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Please HELP to STOP GENOCIDE in South Africa on whites with Afrikaans as mother tongue and farming as an occupation. This minority is being raped, tortured, and murdered in SA since 1994. No other reported crimes take place with more brutality and mystery than these murders. Please let the Human Right Watch in South Africa report on this issue which affects a very high percentage of this minority but occupies a low percentage of overall crimes. The Human Rights Watch in South Africa did not mention it, the government in South Africa denies this as being a problem, and the media of the world does not mention it either. It is done with such military precision and handled in such a way that nobody make an issue out of it. It will soon be a thousand out the the approximately 40,000 white Afrikaans-speaking farmers to die with such barbaric brutality. Attached is a Bulletin from the Transvaal Agricultural Union which is the only organization that is worried about this genocidal problem on this group mentioned above. The climate and attitude created by the SA government and the SA media is of such that, when whites are murdered they kind of "deserved" that. Please help stop this and let the definition of racism apply to all groups not only to whites. Living in SA today as a white man is also being a living symbol of racism, that is how far it has gone by now. There is no equality in the application of the law, and your treatment by the police depends on what skin colour you have. This will also apply to detention, the handling of your case etc.. The current government had a moratorium on statistics on these crimes executed against humanity. The current South African government also frequently threaten the Afrikaans radio station - Radio Pretoria - to take away their license. These are all the attempts to oppress our human rights, rights of free association and to humiliate our culture and language in order to deny us our protection as a minority and to please the majority in this senseless power play of the politicians. They do not even serve the interest of the majority, because for all that go wrong in South Africa, we the white Afrikaans-speaking people get blamed. Please help prevent another disaster. SOUTH AFRICA BULLETIN from the headquarters of the TRANSVAAL AGRICULTURAL UNION6 JUNE 2001 NOW THEY'RE ASSAULTING FARM CHILDREN!A completely traumatized young boy was found naked and bound to a farm fence after his parents had been shot to death in their bed this week. When found by the police, the boy was too shocked to speak. His mouth had been stuffed with grass and he was suffering from exposure. A daughter crept into her room while the brutal assault and murder of her parents took place on their farm near Groblersdal. The fact that the police came quickly after being notified is said to have saved the life of the young son. Nothing was stolen from the house and both parents had been shot in the head. The double murder was the third fatal attack of this type to occur within a week. In the Ceres district, a farmer and his wife were both shot in the head, while a farm couple in King Williamstown, Eastern Cape were bludgeoned to death with a blunt instrument. Their bodies were only found several days later. SOUTH AFRICAN CRIME STATISTICS - A HORRIBLE REALITYIt is still not quite clear why the SA government placed a moratorium on crime statistics from July 2000. Everyone in South Africa knows crime is out of control. Crime statistics released this week by the Ministry of Safety and Security show a marked increase in property crimes such as robbery and theft, while according to the new figures, the murder rate went down. The statistics were however "unreliable" said Safety and Security Minister Steve Tshwete because his department is busy installing a new computerized tallying system. Figures given are based on a number of crimes "per 100,000 of population". Based on an estimated population of 42 million, the figures indicate there were more than 20 000 murders in SA last year, more than 26 000 attempted murders, 95 000 robberies with aggravating circumstances, 50 000 reported rapes (it is said that only around 20% of rapes are ever reported), 260 000 serious assaults and 239 000 common assaults. More than 298 000 homes and 87 000 businesses were broken into and more than 96 000 vehicles were stolen. All in all, 2.4 million serious crimes were reported in the year 2000. It is reported on the Internet that 96 farmers and their staff were killed and/or tortured to death since the moratorium came into being in July 2000. This figure is up to May 30, 2001, a total of 10 months or nearly 10 murders per month. These figures were garnered from undertakers, church and community leaders, journalists, residents, agricultural organizations and insurance companies. Excerpt from the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR) homepage:Farm ViolenceIn addition to the above elements of the Violence and Transition research programme, CSVR Research Consultant Jonny Steinberg is working on an 18-month research project funded through an individual grant to him by the Open Society Institute and the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation. The project focuses on the epidemic of violent attacks against white farmers that began in earnest in 1994 and will explore whether there is a connection between this new pattern of violence and the birth of democracy in South Africa. The researcher is testing the hypothesis that the symbolic force of political equality has profoundly reshaped the mores of the rural poor, eroding the legitimacy of the caste-like relations that characterized the South African countryside, leaving the once powerful families of the South African hinterland vulnerable to attack. Ethnographic studies will be conducted in three farming districts that have witnessed a series of recent attacks, charting the changing relationship between black and white communities during the transition to democracy. The work done so far by Jonny Steinberg on violence on farms has already positioned CSVR to undertake work on behalf of the Department of Safety and Security's rural safety task team in respect of their rural safety plan. This has included an evaluation of the rural safety plan in Piet Retief, the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands, Tzaneen and Mooi River, as well as advice to the National Safety And Security Secretariat on the construction of a national research project on rural crime. Challenges and Future PlansViolence and Transition ProjectThis has proved to be a much more substantial project than originally envisaged, which inevitably has meant more gradual progress than expected. However, it is also proving to be a key research project for the Centre and is likely to be completed by December 2000. The challenge for 2000 will be to integrate the collected information on the various project areas into one multifaceted narrative. The aim is to develop a meta-theory on violence in transition and then use this information to effect policy changes in South Africa and to offer comparative advice in other countries in transition. Initial findings of the project are already confirming earlier CSVR research, and the hypothesis that the boundaries between political and criminal violence of the past, and to some extent the present, are blurred. A new understanding of violence in its multiple forms in South Africa is required, as well as intervention programmes designed to address complex social phenomena: tasks to which the CSVR authors of the integrated report remain highly committed.Farm ViolenceThis project will end in June 2001 by which time it will have produced significant research on the changing nature of rural relationships in the South African transition. Furthermore, this research will result in the production of a television documentary on farm attacks, to be co-produced by CSVR in August / September 2000.
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