The acquittal this week of seven farmers charged with killing a seasonal worker and his brother in Mkhondo has reawakened deep divides in the Mpumalanga farming community.
Bongani Hlatshwayo, president of the SA Workers and Tenants Association, which represents farm dwellers and tenant claimants, says though the community is not satisfied with the acquittal, he does not expect a big backlash.
“At the end of the day two people were murdered. We want to know who killed them if it wasn’t those seven men.
“The community is more sad than angry.
“The people feel there is no justice for poor people, only for rich people. We feel the judgment is worrying. We are waiting to see if the state will appeal. Until then we will keep our members calm and on the right side of the law.
“We want to sit down with the NPA and discuss the road forward and this decision. We want to know how and where we lost this case,” Hlatshwayo told TimesLIVE Premium.
Amos and Zenzele Coka were killed on April 9 2021 during a tense standoff at a protest at the gate of the farm Pampoenkraal, over hiring seasonal workers from other areas. Farmers and seasonal workers were on one side and members of the local community on the other.
Farmer Werner Potgieter, his son Cornelius Greyling, Zenzele Patrick Yende, Daniel Malan, Othard Klingenberg, Ignatius Steynberg and Andries Pienaar were charged with murder, attempted murder, obstructing the course of justice, assault and transgressing the firearms act.
On Tuesday judge Bruce Langa acquitted the men of all charges after a section 174 application was brought by them last week. This section holds that an accused is entitled to a discharge if a judge believes there is insufficient evidence for a trial.
National Prosecuting Authority Mpumalanga spokesperson Monica Nyuswa confirmed the acquittal. “Judge Langa said the state case is weak. The NPA will study the judgment and see if there are prospects to appeal,” she said.
Last month Hlatshwayo told TimesLIVE Premium that the court case was not about race but had highlighted tensions within various communities besieged by rampant stock theft.
“There are still differences between the farming sector and the tenant community, but this is not about race, and it is not violent any more. It is more about grazing rights on farmers’ land and space for tenants to plant their own crops.
He said the murder case going to court had calmed the community down. “There is a feeling that we are being heard by government.
“All the stakeholders — commercial farmers, farmworkers, tenant claimants, the police and the department of labour — now discuss issues under the watchful eyes of the department of rural development and land reform,” Hlatshwayo said.
“Stock theft and a non-responsive police and court system are our biggest challenges. The police and the community know who the stock thieves are. They live openly, but little is done.”
During a visit to the area last month various community members, farmers and land activists said the split between farmers and workers was not on racial lines but due to criminality.
Across the board they blame the police and courts for failing them.
Hlatshwayo said: “Animals belonging to the tenant claimants and the communal farmers are also stolen. Where the commercial farmers have the finances to absorb losses like this, our people do not.”
Stanley Mokoena, a Mpumalanga community leader working with AFRA (Association for Rural Advancement Land Rights Advocacy), said: “It has taken a lot of work to get to this point in Mkhondo. We are engaging officials from the department of land reform and rural development and training them how to handle these kinds of conflicts.”
He says it is still early days.
“There are still issues over land, but it is being handled in a peaceful way. It is being handled by talking to each other and listening.”
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Piet Rabe is a third-generation commercial farmer in the area.
“My son would have been the fourth generation to work the genetics in our sheep herd, but we ended most of our herd because of theft on a grand scale in 2020,” Rabe said.
Between March and December 2020 he lost 282 ewes valued at R700,000.
“What breaks your heart is the little lambs being killed. We found 60 of them in 2020. They are a nuisance for the thieves because they are noisy. “You can follow the trail of dead lambs to where they have taken your sheep to be loaded.”
Now his cattle are being stolen.
“Three weeks ago we lost three heavily pregnant cows and the next week four. We suspect a very professional syndicate to be involved. The slaughtering is done very fast and very clean. Almost as if done by people who work in slaughterhouses or butcheries.”
Joachim van Wyk farms with his father in the area.
“Last year we lost 80 cattle to stock theft in 2022 alone. That is R1.4m worth of cattle. If you see a portion of meat in a meal as 250g that means 80,000 meals were stolen from our farm in one year,” Van Wyk said.
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He has 33 case numbers for stock and copper wire theft ranging from August 2019 to March of this year.
“We have not received any feedback from the police in any of these cases. I am not talking successful prosecution, just feedback.”
Both Rabe and Van Wyk claim the police and courts are failing them.
Robert Maseko is an upcoming farmer the Driefontein area.
“The conflict here is between farmers — black and white — and criminals. As things stand you write losses off because reporting it to the police is of no help.
Their meat is sold in the city and to community members.
“Hungry people will do what hungry people do. Your beautiful meat worth R3,000 on the market is sold for as little as R200 to people in the community.”
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Two communal farmers, Thulani Mkhonza and S’tende Yende, told TimesLIVE Premium they are losing the battle against stock theft.
“We are fighting to build, while others just take and break.
“We know who the criminals in the community are, and the police also know. They just don’t do anything because some of them are connected to the criminals,” Yende said.
The Coka brothers were killed on April 9 2021 during a tense standoff at the gate of the farm Pampoenkraal — farmers and seasonal workers on one side and members of the local community on the other.
During their bail application it came to light that three of the accused were also implicated in another earlier alleged Pampoenkraal-murder, that is yet to be tried.
Brothers Sifiso and S’thembiso Thwala and their friend Musa Nene, were allegedly accosted by farm management and employees when the vehicle they were driving broke down next to the farm in August 2020.
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The brothers’ sister, Thandi Thwala, said they were accused of being stock thieves and were kidnapped and beaten with a sjambok. Sifiso Thwala and Nene died.
“S’thembiso only survived because he pretended to be dead until police arrived,” Thwala said.
“We do not understand why justice is taking so long. This case has been in court since 2020.”
She agrees about the police presence in the area.
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“We are too scared to say anything because the criminals have their own informants in the police and they will hurt you if they hear you are making a case.”
Three of the men acquitted in the Coka murders — Potgieter, Greyling and Yende — are accused in this case along with Khowa Madodeni Dlamini, Mabheki Moses Dlamini, Zukhumbuzo Zikalala and Mzwakhe Cornelius Dlamini.
Responding to claims of police inaction over stock theft, Mpumalanga police spokesperson Col Donald Mdluli said police do effect some arrests.
“The suspects appear in court and are then granted bail even though police try to oppose bail. In some instances police tried to to oppose bail, this was not permitted.
“The stock theft unit in Piet Retief have weekly operations in the area where they also visit kraals belonging to previously convicted suspects of stock theft,” Mdluli said.
He urged complainants to contact the unit commander of the Mkhondo stock theft unit.
“Failing that, they must complain to the district commander and if that doesn't work, the provincial and then national command.”
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