, chairman of Agriculture South Africa’s rural safety committee, told parliament recently that the biggest challenge facing the industry was “irresponsible remarks” by officials and politicians. “If we are excluded from being South African then there is a big question mark put on democracy,” he said.

Last week, President Zuma promised that there would be no Zimbabwean-style land grabs — but most whites are not convinced. “I was born and bred here but it is time to go,” Mr Bothma said. “It is unfair to inflict such a future on our children.”

Land in crisis

40,000 farmers in South Africa

3,000 farmers murdered since the end of apartheid

800,000 white South Africans out of a total of 4.4 million have emigrated since 1995

200,000 hectares of abandoned farmland has been leased by the Government of the Democratic Republic of Congo to farmers fleeing South Africa

87% of agricultural land was owned by whites at the end of the apartheid era

30% of land must be in black hands by 2014, if government targets for land reform are to be met

2% of land has changed hands so far, with funds for further purchases having dried up and a corruption inquiry under way

20% of South Africans of all races want to emigrate, with 95 per cent of those naming violent crime as the single most important factor

Sources: Times database; BBC; Newsweek; Australian Department of Immigration

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Neil VH wrote:
Remember, freedom wasn't won by the ANC, it was given to them. A majority of white people voted for the country to become a truly democratic nation, and give voting power to all blacks. Now, 16 years later, all our expectations has been shattered by a ruling party who is totally corrupt and care more for their own accumulation of wealth than for the people that they "fought" to free.
A recent poll by a South African newspaper showed that, had white people voted back then, knowing what they do now, the vote would have been 2/3's NO, instead of 2/3's YES. If you look at all the news reports, you see patterns emerging. Politicians and the police seem to be encouraging the masses to thinking in the direction of Julius Malema, the Youth League leader. He keeps yapping on about Zimbabwean style land invasions, a revolution, being militant, etc. etc. What a surprise, when only yesterday, I read that the SA police minister recently urged youths to be "militant," for when there is a "war to pursue in a revolutionary situation."
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=vn20100503043722985C279130
These few, amongst many other facts out there, makes that previous statement about the World Cup, very accurate, I think.
The sad thing is, killing whites and taking everything they own will not cure this economic sickness. I guess the western concept of an economy is best left to be tended by westerners.
May 6, 2010 12:33 PM BST on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Mike Dively wrote:
This didn't happen when farmers where able to arm themselves to defend their family and property. This is what happens when criminals have guns and citizens don't.
May 6, 2010 3:44 AM BST on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Robert Mclean wrote:
Thank you Tamsanqa, this is indeed very selective journalism. No-one is doubting that crime is a problem in SA and that it is wrong to kill white farmers. But I agree, what does this have to do with the murder of the Nazi thug ET? And what about the black victims of crime? Why is it always only newsworthy when whites are the victims?

I'm also a bit confused when I read comments saying SA will return to "heart of darkness". Do you mean Apartheid?

It is amazing how many see Apartheid as a good thing. It is amzing how so many of you only look at the "plight of the white".

Anyone who thought that the dismantling of Apartheid would instantly cure all ills is naive. I don't think Mandela or deKlerk envsioned that. But BOTH blacks and whites are struggling to turn the country around and it will take time.

May 5, 2010 5:14 PM BST on community.timesonline.co.uk
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john papi wrote:
Why do you always ignore my comments on important issues like this and publish rubbish comments instead. If you do not want my comments then say so!
May 5, 2010 5:10 PM BST on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Tamsanqa Mlilo wrote:
The heading is rather alarmist while the whole story is quite misleading. This is quite clearly selective and unhelpful journalism. I do not in any way condone Malema's behaviour neither do I support his/ANC song nor find any justification for counter racism in SA but the case for a link between TB's murder with Malema's singing is weak. Pretending that only white citizens are victims of violent crime is disingenous as evidence suggests more black people than white experience violent crime in SA. I agree the SA government has to do more to tackle crime and racism.
May 5, 2010 4:24 PM BST on community.timesonline.co.uk
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geraldine Leale wrote:
Once productive farm land gets into black hands it ceases to be farmed. It becomes squatter camp.

ROBERT McLEAN - one of the top business women and her partner in CApe Town - will not divulger her name here but she owns a very successful luxury goods company - all products are locally made - has to fight off 4 intruders to her home last week. She was knifed and neither her or her partner were armed. He however challenged hem and they ran off because the panic alarm had been sounded.

So affluent business people n CT also affected.
As long as SA does not control its borders there is going to be high crime here.

YOu can say/think what you lie abou the white farmers - but historically they are the ones who have created the wealth in produce for this country.

There are massive drug problems which hand in hand with generally poor education, over population, unemployment, malnutrition and dunces in control with big mouths - yo uknow who they are. SA is screwed - its just going to be a long and and painful one.
May 5, 2010 3:49 PM BST on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Elder Yank wrote:
Whether it's right, wrong or simply pay-back, one didn't have to be a genius to have seem this coming years ago.
May 5, 2010 3:39 PM BST on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Peter Fone wrote:
Another great African nation being ruined because the black cannot rule, they have not the wit nor the sense to be able to do this.
Just take a look at all the countries run by the black, & you will see the same old story!
This is not racism, this is observation, yet the pc idiots in the world think its good that countries & people are ruined by someone of their own colour?
Stupidity, utter stupidity!
May 5, 2010 11:34 AM BST on community.timesonline.co.uk
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Andrew Ervin wrote:
Imagine the headlines if the races were reversed. The world media would be descending on South Africa and the calls for the government to intervene would be deafening. Instead we get a story on the violence against white South African farmers once in a while, usually with some mention of the previous intolerable apartheid against the blacks. Gotta love double standards.
May 5, 2010 8:58 AM BST on community.timesonline.co.uk
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John Francis wrote:
In 1936 Hitler temporarily put his persecution of the Jewish population into abeyance for the duration of the Olympic games.
Consequently, many foreign visitors returned with the view that things weren't that bad for the Jews after all.
Immediately after the games closed and the visitors left, Hitler really got down to business.
The South African government shows no sign of trying to halt the murders and attacks on the farmers.
If conditions for the remaining white farmers in South Africa are bad now whilst the visitors are about to flock in, and the worlds attention is focused
on the country and it's games; what is likely to happen after the visitors leave?
The parallels are there for all to see.

May 5, 2010 8:49 AM BST on community.timesonline.co.uk
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