Three Murders Every Hour: South African Farmers Set up Safe Havens as Crime Explodes

One of 165 Afrikaner community watches

Three murders take place every hour in South Africa, according to the latest crime statistics. Members of the Afrikaner Freedom Front Plus engaged in a gunfight with robbers in Meyerton. Former Springbok rugby star Lukas van Biljon was stabbed numerous times and his 70-year-old father shot to death. A farmer was tortured for 13 hours in the Eastern Cape but survived. Afrikaners are establishing “anchor communities” where they can provide their own security and live safely.

Freedom Front Plus Community Safety Committee member Kobus Hoffman and Pierre Wheeler were in their office in Loch Street, Meyerton, on Monday, May 29, when they heard people calling for help from an adjacent building, reports South Africa Today.  “They ran to the building and came upon about six robbers busy robbing a jewellery shop.  A gunfight broke out between the robbers and the FF Plus members. After which the robbers made off with 600 silver rings and gold chains in a white Mercedes Benz.”

Crime continues to spiral out of control in the Rainbow Nation, according to the latest crime statistics. 6 289 murders were reported in the first quarter of 2023, in comparison to 6 083 last year. 27 066 people were murdered in the year 2022, 2 256 per month or 76 every day. That means three murders every hour in South Africa.

Other violent crimes that rose sharply include attempted murder (8,3%), assault (7,6%), robbery (8,9%) and armed robbery (5,1%).  Farm murders decreased from 17 murders in the first three months of last year to 9 this year. “The fact that farmers increasingly implement measures to ensure their own safety must be taken into account here”, writes Dr. Pieter Groenewald of Freedom Front Plus. 77 farm attacks took place in the first three months of 2023.

While crime continues to spiral out of control in South Africa, the infamous farm attacks have declined, due in large part to community organizing and firearms training conducted in the Boer community.

AfriForum: Farm Murders and Attacks in South Africa for 2019-2022

On May 27 at around midnight, André van Biljon (69) was shot three times in the chest and hand by six armed men on his smallholding at Oranjeville in the Free State province. His son, Springbok rugby star Lukas van Biljon (47) was also attacked and stabbed several times. “The 6ft 2 former hooker (Rugby center) was woken with a 9mm pistol to his head and in a brief struggle was stabbed a number of times until he was told by the gang they had his sons. They warned him his three boys would be shot dead if he tried to resist”, the Daily Mail reports. “Meanwhile his brave father Andre had made a run to reach a radio to alert his fellow farmers that they were under attack but was spotted and shot three times. The bullets hit him in the chest and he was rushed in critical condition to the Pelonomi Hospital in Bloemfontein but lost his fight for life at 1.30pm Tuesday.” Two suspects, Khanye Muthi (32) and Latin Mofokeng (42) were arrested at a roadblock and appeared in Heilbron Magistrates Court on 29 May 2023. Incredibly, the two murder suspects have applied for bail. The case was postponed to 5 June 2023.

On May 24 at 4 pm, farmer Tienie and his wife were ambushed by four armed attackers as they arrived at their farm house near Kerksdorp in the Northwest Province.  The attackers were armed with hand guns, assaulted the couple and tied them up.  The farm house was ransacked and a number of items including firearms were robbed. The couple’s ordeal lasted until 9:30 pm when the attackers fled in their stolen Isuzu pickup.

On May 17, near Senekal in the Free State, Damie and Zelda Stemmett were overpowered by six attackers armed with pistols and rifles, who raided the home for valuables. Local farmers were alerted and engaged the fleeing attackers.  No one was injured. A pickup was hit by a bullet. One of the attackers was arrested.

On May 16, four masked attackers entered a farm house near Hermanus in the Western Cape, shot and injured the dog, and threatened and tied up a woman (53). The attacker ransacked the house, stole jewelery and other items and fled in her Toyota pick-up.

On April 26 at 6 pm, Francis Davidson (74) was attacked in his farmhouse in Maclear in the Eastern Cape and tortured over 13 hours. Three attackers assaulted Davidson, tied him up, beat him with a blunt object, burned him with candle wax and dragged him around the yard. The attackers fixed themselves dinner and stayed until 7 am the next morning, when they fled in his pickup. He was found by a neighbor on 27 April 2023, still tied up, lying on the floor. Davidson survived a farm attack seven years ago in the same house. Two attackers aged 23 and 34 were arrested May 2 and found with a number of stolen items

Out of 77 farm attacks in the first quarter 2023, only 9 suspects were arrested. “The fact that so few suspects are apprehended creates a greater possibility that those not apprehended will launch attacks again,” says AfriForum Community Safety spokesman Jacques Broodryk.  “AfriForum appeals to people who live and work in rural areas to empower themselves. In the past few years, AfriForum’s local safety structures have launched a comprehensive campaign to empower communities through training. This includes, among other things, training in first aid and safe firearm handling along with safety assessment on farm dwellings,” concludes Broodryk.

Writing on IM 1776, AfriForum Campaigns Officer Ernst van Zyl describes the strategy of “community-based, decentralized, state-proof solutions” as South Africa is “teetering” on the brink of collapse, with almost daily black-outs of up to 12 hours. Emigration “is not a long-term option” for most Afrikaners, van Zyl writes, as it would lead to the eradication of 370-year-old Afrikaner culture.

“Where your people live in high concentrations, you can start to create a reality. Homesteading can be a workable solution for a household, but it cannot save a community, a culture or a civilization. With these realities in mind, AfriForum has identified towns, cities and regions where large numbers of Afrikaners already reside”, Van Zyl writes.

“Through the organization and development of such anchor communities, we are creating safe harbors for Afrikaners where they can live securely, with the guarantee of basic services like water and electricity, a functional sewage system, and effective security structures; where their children can receive education in their mother tongue and learn about their history; where the elderly can retire in peace; where Afrikaner heritage, monuments, and statues are appreciated, preserved, and new ones erected.”

Van Zyl cites the example of the Afrikaner community of Orania set up in 1991, which is entirely self-sufficient and has virtually no crime. AfriForum has identified “14 viable anchor communities in Pretoria” which “have the potential to form a cultural canton.” The goal is to “establish stable points of order in which communities can survive and ultimately thrive”, Van Zyl writes.

“With the deterioration of government capacity also comes growing opportunities for decentralization of power and creating facts on the ground. Our strategy involves the creation of a reality so resilient that the government has no choice but to recognize it as legitimate. With neighborhood watches, for example, we grow them to a point where we can simply inform the state of their existence and offer assistance and cooperation where possible. If AfriForum waited for a formal government green light to establish our neighborhood watches, we would still have a total of zero neighborhood watches, instead of 165+, our current numbers.”

The battle between chaos and order in South Africa is only just beginning,” Van Zyl writes. “A huge responsibility now rests on our shoulders, and we must be willing to risk failure. For in the great historical relay race where the stakes are high, the enemy is unforgiving and the result is final, every generation only gets one chance to grasp the baton and safely hand it over to the next. Our cooperative actions, not those of an isolated few, will determine our legacy and the length of our chapter in the annals of history.”

Afriforum Youth’s René van der Vyver speaks to Col. Chris Wyatt

Ernst van Zyl talks to Andrej Kolárik, VP of Christian Democratic Youth of Slovakia;

AfriForum Farm Attack Report 1st Quarter 2023

AfriForum Farm Attack Report 2022

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