Until earlier this month, Senekal would hardly feature in the South African discourse. Now, the Free State farming town, with its official Stats SA recorded population of just more than 3,500 people, stands emblematic of the country’s simmering racial tensions.
On Tuesday, a 51-year-old businessman will stand in the dock of the town’s magistrate’s court to find out if he will be granted bail for his role in chaotic scenes outside the court last week. On Friday, two men accused of a horrific murder will find out if they will get bail.
The businessman, who the court has ordered not be identified, was among a group of angry protesters who took to the streets to “demand justice” as two men appeared in court for the brutal murder of farm manager Brendin Horner.
The “unruly group”, according to police, stormed the court building where the suspects were detained and demanded they be handed over to them. Members of the group damaged court property while forcing their way to the cells. A police van parked outside the court was overturned and burnt.
The murder of 21-year-old Horner has become a focal point of violence on SA’s farmlands, a situation President Cyril Ramaphosa weighed in on in his latest newsletter.
He said the violence last week and the reaction to it showed the country had not yet escaped the “divisions and mistrust of our past”.
While Ramaphosa was adamant that claims of “ethnic cleansing” — and that farm murders were “part of an orchestrated campaign by blacks to drive white farmers off their land” — were simply untrue, he said rural safety was a big issue and that those who live there need to be protected.
Violent crime on farms poses not just a threat to the safety of our rural communities, but to our nation’s food security.
— President Cyril Ramaphosa
“The farming community produces the food we eat. Violent crime on farms poses not just a threat to the safety of our rural communities, but to our nation’s food security.
“[Farm killings] are not genocidal. They are acts of criminality and must be treated as such,” he said.
Sekwetje Isaiah Mahlamba, 32, and Sekola Piet Matlaletsa, 44, stand accused of murdering Horner, who was killed one year to the day after he began working for the Scheepers family at Bloukruin Boerdery, close to the small Free State town of Paul Roux.
Police minister Bheki Cele revealed on Monday that one of the men had been arrested 16 times before his latest detention. The other man had also been previously arrested.
“People that we have arrested there, one of them has been arrested twice, but the other one has been arrested 16 times ... I would like to know why a person who has been arrested 16 times is still given another chance to commit another crime,” he said.
As part of attempts to ease tensions that threaten to spill over, Cele and his state security counterpart, Ayanda Dlodlo, were set to visit Horner’s family on Tuesday.
As the tinderbox threatens to spark and politicians wade in on the situation, Cele told journalists he had met with EFF leader Julius Malema and was scheduled to meet the leader of the Freedom Front Plus, Pieter Groenewald, “in the next 24 hours”.
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The DA has laid a criminal charge against Malema and EFF MP Nazier Paulsen over tweets which the party said were attempts to “incite violence”.
Cele said: “We spoke yesterday with the leader of EFF and we have agreed that we will have to be mature, provide leadership and try our best to make sure that those things are avoided.”
The DA laid the charges against Malema and Paulsen at the Cape Town Central police station on Monday, saying: “The SA Police Service can no longer sit on its hands and ignore Malema’s violence, especially in light of the swift action and vigour in which the police pursued the alleged instigator of the violence in Senekal.”
On Wednesday, Malema tweeted a video of the protests and called on EFF “ground forces” to attend the Senekal magistrate’s court proceedings on Friday to “defend” state property and democracy.
“Since the government of [President] Cyril Ramaphosa is scared to act decisively, we are on our own. Next appearance, all ground forces and peace-loving South Africans will be in attendance in defence of our democracy and property. Magwala a chechele morago (move over cowards)!” he captioned the video.
Paulsen posted a picture of a gun alongside the caption: “Get ready.”
Meanwhile, in incidents apparently unrelated to the events in Senekal, the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) has vowed to launch an investigation into the behaviour of police officers there.
The police watchdog’s head, Jennifer Ntlatseng, said Ipid would send a team to investigate reports of police involvement in livestock theft. She said Ipid was not aware of any cases reported to the police in relation to police misconduct or the relationship between the police and cattle thieves
“What we will do is ask our team to go to Senekal to engage with the farmers there to find out how many cases have been reported and what is happening, and if there are any thieves that can be arrested on the spot.
“I will make sure there is an investigator going there to gather information and see how we proceed with the matter,” she said.
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