South Africa P.I.G.: VIOLENT CRIME

Showing posts with label VIOLENT CRIME. Show all posts

The world's least safe destinations

Online MSN Travel UK asked nearly 3,000 British holidaymakers where they feel most and least safe, based on holidays over the last three years. Read on for the countdown of top 10 places that most travellers felt least safe in. After you've finished, discover which hotspots made in onto the list of places people felt most safe in. <img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5573357527852890818" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhizziK8ccgh4HC1w5mBDEWCYrdWLnxNFyhcVon6IygSHln9A1PDDuiWOgn1BU1EZ9fpPDZBe8IuooIJdSs-284Ufh14LlVhlV3vjionx6Vh1mMc43kgCGw-6T5N03c8Kczkeww6gY_9WIz/s400/bigfive-crime.jpg" style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 282px; CURSOR: hand" />The countries that made it onto the top 10 list of the world's least safe destinations 10: Dominican Republic Rating: 3.9 Why: Incidents of crime and violence, credit card cloning and fraud are common. 9: Cuba Rating: 3.8 Why: Opportunistic theft is common. 8: Tunisia Rating: 3.6 Why: Recent political unrest and protests 7: Thailand Rating: 3.6 Why: Political upheaval 6: Egypt Rating: 3.5 Why: Current political turbulence 5: Dubai Rating: 3.4 Why: Cultural differences 4: Jamaica Rating: 3.2 Why: High levels of crime and violence 3: Bulgaria Rating: 2.5 Why: Over-charging and robberies 2: South Africa Rating: 2 Why: High level of crime, many fatal road accidents. 1: Mexico Rating: 1.8 Why: High level of drug-related violence, criminal activity, armed robberies & theft. The countries that made it onto the top 10 list of the world's safest destinations 10: Switzerland - Rating: 7.1 9: Singapore - Rating: 7.4 8: Italy - Rating: 7.6 7: Florida - Rating: 7.9 6: Australia - Rating: 8 5: Denmark - Rating: 8 4: New Zealand - Rating: 8.3 3: Cyprus - Rating: 9.4 2: France - Rating: 9.5 1: Spain - Rating: 9.8 WHY? For all reasons South Africa is NOT! <ul><li>safety and wellbeing are of prime importance </li><li>...has one of the world's highest personal and property safety records. </li><li>crime rates are low, good healthcare, efficient transport, multilingual locals, violent crime is virtually unheard of. </li><li>clean, organised and civil unrest is almost unheard of </li><li>relatively uncrowded streets, clean and orderly, streets and pavements are well-lit at night and muggings are rare </li><li>easy to travel around, has a stable economy and low crime rate </li><li>hospitals and airports are modern </li></ul>Source - <a href="http://travel.uk.msn.com/inspiration/adventure-activities/photos.aspx?cp-documentid=156067311">http://travel.uk.msn.com/inspiration/adventure-activities/photos.aspx?cp-documentid=156067311</a>

The world's least safe destinations

Online MSN Travel UK asked nearly 3,000 British holidaymakers where they feel most and least safe, based on holidays over the last three yea...

2:07 PM

The thing that drove this family out of South Africa against their will

<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhem6Is57bhWIc-0kbkgruzGYIT58-_jiRzIQIAbYo_lEuXRpTE3MPzr1VhoS_rPQtiLy0HZMH9n4sBAqVKhOfWhDZP3mhkF59NpJ915NXRbGtKBl64mGoKBMQzdK8uipamQGBEK9dqGddN/s1600/BLACK+DEATH.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5562142796633149330" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhem6Is57bhWIc-0kbkgruzGYIT58-_jiRzIQIAbYo_lEuXRpTE3MPzr1VhoS_rPQtiLy0HZMH9n4sBAqVKhOfWhDZP3mhkF59NpJ915NXRbGtKBl64mGoKBMQzdK8uipamQGBEK9dqGddN/s400/BLACK+DEATH.jpg" style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 300px; CURSOR: hand" /></a> Alex and his family did not leave this country because of the crumbling public service system. Those problems were “workable”. They had their own electricity generator, purified their own water, and had private health care. Nor were they put off by concerns for the country’s future. Quite the opposite, actually. They were “in for the fight of putting South Africa back together”. Then why did they leave? Alex says they were pushed out of South Africa against their will. He speaks of anger at having to see everything he worked for, for 20 years, go down the drain. People who told him he was brave to immigrate had it all wrong. It had nothing to do with being brave: he was afraid. Fear drove them out of South Africa: Those of you who have been a victim of crime can attest to that cold fear, that fear you can only know once you have been through it and if you're lucky survived. I remember one of the cops who found me tied up after one of the incidents saying to me: "You don't get a second chance like this twice in life". After three home invasions and two shootings while shopping at their local mall, the family came to the end of their tether: I had reached a point where I was surviving on two hours sleep a night for two years and we were literally taking shifts. I can't say I miss South Africa because the lifestyle I missed is no longer there; one cannot braai outside without half an eye out for intruders, one can no longer simply sleep on the beach or the side of the road during holidays, nor really go for walks and enjoy nature, one cannot go out and enjoy a summers evening without constantly watching your back. So while I do miss the days of doing that, I know that it does not exist for now in South Africa and therefore there is nothing to miss. So for now I am happy doing my own laundry, it really doesn't take that long and is a good education for the kids, I no longer have a drunk gardener I am terrified of firing for fear of reprisal, knocking on my windows and harassing the household when he's been drinking. Or a security guard who may just turn on me one day. Yes I do miss the days when people had respect for people and life in South Africa and life was good.... <a href="http://www.news24.com/MyNews24/Beyond-Borders/Most-expats-didnt-want-to-leave-20110104">but that no longer exists there</a> black or white. I want to point out that this family’s living standard was way above average. Most South Africans don’t employ servants and security guards. And just as well. A cop once told me that practically all house robberies are inside jobs.

The thing that drove this family out of South Africa against their will

Alex and his family did not leave this country because of the crumbling public service system. Those problems were “workable”. They had thei...

9:50 AM

Business owner stabbed and stoned to death

The owner of a garage in Shannon in the Free State was stabbed and pelted to death with stones, police said on Tuesday. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOYMTqADsTtfg5F18XfshVW0v53PCkuiOFYmdu9QSPAD_ilzByH456Qj2w0ElHG1tHzbZ6CyqnxZdA6btOiJ0yK98MzK182jOt1zvpY7y3nBxiSHLi6FcYIgmuVTVQr1czUVQGzRL-J6rS/s1600/free-state-murder.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5555899069755085122" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOYMTqADsTtfg5F18XfshVW0v53PCkuiOFYmdu9QSPAD_ilzByH456Qj2w0ElHG1tHzbZ6CyqnxZdA6btOiJ0yK98MzK182jOt1zvpY7y3nBxiSHLi6FcYIgmuVTVQr1czUVQGzRL-J6rS/s320/free-state-murder.jpg" style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 300px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 225px; CURSOR: hand" /></a>BLOEMFONTEIN. – Mr Hennie Viljoen was ambushed on Monday December 27 2010 and bludgeoned to death by armed black men who were waiting for him at the entrance to his Bloemspruit smallholding near Bloemfontein shortly after he had withdrawn cash from a nearby cashpoint. He had stepped from his Peugeot 407 to open the entrance gate to the homestead when he was killed. He was stabbed in his arm and his chest; as well as hit with stones on his head and died on the scene. The assailants fled with an unknown amount of cash and the man's Peugeot vehicle. The car was later found overturned on a road in Bloemspruit. The attackers had fled on foot by the time police got there. No arrests have been made.Anyone with information can contact the investigating officer Warrant Officer Michael Kortman from the Organised Crime Unit in Bloemfontein at 082-554-2729.

Business owner stabbed and stoned to death

The owner of a garage in Shannon in the Free State was stabbed and pelted to death with stones, police said on Tuesday. BLOEMFONTEIN. – Mr H...

2:50 PM

Why are SA cops “shocked” at murder and hijacking of British tourist?

<div align="center">Over 700 people have been murdered in Gugulethu since 2005</div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5540319033938058642" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBcnYYJzd6GAShaP95pCb4Jx959La22si0lRkcpz6_2GZtmNBnhzVGK1hVJREnA8n1J8vhm4LNOQmQJNF9QH8W0SI9GYqOeMaMBBhjIaRgv6LRLwGVzr9pPai32kKR6UENH6-tEbhuh7Ns/s400/cape-gugulethu.gif" style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 173px; CURSOR: hand" /> <img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5540315875350663730" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI5bf1FFmUJmLLSshLkw0YZcz_NAcz0xxGnewNtU0QTXcixTgkioyurx3ziX22L1X36ElHdUdUV0uzNnFKPBq5NPVE5lmeHh6PPwj0X4foAU0BizflxcIbj5NCqAkiEV3TokL55MQdE_rd/s400/mzoli-meat_1762191i.jpg" style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 305px; CURSOR: hand" /> <img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5540321530760197650" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoBd9AO6CnaP4bBVZJer2Gkak5VaAmLSnHuWSyPil-csux5c6j9IChwgx3VwFoRUL0H94z1MSnlPIbEifg4le229mBr3lvnsTDySI8CFn9lafrgSIkVpVxZRsxtFPQ83WL6AfNNyJKQSMy/s400/MZOLI%2527S.jpg" style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 266px; CURSOR: hand" /> Mzoli's - Gugulethu township in Cape Town an outdoor barbecue restaurant and bar which bills itself as an ‘authentic taste of township life’. Jamie Oliver visited it last year and in a seven-page spread in his magazine, described the food as ‘heaven’ and ‘totally sexy’. He added: ‘In this part of the world, fresh is where it’s at. Just kill it. Gut it. Skin it. Eat it.’ ‘When I go back to Cape Town, I am absolutely going to Mzoli’s.’ The <a href="http://www.sairr.org.za/media/media-releases/Police%20out%20of%20touch%20with%20reality%20over%20Gugulethu%20murder.pdf/view">SA Institute of Race Relations</a> questioned why the South African police were “shocked” at the murder and hijacking of a British tourist. As international and local media agencies have reported a British national and his wife were attacked in the township of Gugulethu on the urban periphery of Cape Town while honeymooning in the city. The couple were kidnapped by armed robbers and the wife was later found murdered. In response to media coverage the <a href="http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71656?oid=211229&sn=Detail&pid=71616">South African Police Force has released a statement</a> expressing "shock" at the murder. The police are out of touch with reality for expressing shock at the murder of a tourist in Gugulethu in Cape Town, the SA Institute of Race Relations said on Tuesday. "Data in the possession of the South African Institute of Race Relations shows that over 700 people have been murdered in Gugulethu since 2005. In the year to March 2010 some 110 murders occurred within the Gugulethu police precinct," the SAIRR said. "This amounts to one murder every two-and-a-half days for five consecutive years. How under such circumstances can the police claim to be ‘shocked’ or surprised at what happened to the British couple?" The SAIRR said if the police were truly shocked, then it suggested that "the police’s senior management is out of touch with the reality of life on the ground for people in areas such as Gugulethu who have been left to run the gauntlet of violent crime on a horrific scale". The institute said it was "revealing" that it took the murder of a foreign national for the police's senior management to take stock of the state of affairs in Gugulethu. 'This murder of a newlywed woman has become the symbol of our country' Many South Africans rightly deserve to feel deeply let down by the performance of their government and insulted when it feigns shock and surprise at violence that has become commonplace in South Africa. We live in a country where human life means absolutely nothing to violent thugs. But this one murder - of a beautiful young woman who had just married - has become the symbol of our country to the outside world. This is evidenced by the British media's coverage of the murder. The Daily Mail report on the tragic death of the British bride ended by concluding: "South Africa has one of the worst crime rates in the world." Similar observations have appeared in other publications with The Telegraph reporting that 46 murders are committed each day in South Africa, "a statistic that led to a substantial rise in security during the World Cup". South Africa is indeed a violent country and far too many South Africans are intimately acquainted with this knowledge. And this murder resurrects the doubts and prejudice that surfaced before the World Cup earlier this year. It also reinforces the idea that the safety foreign visitors enjoyed during the tournament in June was a mirage. This murder then shows how life has returned to normal after the soccer fans departed. Anni Dewani's body will be returned to her home and her widower will leave too. Life, as they say, will go on. But it is a life that has become frighteningly abnormal because of our acceptance of barbaric acts of cruelty and violence as a normal feature of South Africa. *Gugulethu made headlines in 1993 when an American exchange student, Amy Biehl, was stabbed and stoned to death. On August 25, 1993, she was driving black friends home to Guguletu township when the car was attacked by a group of youths chanting "one settler, one bullet" -- urging death to all white citizens. The youths stoned the car and struck Ms. Biehl on the head. She fled, bleeding, but the youths cornered her and stabbed and stoned her to death. She was 26 years old.

Why are SA cops “shocked” at murder and hijacking of British tourist?

Over 700 people have been murdered in Gugulethu since 2005 Mzoli's - Gugulethu township in Cape Town an outdoor barbecue restaurant an...

3:27 PM

British bride abducted and murdered by armed carjackers while on honeymoon in Cape Town - South Africa

UK tourist's killing makes world headlines<img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5539834008732707282" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFrvNVadz9JvrlOl7Q_8I8OrfMRa1v9W17mL8Uyx-Ptfsj8jIkimSXU0G_WFUVngXr-bdwHMXmBcKGjEUw5ZCZ7PgEFzYFAdkEkkOG9NuciZqeUhQZt4TfXRecVBMqRNUCoP9nh5mazyXn/s400/cara_south_af_1164497a.jpg" style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 194px; CURSOR: hand" /><ul><li>SOUTH Africa is suffering a crime epidemic. </li><li>Last year there were 14,915 car-jackings, 41 a day, and 18,148 murders. </li><li>Most were in townships. </li><li>There were 50,000 rapes. </li><li>Thousands more went unreported. </li><li>And there were 200,000 cases of assault and more than 18,000 house break-ins. </li></ul>Brit newlywed's body found after honeymoon carjacking murderNews of the killing of a British tourist was all over the UK media this morning, with newspapers reminding readers of South Africa's high "carjacking" and murder rates.<a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1329361/Newlywed-Britons-wife-shot-dead-robbers-hijack-South-Africa.html">The Daily Mail</a> website announced the story with the headline: "Honeymoon horror: Newlywed Briton's wife is killed after robbers hijack them in taxi".<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/14/woman-killed-honeymoon-south-africa">The Guardian</a> newspaper's website also reported on the story saying "South Africa has one of the highest crime rates in the world, with an average of 46 murders a day. Last year, there were 13 902 carjackings in South Africa, down from 14 915 in 2008-09. The annual murder rate fell by 8.6% to dip below 17 000 for the first time since nationwide records began in 1995-96," Broadcaster <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11753933">BBC</a> , <a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3227667/Bride-butchered-on-honeymoon-in-South-Africa.html#ixzz15NDwc2Cf">The Sun</a> and <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/southafrica/8133226/British-wife-of-a-millionaire-businessman-killed-in-South-Africa.html">The Telegraph</a> also reported on the incident, which drew many comments from online readers. <blockquote>"Jules", from California in the United States, said of South Africans on the Daily Mail website: "The bottom line is until these people decide to help themselves, nothing will change." "Austin", also from the United States, added: "Of all the beautiful places in the world, WHY would anyone in their right minds go for a honeymoon in such a vile, god-forsaken place?" Several expats commented out of Australia, saying they left South Africa to ensure safe lives for their children, and that the country was a "mess".</blockquote>Bride butchered on her honeymoon in South Africa A bride on honeymoon with her wealthy British husband has been murdered in a South Africa. Anni Dewani, 28, and hubby Shrien, 31, had just left a restaurant with a driver in a VW Sharan when they were hijacked by two gunmen. The driver was bundled out of the vehicle, which then drove off at speed with the newlyweds inside. An hour later — around 11 miles away — the killers stopped and threw Mr Dewani from the vehicle. He raised the alarm by flagging down a passing motorist. A police patrol later spotted the Sharan abandoned two miles away in the township of Khayelitsha near Cape Town. The blood-soaked body of Mrs Dewani was found on the back seat. She was covered in bruises and is feared to have been raped. Locals told police they had heard shots. It is believed she was hit in the head, but other reports last night said she may have been stabbed. Read more <a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3227667/Bride-butchered-on-honeymoon-in-South-Africa.html">here</a> Related Articles <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/southafrica/8134109/South-African-townships-still-dangerous-post-apartheid.html">South African townships remain dangerous</a> 15 Nov 2010 <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/southafrica/8134265/South-African-murder-travel-advice.html">South African murder: travel advice</a> 15 Nov 2010 <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/southafrica/8133635/Police-report-of-South-African-honeymoon-killing.html">Police report of South African honeymoon killing</a> 15 Nov 2010 <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/southafrica/8132687/British-woman-on-honeymoon-in-Cape-Town-killed-by-carjackers.html">British woman on honeymoon in Cape Town killed by carjackers</a> 14 Nov 2010 <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/southafrica/8134397/South-African-murder-highlights-dangerous-side-of-Cape-Town.html">South African murder highlights dangerous side of Cape Town</a> 15 Nov 2010 <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/southafrica/8133226/British-wife-of-a-millionaire-businessman-killed-in-South-Africa.html">British wife of a millionaire businessman killed in South Africa</a>

British bride abducted and murdered by armed carjackers while on honeymoon in Cape Town - South Africa

UK tourist's killing makes world headlines SOUTH Africa is suffering a crime epidemic. Last year there were 14,915 car-jackings, 41 a da...

9:27 AM

Violence top cause of death in Gauteng

Just under one third of recorded non-natural deaths in Gauteng are caused by violence, the SA Medical Research Council(MRC) said. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrk8RU7N9dFZQl0kWUCZhavP03nmMZAyaNrt4VeYwb7DRSr3Tf9wHfU5uj9HvS5sCm_tUvYdvDkJNd5Jkns3TVFFbLrBFRUhXbiVhSqA_T2tEDo-noR3Y4OyL1sHlUo_3SgAZYwRXml7HV/s1600/crime-blood.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5535818413967767650" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrk8RU7N9dFZQl0kWUCZhavP03nmMZAyaNrt4VeYwb7DRSr3Tf9wHfU5uj9HvS5sCm_tUvYdvDkJNd5Jkns3TVFFbLrBFRUhXbiVhSqA_T2tEDo-noR3Y4OyL1sHlUo_3SgAZYwRXml7HV/s400/crime-blood.jpg" style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 300px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 281px; CURSOR: hand" /></a>Violence and homicide accounted for 32.4 percent of non-natural deaths caused by injury, with transport second at 28.7 percent and suicide third at 11.3 percent. The figures were part of a presentation on fatal injuries in Gauteng last year, an initiative by MRC and the University of Johannesburg, supported by the department of health. Of 10 528 non-natural deaths in Gauteng where the external cause was known, firearms were the top cause of death with 1 630 at 15.5%, followed by pedestrian injury at 12.7% and sharp objects resulted in 1 091 deaths at 10.4% and blunt force 1 064. In youth aged 15 and 29 years, adults (30-44 years) and older adults aged 45-59 years, firearms were the leading causes of death. Injuries were the second leading cause of death in South Africa, behind HIV. The figures were based on 11,329 non-natural deaths registered at nine medico-legal laboratories in Gauteng. source - <a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/">www.timeslive.co.za/</a>

Violence top cause of death in Gauteng

Just under one third of recorded non-natural deaths in Gauteng are caused by violence, the SA Medical Research Council(MRC) said. V iolence ...

2:41 PM

How many Blacks died under Apartheid?

BY Vusile Tshabalala (a black journalist) At the start of the year 1900, the number of (Black) African South Africans was found to be 3,5-million according to the British colonial government census. By 1954, our (Black) African population had soared to 8,5-million — and by 1990, there were a full 35-million of us — all carefully managed, closely policed, counted, shunted around in homelands and townships — and all of us chafing and griping under the suppressive yoke of the Afrikaner Broederbond’s rigid racial segregation system. During apartheid, our (black) population grew apace however because we also had the benefit of the Broers’ medical knowledge and their excellent agricultural skills. Our population growth and our average life expectancy in fact showed us (black)Africans in South Africa to be in better than average health when compared to other Africans on the rest of the continent: in the decades prior to the official policy of apartheid, (which was started in 1948), the average life expectancy of black African South Africans was only 38 years. However, during the last decade of the apartheid era from 1948 to 1994, our average life expectancy had risen to 64 years — on a par with Europe’s average life expectancy. Moreover, our infant death rates had by then also been reduced from 174 to 55 infant deaths per thousand, higher than Europe’s, but considerably lower than the rest of the African continent’s. And the (black) African population in South Africa had by then also increased by 50% percent. (source: “a crime against humanity: analysing repression of the Apartheid State”, by Max Coleman of the Human Rights Committee). Deaths due to political violence during Apartheid - from 1948 - 1994Max Coleman’s authoritative book analyses all deaths due to political violence from 1948 to 1994 in South Africa and Namibia. According to the HRC statistics, 21,000 people died in political violence in South Africa during apartheid – of whom 14,000 people died during the six-year transition process from 1990 to 1994. The book lists the number of incidents, dates, and those involved. This includes SA Defence Force actions, for instance the 600 deaths at Kassinga in Angola during the war in 1978. Of those deaths, the vast majority, 92%, have been primarily due to (blacks) Africans killing (blacks) Africans — such as the inter-tribal battles for territory: this book’s detailed analyses of the period June 1990 to July 1993 indicates a total of 8580 (92%) of the 9,325 violent deaths during the period June 1990 to July 1993 were caused by Africans killing Africans, or as the news media often calls it, “Black on Black” violence – hostel killings, Inkatha Freedom Party versus ANC killlings, and taxi and turf war violence. The activities of the Civil Cooperation Bureau as outlined by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, were also included in these figures. The security forces caused 518 deaths (5.6%) throughout this period. <img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5533502255176580754" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbei9bNekMkHEbgSbf-cCp2jhnTeH2_WQ0EhSKLFhuYB6Im04RugE-UIJ4fiXWRWacMwdIrHorvzp7XJjX5DDlV1YWZgfU7hD33XWKYpVmxdlem0umvp_2XHtnesBZwULxkfavwjL3u1Nl/s400/Apartheid+murders.gif" style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 213px; CURSOR: hand" />And again, during the transitional period, the primary causes of deaths were not security forces nor white right-wing violence against blacks, but mainly due to “black-on-black necklace murders”, tribal conflict between the ANC-IFP, bombs by the ANC and PAC’s military wings in shopping centers, landmines on farm roads, etc. After Apartheid: Violent deaths from 1994 to 2000: The SA Police reports that a total of 174,220 people died violent deaths, from crime-related violence, between 1994 and the year 2000. The full report, <a href="http://www.frontline.org.za/articles/murder_southafrica.doc" target="_blank">Murder in South Africa: A Comparison of Past and Present</a> So my question is this: “Did Apartheid ever kill as many Africans as are now being killed?" The Killing Fields of Post-Apartheid South Africa THE SOURCE: August 2001 <a href="http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/321.htm">http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/321.htm</a>

How many Blacks died under Apartheid?

BY Vusile Tshabalala (a black journalist) At the start of the year 1900, the number of (Black) African South Africans was found to be 3,5-mi...

1:19 AM

HIDDEN SIDE OF THE RAINBOW NATION

By Bill Coles AS Nelson Mandela swept into power on a wave of euphoria 16 years ago, South Africa was optimistically dubbed the Rainbow Nation. But on the eve of the first World Cup ever to be staged on the African continent, the colour is fast fading from this rainbow dream. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidc55y6pZIzoTbXxD-3lhV24nLfxiLMLBm8RBY0h6cFehZaOQxppOailch8qoS8uzQhTzGMGkm9OqL4qoXox0u7xNvg3KPl2QKJfKm8EvoeCjVTadmqhRE3jml14z0yxdIUjgjtbM9u3vm/s1600/mandela-violence.jpg"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHG3cbLbT7k0rojIpk32W1P7Sp_FhaVpre1gMhNG9g2cVpprEEXQxIRpP0_x5bqdnuDb2FcPiFgWP-qrQIFWpwcD0UINKnJ0oGfZrFHgIXqP9Pvdf9UzbiD4ouZu-_eeSbby6e9fgb5DmJ/s1600/anc-terrorists.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5471927275638931586" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHG3cbLbT7k0rojIpk32W1P7Sp_FhaVpre1gMhNG9g2cVpprEEXQxIRpP0_x5bqdnuDb2FcPiFgWP-qrQIFWpwcD0UINKnJ0oGfZrFHgIXqP9Pvdf9UzbiD4ouZu-_eeSbby6e9fgb5DmJ/s400/anc-terrorists.jpg" style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 289px; CURSOR: hand" /></a>Crime is now so rampant that more than 50 people are being murdered in South Africa every day. These brutal killings – often accompanied by rape – are so rife that they merit only a few paragraphs in the local papers. On top of this, the richest country in Africa is being swept by an Aids epidemic, with some 11 per cent of its 48million population now infected with the HIV virus. Average life expectancy is just 50 years. The tensions are also beginning to show in the much-trumpeted harmony between black, white and coloured, as it was revealed this month that more than 3,000 white farmers have been murdered since President Mandela took power. Retired journalist Brian O’Hanlon, who has lived in scenic Hermanus, near Cape Town, for the past eight years, said: “I would not go near a black township and I would not expect the people from a black township to come in to the white areas. “There are murders every day but if you’re a resident you become inured to it. If you didn’t, you would probably have to go back to England or my native Ireland.” With the World Cup just four weeks away, many believe the organiser Fifa is now practically running the country in order to ensure that South Africa presents a clean, wholesome image to the rest of the world. Thousands of beggars and street children have been shipped out of Johannesburg and Cape Town and crammed into tin-hut settlements. An army of 44,000 police officers – more than a quarter of South Africa’s entire force – is dedicated solely to ensuring the safety of World Cup spectators. Some 8,500 of these officers will be wearing full body armour shipped in from France. Meanwhile football fans are being blitzed with advice on how to stay safe, with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office warning of “a very high level of crime”. Yet despite all the fanfare, even Archbishop Desmond Tutu, 78, was this week lamenting how crime and corruption were ruining his homeland. The Nobel Peace Prize winner said: “Something happened to us. It looks like we have lost our pride. It is not because of poverty. “We are prisoners in our homes. Look at what is happening to the farmers. But it is not only the farmers. You read something horrific almost every day. We should ask ourselves: ‘Hey, what is going on?'” For some, the constant menace of crime has become so traumatic that they’ve had no option but to quit the country. Since the end of apartheid, some 800,000 white South Africans out of a total of 4.4 million have emigrated, abandoning hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland. Mr O’Hanlon said: “You have to box clever and you mustn’t put yourself in a situation where there might be trouble. You mix with your own.” Almost every South African has some horror story to tell that has either occurred personally to them or to friends and family. These crime stories range from car-jackings at gunpoint – which are now so common they don’t even get a mention in the papers – to being pistol-whipped in your own home. Philip Oliver, 41, left South Africa three years ago for work reasons and now can only marvel at how free and easy life seems in the UK. Performance coach Mr Oliver, a father of one, says: “In South Africa you have to be constantly aware of the dangers of crime. I have to pinch myself now that I’m in Britain. It may sound perfectly normal but here I can walk from my car to my hotel without a care in the world. It’s an absolute delight. You could never do that in South Africa where you live with this kind of shadow of crime over your life.” He adds: “In Cape Town you can be living in an incredible apartment which looks over Table Mountain but you’re aware that it’s risky to walk there. It’s a heavy price to pay in South Africa but if that’s all you know, you accept it.” The most notorious of South Africa’s cities is Johannesburg, which is one of the hubs of organised crime. In the run-up to the World Cup, dealers are stockpiling huge quantities of cocaine and the amphetamine “tik”. Just near Johannesburg’s Soccer City stadium is the lawless ghetto of Diepsloot which is seeing four murders every week. A taxi driver was recently shot dead because he refused to hand over the equivalent of 50p in change. Vigilante squads now roam the streets while kangaroo courts dispense violent and summary justice. One British expat moved to Cape Town after seeing his Durban home ransacked for the third time. During one of these robberies he was tied up and blindfolded. The expat, speaking anonymously, said: “When South Africa won the right to host the World Cup, we thought this was gold but now we learn that for six weeks Fifa will run this country. The informal traders who thought they would make a killing cannot go anywhere near the stadiums. “Of course security is a priority, with the crime and theft rates the highest in the world. Petty crime will be at a high level. The other day in Cape Town and without any announcement, 250 police and armoured cars drove through the streets in a show of strength. It was laughable. The police in the cars were all overweight, their beer bellies hanging over their belts. They couldn’t have run 50 metres.” Seraj Jones, a senior sports writer with Media 24 in Cape Town, was equally dismissive of Fifa: “They are throwing their weight around this country, especially in terms of monitoring the ticket allocations. Nothing moves here without Fifa’s approval. But I’m not at all sure that the infrastructure is going to be finished on time. I can see it all as I come in to work every morning and I’d be amazed if the transport system was ready in four weeks.” Since 1994 the murder toll among South African farmers has been alarming, with 3,000 dead including recently white supremacist Eugene Terre’Blanche. Almost all were white Afrikaners and many were tortured before they were killed. One farmer, Manie Potgieter, was seconds from being shot dead by three armed raiders. Mr Potgieter, 30, was attacked at his farm in Vredefort, south of Johannesburg. He was tied up and forced to watch his wife Helena, 28, being stripped. “She was telling me in Afrikaans not to worry,” he said. I just prayed. The man said: ‘Listen you white b******. I have Aids. We are now going to rape your wife and give her Aids too. Then, we kill you.'” Luckily the attackers were disturbed and fled. Race relations have now deteriorated so much in South Africa that Julius Malema, the firebrand leader of the ANC’s Youth League, has been whipping up rallies with an old anti-apartheid struggle song which includes the words, “Shoot the Boer”. He caused further outrage by telling a BBC journalist: “Don’t come here with that white tendency” before throwing him out of a press conference. Mr Oliver, who moved from South Africa to Edinburgh, said: “You just get used to hearing about the violence and sometimes if you’re unlucky you experience it yourself. Of course you do all the usual things to stay safe. You’ll have burglar bars on the doors and windows as well as alarms and you’ll hire a private security firm to provide an armed response. “You’re also on constant alert when you’re out of your house, when you’re driving or parking your car. You have this natural awareness of what’s going on around you. But sometimes it’s not enough. “A couple I know from Johannesburg had five youths break into their house and their daughter was home alone. She was very distressed. That was the last straw. They were out of the country within weeks and ended up in the UK.” He added: “I don’t know many South Africans who are not schizophrenic about their love and hate for the place. If you could wave a magic wand and remove the crime then I’d go back there because it’s God’s own country.”

HIDDEN SIDE OF THE RAINBOW NATION

By Bill Coles AS Nelson Mandela swept into power on a wave of euphoria 16 years ago, South Africa was optimistically dubbed the Rainbow Nati...

9:25 AM

Horrible crimes - South Africa hell on earth

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheUS9As_dazdeUsTxTF87XD2UHWMXgCFQSsuMKXSdqwIN3fKO7Japr86IhoGKHtLdUo27LhXfdDcnJkM9dddxjM0-cfE-IAFqsbci9KHcSBH1lpSIk8MmSoQdMaezEGFIcLGoQ5eF7J2T1/s1600/baby-marzanne-kruger.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheUS9As_dazdeUsTxTF87XD2UHWMXgCFQSsuMKXSdqwIN3fKO7Japr86IhoGKHtLdUo27LhXfdDcnJkM9dddxjM0-cfE-IAFqsbci9KHcSBH1lpSIk8MmSoQdMaezEGFIcLGoQ5eF7J2T1/s400/baby-marzanne-kruger.jpg" tt="true" width="316" /></a></div>Just when I think that the criminal element cannot become any more barbaric in the perpetration of their crimes I find to my even greater horror that I was wrong. CUTE: A picture of Marzanne Kruger, 1, before she was cruelly assaulted by armed robbers. (Rapport) The tableau of horror just seems to expand even more with a <a href="http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Baby-fights-for-her-life-after-attack-20100423">tiny baby and her minder being mercilessly beaten to near death</a>, another <a href="http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Boy-calm-in-cot-as-dad-dies-20100428">baby watching from a cot as it's father bleeds to death</a> on the floor next to him, <a href="http://www.security.co.za/fullStory.asp?NewsId=15916">twenty five defenceless animals having their legs hacked off and allowed to die in agony</a>, <a href="http://news.iafrica.com/sa/2245271.htm">a young boy being set on fire by school bullies</a>, and so it goes on! What has become of our society and where will this all end? Or have we just reached a stage in our so called evolution where we revert to becoming unthinking, uncaring, barbarians with no conscience driven by sex, drugs and greed? Is it that the actions of the criminal element will just escalate, each outdoing the other in the violence used, with there being no real accountability for wrongdoing until we find ourselves in absolute hell on earth? If we do not stop and take stock of what is happening in this country, and take immediate and positive steps to eradicate this plague, I fear there is little or no hope for us. Ian Rhodes

Horrible crimes - South Africa hell on earth

Just when I think that the criminal element cannot become any more barbaric in the perpetration of their crimes I find to my even greater ho...

5:29 AM

SA right-wing leader Eugene Terreblanche brutally murdered

South African leader of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging(AWB-Afrikaner Resistance Movement) Eugene Terreblanche has been beaten and hacked to death, by two black farm workers with pangas and machetes, on his farm outside Ventersdorp in the north-west. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXWvnbLf4GAXZ2WpmDcgw0JP0ywl2TFs53wD6PY-SqVXz7PmQTzd9HMEhlY69ylG12sfIZGz_oewAVALCvo7ZNnHPTjODfqTu5fsmb6HEGOrtrp_3cQ9WyjVe0daj_2pbtLR0x1B4qdy63/s1600/Eugene_582738b.jpg"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVdAiiihs-QnGIKCtMNKSk163Cef-SCJ4f0yUZqwo7P_75fXvhelizDPw0qy6pC8spyRZ9yqlRWqmpd8FzeHA9WhmgyaI5sdAKnIZlhj3lTzoSx7lLycd2W_i9wdQZfLcCXo0K5AYtAopi/s1600/ET+AWB+leader.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5457187227744907746" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVdAiiihs-QnGIKCtMNKSk163Cef-SCJ4f0yUZqwo7P_75fXvhelizDPw0qy6pC8spyRZ9yqlRWqmpd8FzeHA9WhmgyaI5sdAKnIZlhj3lTzoSx7lLycd2W_i9wdQZfLcCXo0K5AYtAopi/s400/ET+AWB+leader.jpg" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 281px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 351px" /></a>A province where racial tension in the rural farming community is increasingly being fuelled by irresponsible racist utterances by the ANCYL leader and personal mouthpiece of President Jacob Zuma, Julius Malema, and the North West Cosatu secretary Solly Pheto. The South African far-right movement of slain white right-wing leader Eugene Terre'Blanche said he was bludgeoned so badly he was barely recognizable and described a gory murder scene indicative of great rage when he visited the farm on Sunday."There was blood all over the place, pools on the mattress, the pillow, the floor and splattered on the walls and ceiling," he said.The fact that attackers were arrested so rapidly smacks of a cover-upThe AWB Iron Guard claims the murder had nothing to do with a wage dispute because the workers had been paid a week before the incident and the violence of the murder also does not fit the anger of a wage dispute. *Apparently the two blacks had only been working for him for three weeks before they decided to viciously murder him, about an alleged wage dispute; which indicates a possible assassination motive<a class="l" href="http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71654?oid=170111&sn=Detail" onmousedown="return clk(this.href,'','','res','1','&sig2=Fy5KeUfXWgmTYZaq3tjPuA','0CAkQFjAA')" result_index="1">Why is ANC alliance paying Terre`Blanche killers' legal fees...</a>The ruling alliance has undertaken to pay for the defence of the killers (see YCL <a href="http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71654?oid=169786&sn=Detail">statement</a>). Killing was politically motivated The murder comes amid growing anxiety about crime in South Africa and what are irresponsible and racially inflammatory sentiments and hate speech promoting incitement, from the ruling ANC party, heightened by the singing of the contentious song Dubul'ibhunu (Shoot the boer) by Julius Malema. Boer means white farmers in Afrikaans, the language of descendants of early Dutch settlers, or Afrikaners. It is also used as a derogatory term for all whites in South Africa. Last week, South Africa's High Court banned Malema from singing the racially charged apartheid-era song with the words "kill the Boer". It ruled the song was hate speech, although the ANC is appealing. A DEFIANT ANC encouraged its supporters and "future generations" to continue singing liberation songs despite the high court ruling that banned the singing of the controversial dubul' ibhunu song. The ANC insists the song is a valuable part of its cultural heritage and that the lyrics — which also refer to the farmers as thieves and rapists — are not intended literally and are therefore not hate speech. The AWB believes the killing was politically motivated, and linked it to the song urging "kill the boer" adopted by the radical youth leader of South Africa's ruling party.Julius Malema and the ANC to blame for polarisation Farm murders like animal slaughters and Zuma holds the keys to the abattoir.The ANC's youth wing has created a climate of hatred towards Afrikaners which will lead to further anarchy, Zimbabwean-style land invasions, famine and even mass murder in South Africa. Time for retribution . . . "We will not stand by and watch the 'slaughter of the Afrikaans nation' ”.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaFTtrJgVUFo59e_RUrIArHIOXOgYalWjZ5JJmKku3cHqzYWDx50ddcUIjTa2AVDJjH7XSJhUL9YjwK1vQQ5KgcOvtl-dGhmSzyok76KmqKG65SMzx2PYLxYFq45ZdUZjgwSU8jTgLLpiQ/s1600/et+FARM.bmp"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5457187433546521890" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaFTtrJgVUFo59e_RUrIArHIOXOgYalWjZ5JJmKku3cHqzYWDx50ddcUIjTa2AVDJjH7XSJhUL9YjwK1vQQ5KgcOvtl-dGhmSzyok76KmqKG65SMzx2PYLxYFq45ZdUZjgwSU8jTgLLpiQ/s400/et+FARM.bmp" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 385px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 259px" /></a>It is not only about the gruesome murder of Eugene Terre'Blanche but also the tragic fact that more than 3,000 white farmers have been brutally and barbarically murdered since the end of apartheid in 1994. The murder of Mr Terreblanche is a declaration of war by the black people of South Africa against the white people who have been killed for more than 10 years on end.Nobody is safe in South Africa The killing comes 10 weeks before South Africa prepares to host the first World Cup soccer tournament on African soil, with massive expenditures on infrastructure being questioned as hundreds of thousands of tickets and hotel rooms remain unsold.Eugene Terreblanche founded the right-wing Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB-Afrikaner Resistance Movement) to protect the rights of the Boers' descendants. The Afrikaners are descendants of the Boers, the first whites who arrived in South Africa 300 years ago and trekked into the hinterland to avoid assimilation with English-speaking settlers. Their short-lived republics, in the Orange Free State, Transvaal and northern Natal, were broken up after the 1899-1902 Anglo-Boer War. Terre'blanche wanted to reconstitute them.

SA right-wing leader Eugene Terreblanche brutally murdered

South African leader of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging(AWB-Afrikaner Resistance Movement) Eugene Terreblanche has been beaten and hacked t...

3:10 PM

SA schoolgirl butchered to death - neck slashed, hands chopped off

Another day in South Africa, another gruesome murder THE butchering of 17-year-old Anika Smit, who was found dead in the bedroom of her Pretoria home with her neck slashed and both her lower arms chopped off, has sparked outrage with many South Africans calling for government to step up its fight against crime. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji-QR87tNlTt48rqdQtrzoOQB2ALhK93KxrkfZt3eRlA-OmYzjXsKLBecwK4E6qMWAUI9-hBYTw0qFknCUBE6q_o_gvLLMjCgsBTcItIDy-kojul1prWKJOZ_m_Y5PUe17dvYRbKPn0umd/s1600-h/anka-murder.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5448629040972104114" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji-QR87tNlTt48rqdQtrzoOQB2ALhK93KxrkfZt3eRlA-OmYzjXsKLBecwK4E6qMWAUI9-hBYTw0qFknCUBE6q_o_gvLLMjCgsBTcItIDy-kojul1prWKJOZ_m_Y5PUe17dvYRbKPn0umd/s320/anka-murder.jpg" style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 304px; CURSOR: hand" /></a>The calls, which saw the Freedom Front Plus (FF+) calling for a state of emergency to be declared for security reasons, come as police are still nowhere near to tracking down and arresting her killers. Anika Smit’s naked, mutilated body was found lying on the floor in the bedroom of her Theresa Park home by her father on Wednesday shortly after he returned home from work. Her lower arms had been hacked off and she had been stabbed repeatedly in the neck. An unidentified bottle was also found in her private parts. Police believe that she might have been raped or sexually assaulted. Anika, a Grade 11 learner at Hoerskool Gerrit Maritz, was attacked at home where she had spent the day sick in bed with an ear infection. According to Anika's father, it looks like she fought back and tried to run away as the dining room table had been moved and the dining room chairs were overturned. Her murder has caused outrage among her friends and South Africans sick and tired of crime with many posting messages on social websites such as Facebook calling for government to step up its fight against crime. Anyone with information contact your nearest police station or send a detailed, anonymous tip-off to 32211 or visit www.crimeline.co.za. Her friends Facebook tribute page in memory of <a href="http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=info&ref=search&gid=391721420179" target="_blank">Anika "Tikkie" Smit</a>.

SA schoolgirl butchered to death - neck slashed, hands chopped off

Another day in South Africa, another gruesome murder THE butchering of 17-year-old Anika Smit, who was found dead in the bedroom of her Pret...

10:45 AM

South Africa is extremely dangerous

THE AGE OF DENIAL is upon us with the ANC spearheading the movement. It is the latest remedy used by the ANC to denounce and rebuff anything that has a negative impact on their not so squeaky clean reputation abroad and their tolerance of criminality and mediocre methods of dealing with it. With the Soccer World Cup on its way this tactic has gone into overdrive. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgBdZsavenSGgN-wvO5gt4nM17aFS0Hp-kiFk43-7sElp62fcmBsk4W-Vt5ihFBwB3Evd1b_WTO_zrhZKb6b3CMwCjSRaaF1BooNuumR0_rs_nxg4ZV3MHpd-8OgZWEeSkS_Z4ek4Obrk3/s1600-h/WC2010_lies_SA_is_dangerous.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5433415568367890018" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgBdZsavenSGgN-wvO5gt4nM17aFS0Hp-kiFk43-7sElp62fcmBsk4W-Vt5ihFBwB3Evd1b_WTO_zrhZKb6b3CMwCjSRaaF1BooNuumR0_rs_nxg4ZV3MHpd-8OgZWEeSkS_Z4ek4Obrk3/s400/WC2010_lies_SA_is_dangerous.jpg" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 370px" /></a>The lies about the international misconception of violent crime in South Africa are oozing out of the mouths of our politicians like drunken dribble. We have suddenly become a “safe country” with very little violent crime or criminals. Maybe back in the Stone Age you could have got away with denying the facts around a violent criminal attack or robbery because witnesses were scarce, recording equipment was non existent and lawlessness was the order of the day. What our current government needs to understand is whether they admit to it or not, guilt is assessed on its merits and the proof around the alleged actions. You cannot simply say “I didn’t do it”, or “it didn’t happen” or “I don’t know” if there is overwhelming evidence to the contrary, you did do it, it did happen and you do know. The problem is in South Africa you can say it and get away with it. There is however evidence that can substantiate that this country is extremely dangerous and the likelihood of you getting robbed at gun point is a betting mans dream the odds are so good. What amazes me most is how easily journalists can find these violent criminals to interview them yet they evade police for years. The latest furore is around the SWC and overseas companies selling self defence items such as bullet proof vests, stab proof vests and other protective gear to tourists coming to the world cup. Good for them, prevention is better than the cure and if criminals were malaria mosquitoes South Africa is a high risk area where Anopheles Gambiae are as thick as thieves and anti-violent attack precautions are critical. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXh5EwK7RvDEvKWj-9_LFM32_ylZr-naDK-rA9owf2jKtHZCSEJYa9olOr_J3rd_VSIlQ90Px5VXUiYj-h1j7kjkBN8BVkmuaAqKfHM2Fba3SR6kHiGKNodpsHzSXpkrzzLQNTCMz56JqQ/s1600-h/SWC2010_pic05.jpg"></a>Unsuspecting tourists are sitting ducks for our hardened free roaming thugs. According to our government these protective items are not necessary because we don’t have a crime problem and we are being falsely represented on the international stage. Wake up ANC, we live in a dangerous country in comparison to Europe and America where the majority of international soccer tourists live. They can be forgiven for feeling a little insecure when visiting a country with 50 murders a day, daily violent armed robberies, countless rapes, car hijackings and other violent attacks. It is time the ANC stop using denial tactics to brainwash the masses and desensitise them from reality. It doesn’t work, just because they vote for you don’t be so naïve as to think they believe everything you say. It is clearly evident that the majority of the voters vote with their hearts and gratitude for the ANC’s endurance through the struggle and not with their brains. These same citizens live amongst the killers, rapists, robbers and psychopaths and it’s difficult for all of us listen to the hogwash bleated out by our ministers and SAFA leaders who say we are safe and crime is over exaggerated. Surely there must be a problem when you are a deputy minister of self enrichment, minister of luxury procurement or a youth leader of woodwork protected from crime and threat with 10 body guards each. Please then explain to a tourist why wearing a bullet proof vest is wrong if someone as unimportant as Malema has body guards 24 hours a day and most people live in prisons created around their homes to keep the evil out. When confronted with the overwhelming evidence that South Africa is an often lawless dangerous hunting ground for hardened violent criminals who will kill you for a cellphone or less it is understandable that tourists may feel a little frightened and want to protect themselves. It is their right, and if they want to wear protective clothing then that’s ok. Don’t slam their choices because of our problems and inability to deal with violence. We live in the global village and information travels fast and bad news even faster. Western countries value life a lot more than Africa does and that shows in the way they deal with violent crime and murder. Violence is not tolerated and is not swept under the carpet to protect their image. The West has their fair share of white collar fraud and corruption, but it’s the senseless uncontrolled violence and death that scares them for obvious reason. Maybe its time we put human rights for criminals on hold until we have a country whose citizens respect life and have rooted out this violent disease that is killing our country and holding it to ransom. Botswana has a zero tolerance approach to violent crime and if you compare our tragically high violent crime stats with theirs the proof in their approach to dealing with violent crime would be evident. I think most tourists when given the facts would prefer a world cup in Botswana. It’s a lot safer and criminals are dealt with swiftly and strictly unlike our country where criminals share our rights regardless of their crime. I’d feel happier if my taxes were buying rope to hang these animals with instead of feeding and housing them .Maybe then tourists would come here without having to buy stab proof vests and just enjoy our beautiful country without fear of attack. I guess just living here makes you a denial expert which is a huge part of our defence mechanism which justifies living amongst some of the most psychotic criminals in the world. Those who do wake up from the utopia of denial usually pack up and immigrate to Australia, Canada or New Zealand where you are more likely to die from old age than a bullet, knife or other home made weapon used by one of our “imagined criminal attackers”. Until the ANC stop denying the facts we are destined to be passenger’s onboard a downward spiral. Source:News24 <a href="http://www.news24.com/Content/MyNews24/YourStory/1162/5159acbb37794f7ead345bc3be8452e4/20-01-2010-07-37/Age_of_denial">http://www.news24.com/Content/MyNews24/YourStory/1162/5159acbb37794f7ead345bc3be8452e4/20-01-2010-07-37/Age_of_denial</a>

South Africa is extremely dangerous

THE AGE OF DENIAL is upon us with the ANC spearheading the movement. It is the latest remedy used by the ANC to denounce and rebuff anything...

2:15 PM

What you won't read about in your World Cup holiday brochure

<a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1192088/South-Africa-World-Cup-2010--shootings-started.html" id="/home/moslive/article-1192088/South-Africa-World-Cup-2010--shootings-started.html">SPECIAL INVESTIGATION: The secret race war in South Africa that threatens to overshadow the World Cup</a>South Africa World Cup 2010... and the shooting's already started Only 70 miles from a 2010 World Cup football stadium, a farmer's wife and a boy aged 13 learn to defend themselves with lethal weapons. They say thousands of white landowners have been killed by Zimbabwe-style marauders; their black rulers accuse them of belligerence and right-wing tendencies. <a class="author" href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/search.html?s=y&authornamef=Aidan+Hartley" rel="nofollow">Aidan Hartley</a> reports on the war of words you won't read about in your World Cup holiday brochure. <img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5433427673775215570" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKciQCUYYfEQRFVzMzk9Cuw9vr6Yt8xwUFDOAwpGEZvYxjsV8rWFNinxg1tZqPng3FbWmFsJz-hhZaQkd-5zTW9J-2f3RQSWxANXrsHEHJwD0pgvJLz1SOEU-d10106c7ChcegQA6czagJ/s400/2010WCS01.jpg" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 180px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" />Farmers' wives learn how to defend themselves on a farm-attack prevention course near the Zimbabwean border in South AfricaBella wakes. She hears a strangled, gurgling sound. It’s the dog, she thinks. ‘Peter, there’s something wrong,’ she says to her husband. Noises emerge from the room of her mother-in-law, who’s 98 and confined to a wheelchair.It’s 1am. Bella gets up and walks out of the bedroom. In the hall she sees a young man who at first she thinks is her son. Except he’s black, wears a balaclava and is pointing a gun at her.‘He comes for me,’ says Bella, her hand before her tear-stained face. ‘He’s going to shoot me! I trip as I run back to the bedroom. Peter comes to the door but he has nothing in his hand, no pistol. I hear a gun go off. I hear my mother-in-law screaming. I lock the door and telephone my son. I tell him: “I think they shot Pa!”’ Two men are outside the bedroom window with a rifle. She loads the pistol Peter keeps by the bed. ‘I take the gun and say, “Come on! I’ll shoot you!”’Back in the hall she finds Peter dead, a trail of blood across the kitchen floor. Her mother-in-law Gerda is bruised and beaten. ‘I can’t tell you how hopeless I felt,’ Bella says. ‘I will see it in front of me for weeks, months, years.’ <img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5433427675821219666" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpl-r0y8bPEeYNA25kpuUIu0F_ZgQ3MBeCoj7B7RzF755fIO3W-WN_GkEZ-X2Ffyv61c0nAjl1COEFWCl0rU37hTwCovG4SUeFp8YpjgCjlcqZVc0vFP_FEBEO_C16qC0EsYtef-jdKj7m/s400/2010WCS02.jpg" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 214px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" />Vet's son Barend Harris (right), 13, learns to shootDays after Peter is cremated, the attackers return. The survivors are sleeping elsewhere by now, so the gang finds only the dogs in the house. They torture the animals with boiling water before soaking them in petrol and setting them on fire.I ask Bella for a motive and she says a group of black South Africans who are squatting on their farmland have repeatedly threatened them. After the family find the dogs, Bella’s son Piet calls the police. Weeks later the attackers are still at large; police arrested one man in connection with the killing but he was later released. I am in her home. The bullet holes are still clearly visible. I ask her what she is going to do. ‘If we stay here they will kill us. You can’t say this was a dream, or rewind what happened. They want our land. ’ This is Bella’s account of an attack that happened last month in South Africa, in the north-east of the country. Her home is a long way from the vineyards and beaches of Cape Town, but South Africa is to host the 2010 World Cup and five of the centres for players and the hundreds of thousands of tourists who will come with them are here in the north. Preparations are in hand but this is against the backdrop of a country gripped by ultra-violence. Officially there are about 50 murders a day, and three times that number of rapes. Most victims are poor blacks in South Africa’s cities: reported deaths last year totalled more than 18,000. But among the casualties of the violence are white farmers, whose counterparts in Zimbabwe are singled out for international press coverage; here in the ‘rainbow nation’ their murders, remarkable for their particular savagery, go largely unreported. <img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5433427681968620274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-1pAmRZpDxzaRnlBXWYn3d12Ry5lW6eIE7BoLt8_wfCRvmUwIcEIXNmkeaRQkuWtJ9IaUSFwUaKyNVyQ7T9r263_B80tzvZ1C4Q4SHt-O_2mHKLAoi4bXchbWNjnubVkPalq8nLvBEpdf/s400/2010WCS03.jpg" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 249px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" />Farmer's wife Ida Nel learns how shoot an AK-47 and a pistol on a 'farm protection weekend'There are no official figures but, since the election of Nelson Mandela in 1994, farmers’ organisations say 3,000 whites in rural areas have been killed. The independent South African Human Rights Commission, set up by Mandela’s government, says the number is 2,500. Its commission’s report into the killings does not break down their figures by colour; but it says the majority of attacks in general - ie where no one necessarily dies - are against white people and that 'there was a considerably higher risk of a white victim of farm attacks being killed or injured than a black victim.' It states that since 2006, farmer murders have jumped by 25 per cent and adds: 'The lack of prosecutions indicates the criminal justice system is not operating e ffectively to protect victims in farming communities and to ensure the rule of law is upheld.' I have lived and worked in Africa for 20 years, reporting from countries all across the continent. I know that the truth is very hard to find here. Stereotypes are everywhere. Blacks give no credit to successful white businesses. Whites give no credit to the black populace, refusing stubbornly to acknowledge that they themselves are physical reminders of a brutal colonial past. What is certain is this: since the mid-Nineties, 900,000 mainly white South Africans have emigrated from South Africa - about 20 per cent of the white population - most of them due to soaring crime rates. In an eerie parallel with Zimbabwe, farms have been reclaimed by unqualified workers. The police say don't fight back. You must fight. It's the bullet or be slaughteredCommercial agricultural production has taken a massive hit where land reform has occurred. And as the attacks on white farmers continue, the police seem increasingly powerless and ineff ective, and farmers are turning to vigilante behaviour as their way of life comes under violent assault. The ANC government's response to this has been largely defiant. As Charles Ngacula, Safety and Security Minister under the previous administration of Thabo Mbeki, said: 'They can continue to whinge until they're blue in the face, be as negative as they want to, or they can simply leave this country.' Ida Nel is learning to shoot an AK-47 and a pistol on a 'farm protection weekend'. The course is being held only 70 miles from the 2010 World Cup venue of Polokwane. Ida is married to farmer Andre. They farm guavas and macadamia nuts near Levubu in Limpopo province. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzxElNZuzFRBxPds8AuLxt1SUnO7i96bpjlE5RgVj6qDxoD5lnqtR_IGeaOcqHU1PgVmOf7KiOW_lPmrHQoJ0sHfLiB2vWz_qWFbE9GeH097W8NJ1K8RKMvlWXUvVpgbfZqeKAvhsqjZ0I/s1600-h/2010WCS04.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5433430977690409170" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzxElNZuzFRBxPds8AuLxt1SUnO7i96bpjlE5RgVj6qDxoD5lnqtR_IGeaOcqHU1PgVmOf7KiOW_lPmrHQoJ0sHfLiB2vWz_qWFbE9GeH097W8NJ1K8RKMvlWXUvVpgbfZqeKAvhsqjZ0I/s400/2010WCS04.jpg" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 293px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px" /></a>'I'm used to guns,' she says. 'My dad taught me how to use one when I was a kid but I need to get confident and to know what warning signs to look out for in a farm attack.' On the course with her are farmers, and their wives and children. Among the children is 13-year-old Barend Harris, the son of a vet, who brought his family 9mm gun. Those taking part in the weekend courses for about 50 people at a time learn to leopard-crawl with a gun and are taught self-defence (with knives and guns), how to look for signs that their homes are being targeted, bush tracking and how to shoot from a moving vehicle. They are given target practice with AK-47s, pistols, R4 and R5 assault rifles and 308 hunting rifles.(Pic right) Sonette Selzer a violinist, on her farm near Ermelo. She is trained to use a variety of guns and always carries a rifle over a shoulder and a pistol on her belt Driving around Mpumalanga Province, east of Johannesburg, in what used to be the Transvaal, I found myself called by the farmers to a string of grisly murder scenes. In some the blood was still drying on the furniture or the street. In others, witnesses gave me accounts of killings involving rituals of extreme brutality: of victims boiled alive, forced to kneel and shot execution style and tortured in ways so unimaginable they are too horrendous to print. The same goes for the many pictures I have been shown of the barely identifiable corpses and horrific crime scenes. Sonette Selzer, who lives on a forestry holding with her husband Werner, has made sure that she and her two boys are weapons-trained. At home in Mpumalanga province, Sonette, who is a trained medic, claims she usually gardens with a pistol at her side and a rifle strapped to her back. She is fully armed as I arrive - rather conveniently, I think. 'It's very tiring but even in the garden you have to be alert to what's happening around you all the time. You can never, ever relax your guard,' she says. When she hears of a man who got into a gunfight with three robbers she shakes her head: 'I'd hate to get into that situation. You need to finish it quickly.' She gestures to her vicious-looking Ninja knives and I realise the chilling intent behind her words - you need to finish 'them' as quickly as possible. She says she and Werner sleep in separate beds at either end of the house, with their guns and knives within easy reach. Their children Francois, 18, and Jaques, 16, are at boarding school in the nearby town. 'When they were very small they learned how to use guns and how to reload,' Sonette says of her boys. Each dawn and evening the Selzers check in on the VHF radio with other members of the Farm Watch organisation, neighbours whom they find more reliable than the South African Police Service (SAPS). The couple are heavily armed, but what good will that do them if a group of attackers assault the house in the dead of night? The home is an ill-fortified outpost 40 minutes' drive from the nearest Farm Watch neighbours or SAPS station that could respond in the event of an attack. 'You must carry your gun and your Bible together at once,' says Werner Selzer. And at the farmers' houses I visited, when grace was said at table, a semi-automatic rifle or pistol with extra magazines was prominently on display. (Once again, it's hard to say if they are just placed there for effect.) Werner is adamant that only he can protect his family: 'The police say don't fight back. But you must fight back. It's the bullet or be slaughtered. If you're going to rape my wife and kill my children you must understand I have nothing to lose. But you can run away. And if I shoot back you will run away.' Since the 19th century, Boer farmers were organised into farm militias known as Commandos. These defended rural communities from assault and, just over a century ago, they formed the vanguard of the rebellion against the hated British Empire. <img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5433429198958160834" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-luKcmOdQijMOESC-ipF43BvCmGei2xLIRLf93d7SKzRvX2vUaYhWLqj7_QLG8HPNEkbZfzTzl8Y_OKrONFswSqx_h0fSKvnM3GjZWRSk-A5STjHjykIh_GElhqe0CQe0HOGXqRYSfWbu/s400/2010WCS05.jpg" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 393px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" />'We kept the British busy until they killed our women and children in the concentration camps,' one man told me. The two Boer wars were as much of a catastrophe in their minds as the crisis now facing them. 'The Afrikaner Boer doesn't like war but we will fight if we have to - and the Africans are scared of us.' Such right-wing sentiments have done the Boers no favours under the ANC, which suspected them of links to white extremist groups such as the neo-fascist AWB. In recent years the government has moved to disband the Commando units as part of a security plan to improve policing nationwide. The Commandos had been accused of brutality towards black farm workers; indeed, there have been reports of belligerence and abuse by white farmers, leading to a sense of reciprocity about some of the recent attacks. Danzel Van Zyl, a senior researcher at the Human Rights Commission, says: 'There is a feeling among black people that many white people have not come to the party yet. Reconciliation has only come from one side, and this is felt especially with regard to the farming communities. They are perceived to be conservative, with a block of them voting right-wing and for parties like (the ultra-right wing) Freedom Front Plus. 'Old ways still play out in a lot of rural South Africa, where you will see farmers keeping the seat next to them in their truck for their dog, while workers sit in the back. A lot of farmers were killed by disgruntled farm workers who had been maltreated by them.' Even in the garden you have to be alert to what's happening around youHe adds: 'The increase in farm murders is also due to the removal of the Commando system. They were notorious and feared by farm workers. But the problem is, nothing came in place of them.' He insists there is no concerted political campaign to drive out white farmers; but all parties agree on one thing: land ownership is the burning issue. Twenty years after the end of apartheid, whites still own about three-quarters of the country's agricultural land. The ANC has sought to redistribute land to black South Africans by legal means. In this it has followed a radically different path to that of Robert Mugabe in neighbouring Zimbabwe, where the rule of law collapsed in the last decade as gangs of state-sponsored thugs drove off 6,000 white families. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOIvGGpHaso0LbT-e0fsNjLtMCZA_6x4g91avnu4mCao9ilh9Zz4QWBDRlC6R60k1TS1LvwPz2F_nbCqTrgRgoJjCIvEoY9I_ZjF_4eQYX2c7aIYcxJ4F3Q6Aqt4gPaBYHyfyk_OpPpQG8/s1600-h/2010WCS09.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5433432197341514082" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOIvGGpHaso0LbT-e0fsNjLtMCZA_6x4g91avnu4mCao9ilh9Zz4QWBDRlC6R60k1TS1LvwPz2F_nbCqTrgRgoJjCIvEoY9I_ZjF_4eQYX2c7aIYcxJ4F3Q6Aqt4gPaBYHyfyk_OpPpQG8/s400/2010WCS09.jpg" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 306px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 244px" /></a>In Mpumalanga, black South Africans are lodging hundreds of legal 'land claims' in which they must prove their rights to property based on family historical records. The land claims are adjudicated in court and, if successful, the state buys out white farmers at what the property owners themselves told me was a fair price.(right) The family of murdered farmer Nico Boonzaier at his funeral But as a tribe of farmers, the Boers are resisting the loss of their land because, they say, it spells the end of a way of life for a community. And this is what they claim has sparked bloody violence that they say is politically motivated all the way to the top of the ANC. The TAU, or Transvaal Agricultural Union, draws a link between land claims and attacks. 'When there is a farm claim I say "Look out!" because attacks may follow to scare the farmers,' says TAU regional director Piet Kemp. This after all is the country where the President, Jacob Zuma, used as his election campaign song an old war chant from his days in the ANC's military wing, Mshini wami - 'Bring me my machine-gun'. And where YouTube posts include footage of Mandela singing another song, 'Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer'. Mugabe may be a pariah across the world but in South Africa he has long been given standing ovations and rapturous applause at ANC events. Widow Tracey Pemberton is 41 but looks 20 years older and appears to be malnourished. She dreams of emigrating to the UK but her British husband died five years ago and she lives on a 200-hectare farm in a ramshackle cottage. The area, set among huge forests of planted pine, is so dangerous that on the main road outside Tracey's gate there are big signs that warn CRIME ALERT - NO STOPPING! 'I'm stupid to stay but I don't know where to go,' she says. 'It's awful to have to say "Who's that over there? What's that noise?" I definitely want to go. Because you're a woman and alone they take advantage of you. My husband had a British passport when he passed away. He'd had enough of struggling and failing in this country...' By the eve of the elections that brought Zuma to power earlier this year the family had already been robbed six times over the years. Then one night Tracey was woken by noises from her mother Yvonne's room. She found a man sitting on top of the 65-year-old woman. 'I can't get that picture out of my mind.' <img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5433427723488743506" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjURh7ApHau4ulnC0l4_wfqF4UJB6u_JU3qpT-1pVg5xO68G7flr84Ilmdugyn4HE9u72iakK3x5eLxDYQYbij2LqP54S-_bra9fAZxn4cKkR1j5K4Qgzzy_dC5Os_tT31uYIT1moNjlmig/s400/2010WCS07.jpg" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 264px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" />Farmers learn rural survival techniques on the farm-attack prevention courses The attacker stabbed her mother 17 times, but miraculously she survived. Sonette Selzer rushed to the scene to help save her. But, insists Tracey, the harrassment continues. 'They switch on all the taps outside in the middle of the night to try to persuade you to go outside.' And she thinks they climb about on the roof, although it could be the branches from the oak tree brushing against the tiles. My visit to Mpumalanga came immediately after crossing the frontier from Zimbabwe and what struck me was how similar the landscapes were after redistribution had taken place. Once productive maize fields now grow only weeds. Citrus orchards are dying, their valuable fruit rotting on the branches. Machinery lies about rusting. Irrigation pipes have been looted and farm sheds are derelict and stripped of roofing. Windbreak trees have been hacked down and roads are potholed. Few of those being resettled on former white farms are qualified to work them. Commercial properties are becoming slums where the poor live a hand-to-mouth existence in mud huts, surrounded by subsistence patches of maize. Meanwhile, black workers are put out of their jobs without compensation. 'Now we are in big trouble,' says Messina, a black foreman at what was Figtree farm. He says his employers had to sell, 'because their lives were in danger, definitely. This place is not safe any more.' Messina says the land resettlement on his employers' property was orchestrated by black elite figures from town, not people close to the land. 'If you look at them they are driving smart cars. They want to look big in their four-by-fours. They say they will help us - but nothing. No job. We are su ffering.' For all South Africa's aims to be following the rule of law, there are comparisons here with Zimbabwe and other calamitous reforms under the banner of 'Africa for the Africans'. 'I saw people with heads cut off, horrible things,' says farmer Ockert van Niekerk as he sits his toddler daughter on his lap at home. Cops tracking cases lack experience. Dockets vanish and criminals get out'The aim is to scare white people. The attacks are not just crimes. They're political. You don't wait for a farmer for eight hours, kill him and steal a frozen chicken. In warfare you learn to soften the target, and the aim is to break us mentally and spiritually.' But he then tells, in alarming detail, how he would respond to an attacker: 'I will cut in seconds all the main arteries: the neck, gut and groin.' He whips out two knives from either pocket. 'I feel quite safe with these.' What the farmers dub 'hit squads' are well armed with AK-47s, deploy in gangs and if they are ever arrested they are allegedly found to be from outside the district - 'recruited', the farmers say, from cities hundreds of kilometres away. At a farmers' day, or Boerdag, in a marquee tent surrounded by maize harvesting machinery, I meet a string of farmers with attack stories. One elderly man too scared to be identified tells me how a gang broke in at five in the morning, tied him and his wife up, then got an angle grinder from the workshop and sawed into the flesh of his legs with the blade, demanding, 'I want money! You must talk!' One of the gang picked up the couple's mobile phone and inadvertently called their daughter, who then had to endure hearing the robbery unfold in screams and shouts.The more brutal and incredible the stories, the more doubt creeps in: are they over-egging this for political impact? Are they perhaps deeply racist at heart? But then I remind myself: I have seen the pictures and read the local newspaper reports. I've been to the funerals. It is said that the signs always lead down a road to the farmstead: bunches of long grass knotted like corn dolls, the strands of wire fences twisted into cat's cradle configurations, and stones, tin cans and plastic bags stacked in circle and arrow patterns. These 'attack signs', which can supposedly warn if trouble is coming to your farm, are a macabre coded language. Farmers widely believe in their existence; they have been decoded by Special Forces veterans. At first I wondered if the 'attack signs' story was a result of mass hysteria. But the hairs on the back of my neck stood rigid when I began to see what appeared to be sets of signs outside farms near where attacks had already occurred. Each sign is said to mean something: a forked stick signifies a woman in the house, the corn dolls map out the farm buildings and signs dubbed 'triggers' are set to either 'off ' or 'on' - meaning 'attack'. White farmers read these runes and arm themselves because they have nothing else. New police units promised to substitute the old Commando system have yet to be formed. And people isolated on remote properties are worried by the fact that licenses for their firearms are not being renewed. <img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5433427684416801202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzMRGtw-QjtKMRdR-j19CVgD0RJwgWQp0gA8OXlRjyoDhIgfPTYqN6IeF3ChtZ0-RCUOC7CzLdclW8RXMJsehFadZXaA6DbT0FHlD18sWVFxLo343vUCO2UV24Hde76KBRe4uC6467Pq-R/s400/2010WCS08.jpg" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 216px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" />Two suspects involved in the murder of a white farmer in the North West province are arrestedAs a South African Police Service (SAPS) offiIcer, Derek Jonker investigated 52 separate farm attacks and he says, 'There has been a decline in the abilities of the police. There is a power struggle in the police and investigators are not qualified.'Crime prevention has collapsed totally,' he adds. 'And cops tracking cases lack experience and resources to gather evidence and arrest o enders. Dockets vanish and criminals get let out of jail.' In the provincial town of Ermelo, I meet a policeman who's tired and angry. He says SAPS can't be bothered to fight crime any more. Only four out of 16 police vehicles at the station are still in working order. I ask what happens with the vehicles that are in working order. He shrugs and points across the street to Ermelo's main supermarket. And there they are: four police prowlers parked in a row. The police are inside doing their shopping while at a street corner crime scene that we've just come from, the blood still glistens wetly in the sunshine. And at that murder scene I met another police o fficer who dismisses the idea that the ANC was involved in a conspiracy against white farmers. It is much worse than that for South Africa as a whole, 'It's worse among the black people - all those rapes and killings,' he says. 'I feel sorry for these people. Everybody suff ers, not just white people. 'You can buy an AK for a bag of maize meal. This causes hatred between blacks and whites - and this is boiling up to what? Every time it's very emotional because it's black against white, but you must think with your head and not your heart.' As we talk I'm looking at the blood on the ground. It's the policeman's brother-in-law who just got shot. 'The whole criminal system is a balls-up for white and black people,' he says. 'We just don't need this.' South Africa's proposed new law and order plans include better policing for those urban areas expecting visitors during the World Cup next year. It will be the most heavily policed World Cup in history, with 200,000 specially recruited officers and equipment ranging from surveillance cameras to water cannon. But it will remain unnerving for those who travel that these brutal killings are happening within just a couple of hours' drive.

What you won't read about in your World Cup holiday brochure

SPECIAL INVESTIGATION: The secret race war in South Africa that threatens to overshadow the World Cup South Africa World Cup 2010... and the...

1:33 PM

Doctor murdered in Johannesburg

A 55-year-old doctor was shot and killed in Kempton Park on Friday night, Johannesburg paramedics said. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5VSE_Va5r_gtQdMMybd4oxfcjYVATc8x3wRXzq-rgxHoMxgRNHpK4W7s81wM17kLfUKRVR8T-pRM3xup7ymVERwFNA0WwGhMnxdLoxqxOcSHZtKnq_xHERHwnhrDkzCJS8i8X3sxawRml/s1600-h/Crimescene%2520Generic.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5429988882125519714" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5VSE_Va5r_gtQdMMybd4oxfcjYVATc8x3wRXzq-rgxHoMxgRNHpK4W7s81wM17kLfUKRVR8T-pRM3xup7ymVERwFNA0WwGhMnxdLoxqxOcSHZtKnq_xHERHwnhrDkzCJS8i8X3sxawRml/s400/Crimescene%2520Generic.jpg" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" /></a>Netcare 911 spokesman Chris Botha said it was believed the doctor went to lock his kitchen door around 8pm when he was attacked by several gunmen. Netcare 911 paramedics arrived on scene and found the doctor lying in the courtyard just outside the kitchen door. They raced over to treat the man but on examination found that he had been fatally wounded. "One of the suspects was wounded by his fellow gunman in the fracas. Police arrested the wounded suspect some metres away from the crime scene. Paramedics found the wounded man lying in a prostrate position on the roadway with a gunshot wound to his leg," said Botha. After being stabilised the suspect was transported under guard to an area hospital for further treatment.

Doctor murdered in Johannesburg

A 55-year-old doctor was shot and killed in Kempton Park on Friday night, Johannesburg paramedics said. Netcare 911 spokesman Chris Botha sa...

8:39 AM

Another pensioner meets brutal death at home

A second Pretoria pensioner in less than a week has met a violent death at the hands of thugs. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnxwFwIroi_MZO3zh1dOU-WEz6o2m5h7xZCGEiwUnp6XjHJzbltDD3y2lQct7X5cisSizXbkfnRB6NPgT3JfjBY3gCcdSW4IzfnqjcOGsQLhZ1E-vz50GpcwFudAW11TsKJ-ZjzwTxlYlj/s1600-h/crime-killed.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5426699984068921890" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnxwFwIroi_MZO3zh1dOU-WEz6o2m5h7xZCGEiwUnp6XjHJzbltDD3y2lQct7X5cisSizXbkfnRB6NPgT3JfjBY3gCcdSW4IzfnqjcOGsQLhZ1E-vz50GpcwFudAW11TsKJ-ZjzwTxlYlj/s400/crime-killed.jpg" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px" /></a>Katrina Hendrika van den Berg, 65, was found murdered in her Daspoort home, apparently killed by a man who was carrying out maintenance work on her property. Her death comes days after Kitty Botha, 83, was slain in her Lyttelton home, which was set alight by robbers who killed her without taking anything. Van den Berg's badly bruised and battered body was discovered in her lounge yesterday by her husband, Jan, 56, after neighbours were unable to raise her on the phone or by calling her name outside her Herman Street property. Unable to reach his wife on her cellphone, Van den Berg phoned neighbours and asked them to go and see if they could see his frail wife in the garden. When they called him back and said they could not see her, he raced home. Unable to unlock the gate and seeing the kitchen security door standing open, Van den Berg scaled the garden wall. He walked through his ransacked home and found his wife's body sprawled in the lounge, a kitchen dishcloth clasped tightly in her hand. It is believed she was washing the morning dishes when she was attacked, apparently by a man assigned to do repairs to the roof of their home. As police searched the house for clues, visibly distraught family members gathered at a neighbour's home. "I can't believe it, I can't believe they have killed her," said a family friend. The woman, who broke down in tears and had to be led away by a trauma counsellor, said Van den Berg had been extremely kind and caring. "She never said a bad word about anyone. She had so much time for people and was very loving towards everyone." Van den Berg's stepson, who asked not to be named, said the family were devastated. "We are heartsore. We don't know what to do. It is like a bad dream. I keep on thinking we are going to wake up, but in the end we are not," he said. He said his stepmother was full of love and kindness. "She would do anything to help someone and always had time for people. What happened is beyond belief," he said. Police believe Van den Berg was attacked in the kitchen before she was dragged through to the bathroom where she was tied up. Police Inspector Louis de Bruin said Van den Berg had been tied up and beaten in the bath. "As well as finding ropes, which Van den Berg managed to undo, investigators also found blood smears in the bath. Investigators believe the blood may be from injuries caused either when she was beaten over the head or when she fell in the bath," he said. He said it was not yet known whether Van den Berg was finally killed in the lounge after being dragged from the bathroom, or whether she was attacked there when she tried to escape from her home to raise the alarm, thinking her assailant had fled. De Bruin confirmed that detectives were looking for a man who had been doing maintenance work at the home, as well as the family's gardener. He said it appeared as though only Van den Berg's cellphone had been stolen in the attack.

Another pensioner meets brutal death at home

A second Pretoria pensioner in less than a week has met a violent death at the hands of thugs. Katrina Hendrika van den Berg, 65, was found ...

12:38 PM

Adapt and die - South Africa's new motto

* The first draft of this article was submitted to the British Spectator, who turned it down about a year ago. It is now updated with references to more recent incidents. Probably no mainstream newspaper in South Africa will publish it, because it refers to the race and gender of violent criminals, which is taboo here as elsewhere in the Western world. As George Orwell said, however, "during times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act". In the interest of drawing attention to the anarchy that exists in South Africa, the author qualifies his copyright on this article and invites everyone to post it on his or her website, copy it and mail it to friends and mailing lists, translate it into other languages and to distribute it far and wide. The only condition is that no element must be changed or censored. <img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5426685708898086546" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtnJRT1nitOvI-q9C-vY5GOFtHRbO6OHCGazWzTR5E0MaFoCHCYxMlsOcJWiIIIrfs8GkT0f3NQ7ZmKyD_jgEL9BRQLW4yATKRo7xX0xcDlHfxeygdaFPlLYDjKxaVfZH95RYAO6mmcZEZ/s400/ANC_HATE_FRENZY.jpg" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 258px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" />By "Dan Roodt - During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act". During the time of National Party reforms in the seventies and eighties, the cliché "adapt or die" used to do the rounds. Nowadays, given the highest murder rate in the world, this should be modified slightly to read, "adapt and die". For the endemic social violence in South Africa is probably incurable.Optimists think that violent crime can be solved through better policing, more efficient courts and more secure prisons. Even assuming that such improvements were possible under conditions of hard-core affirmative action, it must be admitted that criminal justice treats the symptom and not the cause of social violence. The Department of Correctional Services, for one, has lost 496 out of 500 former Deputy Directors since 1994, representing most of the intellectual capital in the department. Newcomers may learn their job properly, or they may not, but they have to be flown to overseas countries to find out how prisons work as most of those previously involved in managing our prisons are no longer there.South Africa used to have a problem of political violence. It was not as bad as else where in Africa, but for some reason elicited hysterical international condemnation. However, actors in political violence are mostly driven by some sort of creed or belief system. Whether such a person is a communist, an anarchist, a neo-Nazi or an ethnic or religious guerilla fighter, he is usually amenable to persuasion or compromise. Even a group of Muslim suicide bombers might declare peace if they were given a territory in which to set up an Islamic theocracy, governed only by themselves and not subject to any outside influence.In the same way, South Africa's so-called liberation movements who were at one time fanatically convinced of the need for violent and bloody revolution, laid down arms and bombs upon being told that F.W. de Klerk would surrender power unconditionally. Solving political violence is often intractable, but not impossible.Not so social violence. Endemic crime, the breakdown of the social fabric, a sense of drift regarding norms of good conduct, point to a far deeper problem. The freedom fighter or urban terrorist is ultimately rational, despite a value system that normal society might find idiosyncratic.But what is "normal society"? It is only the sum-total of behaviours prevalent in any given society at any given time. The Aztecs, infamously, practised daily human sacrifice to appease their sun god. It might revolt many of us today, but to them it was entirely normal. South Africa currently sacrifices about 87 humans per day to violent crime, or 32 000 per year. Those are only the ones who actually die. Scores of others are injured, maimed, traumatised, robbed, raped, burgled and so on.<img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5426690972994888770" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZyztWhsmoxkWMbabwZK6A2qj62vTOzQH8o4_q_JORTDXFWLltVzhs60pSOeYhB3Ty9isOe6Re3uDnnwUX0gJW4goQXe3v232TRl7keNJknROWi1w9X6320aZ1QYJyu-pGt0lnXWyDulFi/s400/ANC_BLACK_REVOLUTION.jpg" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 266px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" />In any suburb today an entire history of murders, hijackings, and other violent events can be written, if only the locals were narcissistic enough to consider their own history worth recording for posterity. On the other hand, social violence lacks the charm and grandeur of political violence as it is usually not committed in the interest of some glamorous cause like national liberation or world revolution but simply to acquire some hapless person's BMW or rape his wife because she happened to be inside.However, some time ago a Johannesburg newspaper engaged in chronicling some local history in the suburbs of Westdene and Lakefield in Benoni. Nearly every resident had a story to tell, an entire litany of mayhem. Mr. John Gee miraculously survived a shot through the eye, but now feels traumatised. His wife says, "One lives in fear in one's own home. One does not sleep. One prays for protection, yet only more fears come."But who are the authors of South Africa's social violence? Even asking this question presents one with a sense of discomfort, because most violent criminals in South Africa are young black men between the ages of 16 and 36. As one surgeon who had stitched together at least three child rape victims, two of whom were infants, said recently, "Probably white men commit such acts too; it is just that no-one in South Africa has come across such a case."Of course, it would be preposterous to say that all young black men are prone to violence. Judging from our daily experiences in crime-torn South Africa, however, a sub-section of that population, large enough to cause more havoc than even a well-equipped guerilla army of a few thousand men, has taken up practices such as heists, hold-ups, murders, sexual violence exacted upon women and children, and so on.Explanations for such deviancy are manifold. The ubiquitous answer of it being due to apartheid might have been satisfying if other African societies never subject to group areas and a homeland system did not display similar traits. The Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone come to mind. There is a whole nature/nurture debate around black violence, except that no adherent of the "nature" side would publicly admit to being one, for fear of being branded a racist. Even though mainstream American cancer research has conclusively shown that black men have higher levels of testosterone than their white counterparts, few would hazard the notion that this might be linked to their greater propensity for violent crime.America has a gargantuan prison population of two million, over half of which consists ofAfrican-Americans. This is despite their minority status in the USA, comprising only 12% of an overall population amounting to 290 million. South Africa could neither afford nor succeed, given the dire state of our criminal justice system, in jailing a similar number of black male offenders. Currently, only 10% of murderers in South Africa get arrested and only 6% are convicted. Any murderer therefore has a 94% chance of getting away with it.<img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5426689985517921634" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvFpCjOeqRcc6g-LKzNKZgIXXQU6OMgUdz5ibGIQ2s6DskCjR-vguX6e-yrSjppXK31fz5rTnTablHto-8rg54MNheWtISlqE9LEICx9K9IfHGV4cJhJFQ0iHCajKDG_Fln9bBForYToyI/s400/ANC_SLAUGHTERHOUSE.jpg" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" />If by some miracle all serious criminals in the country had to be caught and imprisoned, the prison population would surely treble or quadruple from the present 200 000, which is already high by world standards. Not only is such an improvement inconceivable under current conditions, but it would also be politically unpopular with the ruling ANC who would be incarcerating large numbers of young black males who are mostly its own supporters at the polls. Few whites, if any, commit violent crime and there are only 3 900 of them in prison, mostly for white-collar offences such as fraud or insider trading on the stock exchange. All that remains in the world's most violent society, is precisely to adapt and die. Twice as many South Africans of all races now die of murder than of road accidents - even though the road accident rate is also the highest in the world, surpassing that of Turkey. Crime extends to trade in driver's licences, so that a large number of drivers use so-called "bought licences", hardly a contribution to road safety.There are some people naive enough to think that "something can be done about crime" in South Africa, mostly opposition politicians who dream about diverting funds from arms procurement to policing, but this would be futile. There are already three times as many private security personnel as state-employed policemen, and even they do not succeed in containing what has become Africa's only peacetime killing field."I killed them because they were white." These famous words were spoken last year by William Kekana, who participated in one of the most horrendous incidents in which the entire family of Mr. Clifford Rawstorne was wiped out, consisting of his fiancée, baby, as well as his own mother. Even this massacre of an entire family would not have made headlines, were it not for the fact that one year-old Kayla was executed on her very first birthday with a shot in the head. Needless to say, the two adult women were first raped before being killed. Both William Kekana and his accomplice, Charles Fido Baloyi, fell into the high-risk group of young black (and Coloured) males who commit almost all violent crime in the country. South Africa actually has a Minister of Safety and Security, which to some might seem like an example of absurd humour. His Excellency Mr. Charles Nqakula, whose official résumé proudly states that he was once "a waiter and wine steward", has immortalised himself by euphemistically stating that there was no real crime problem in South Africa, except that it was "a little on the high side".All in all, South Africa has got remarkably used to its new-found status as the crime capital of the world. The high-rise districts of Hillbrow and Berea in Johannesburg have been officially designated by Interpol as having the highest murder rate in the world, that is, 600 people per 100 000 population members per annum. Consider for a moment that such a figure represents 12 times the rate found in inner-city ghettoes in the United States, often seen as no-go zones by many Americans.One British immigrant to South Africa who has survived three car hijackings, refuses to emigrate, stating that he is now accustomed to having Kalachnikovs pointed at him from pointblank range. Everyone knows a relative or friend who has been killed or at least subjected to some form of violent crime, and no South African can remotely imagine a society where people do not live behind razor wire, electrified fences, high walls, burglar bars and similar decorative props.<img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5426684907339335890" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin6NP3shu2LqDPWhaLKAn1_lePeVNTXcqc8EhT6BVAkvgEej7KpCXtgVgx0hx1moQKihB91glhvo_CPSiWtkby7gzkbYGbvS3XHmb1LX9KIarVsJwbnBxL5yKZ3vQoVRyzfg7mfPaqq7VH/s400/ANC_TRIAL_OF_BLOOD.jpg" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 266px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" />Outsiders might find our lifestyle bizarre, but many pundits in South Africa consider our society to be much more "normal" now than at any time in the past, which was tarnished by ethnic separation albeit without the present large-scale violence. At the height of segregation and apartheid under Hendrik Verwoerd, South Africa was almost as peaceful as Switzerland but she was immoral. Today we are the apotheosis of racial morality and political correctness, yet as violent as the Congo or Liberia. Surprisingly, however, our economy continues to function amid the carnage. No economist has ever studied this as far as I know, but not only is crime our biggest industry - bigger than gold-mining or manufacturing - it also stimulates consumption as stolen goods are replaced; it is a boon to the insurance and security industries and ultimately makes surgeons and undertakers rich. The government earns billions of rands in Value-Added Tax on stolent goods being replaced with new ones. So crime pays.News about killings or shoot-outs no longer elicits the slightest surprise. It is part of our daily existence, and one assumes the lethal risks attending to something as simple as going shopping or driving to work. My wife, for example, has twice been to the local shopping centre where in the one instance a shoot-out was taking place in the parking area so that she had to hide between the cars with our 18 month-old son in her arms; in the second case an armed robbery had just taken place with the robbers casually strolling by with their guns and their loot. Everyone knows someone who has been killed, raped or maimed. Just this week, the wife of a friend and former literary editor of Die Burger, François Smith, was stabbed to death with a screwdriver in their home in Wellington, near Cape Town. Her murderer was a 16-year-old squatter camp resident whose race was omitted by the press but presumably few, if any whites, reside in his particular squatter camp which is dedicated to black Africans. Lisbé Smuts-Smith was a well-known academic and head of the Afrikaans literature department at the University of Cape Town. Just two weeks ago, another UCT academic, mathematician Brian Hahn, was attacked by a former student, dr. Maleafisha Steve Tladi (35). Hahn died in hospital a week later, while Tladi was released on bail of R500 (about $80).Two years ago Louw Rabie, a brilliant albeit reclusive geologist and brother of author Jan Rabie, was beaten to death with a fence pole by two Coloured men to whom he had lent some money a week earlier. Police in the small Cape town of Montagu readily caught his murderers because they happened to have drinking money during the week, taken from his home. He was 80 years old, but in good health. He is reputed to have been one of the most brilliant geologists and intellectuals this country has ever produced, writing copiously throughout his life but disdaining publication and public esteem. Africans with their oral tradition are fond of saying that "when an old person dies, a library burns down". What strikes me about the relentless killings of educated whites, is that the criminals are indeed "burning down the libraries" of this country and physically exterminating the intellectual class, much like Pol Pot did in Cambodia. The media are celebrating youth, dance, colour, being black and exuberant - as opposed to the quiet studiousness of middle-aged and elderly whites, the bearers of knowledge and understanding. Are these learned whites who are being killed in exuberant, paradisiacal outbreaks of violence simply the remnants of a civilisation that is being eradicated in the name of decolonisation? No government spokesman has ever condemned such killings; so we may assume that the present regime is completely indifferent to them, where such killings do not enjoy their tacit support.<img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5426632496252381650" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBi-fKxqspJsebDvU805xO9hqclbVj1Bbul14TpdE53-NGoLs5_B0yN34wzGSMl_28-Hy9pJbeGRh5cGffPleKr_oq794Gy1_PQ23NRhauFiwxHhn2QjQvPx0L8GFxngyqlAt_oftXMe7r/s400/ANC_JUSTICE_LARGE.jpg" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 332px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" />Around our local school in the past week there have been two car hijackings, as well as one murder. It is not really considered to be an exceptionally violent area. Most of this is not even reported in the press, because there really is not enough space and ordinary crime is no longer newsworthy. It needs some further sadistic element to make the front page, such as babies getting killed or raped, or elderly farmers being tortured to death. Farming in South Africa is now arguably the most dangerous profession in the world with more than 1600 farmers murdered since 1994, often in macabre and dehumanising ways.To the outside world, white South Africans are congenitally evil. If our murderers and rapists had been white and their victims black, Europe or the United States would long ago have sent an expeditionary force to put a stop to it. At present, news of white suffering in South Africa inspires the occasional yawn in Western capitals. This is why a recent article in The Despatch, detailing the rape of a dog by three black men, gave me some hope that a chord will be struck somewhere in the coolly indifferent breasts of our fellow-Westerners. Even if the lives of Louw Rabie, Brian Hahn, Lisbé Smuts-Smith, Kayla Rawstorne and tens of thousands of others are of no value to them, perhaps they will take pity on the mongrel bitch in Grahamstown that was recently raped by three black men. Or perhaps two black men, as the third one protested his innocence upon being dragged out of the shack by screaming, "I came here to relieve myself. These two were raping the dog when I arrived!" Cruelty to humans ,especially white humans, is today a normal feature of our society, just like human sacrifice used to be in the culture of the Aztecs. Cruelty to animals, or non-consensual sex with dogs, may still evoke some sympathy, not only locally, but also internationally. I therefore feel sorry for Masganda - the name of the dog concerned - who was rescued with a bleeding vagina and in need of veterinary attention, but perhaps this lowly creature of uncertain lineage could become a martyr for our cause in alerting opinion-makers and political leaders of our plight. Cycling has become a popular sport in South Africa. However, its practitioners regularly get shot at by gangs of black youths in the street, so that many of them carry guns and knives for self-defence on their bicycles. Members of the Johannesburg mountain-bike club were outraged a while ago when two cyclists, Scott and Lloyd Griffith, were charged with murder after an armed battle with their four black assailants, one of whom succumbed to his wounds. Most of the time, however, whites are helpless victims of crime. The government has recently passed a new gun law which makes it difficult, if not impossible, to own a fire-arm. They have also abolished rural commandos of military reservists entrusted with crime-prevention in the country, without any police units replacing them. Occasionally the newspapers carry stories of crime victims successfully defending themselves against attacks, offering armed resistance. As a result of the new gun law, this will soon end and we shall simply be able to hide or flee from our assailants. Defending oneself against a marauding robber or rapist might be a manifestation of racism, and is therefore frowned upon as being a kind of "right-wing"response.Being robbed of one's vehicle or household belongings is now considered quite normal, and often people ascribe escaping with their lives to their own astuteness, such as being friendly to the robber, helping him load the effects into a vehicle, not looking him in the face so as not to recognise him afterwards, et cetera. A friend of mine in Kempton Park kept up a reasonable conversation with the thieves emptying his house, tied up as he was with a gun pointed at him. He survived, although his elderly mother was badly roughed up and had to be hospitalised. In other instances, of course, people are not so lucky and they become just another murder statistic. Then they simply adapt and die.

Adapt and die - South Africa's new motto

* The first draft of this article was submitted to the British Spectator, who turned it down about a year ago. It is now updated with refere...

7:41 AM

South Africa P.I.G.