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Police Minister Bheki Cele has said there is a need to “fix” human relations in the Normandien farming community near Newcastle in KwaZulu-Natal, where farmer couple Glen and Vida Rafferty were recently killed.
A suspect is expected to appear in court Monday in connection with the Raffertys’ murder.
Cele spoke on Monday at the rural security imbizo organized by the police ministry in Normandien.
The Imbizo stems from Cele’s first visit to the area on September 2, following the murders of Rafferty who were shot to death on the doorstep of his farmhouse. Cele met with organized community, police and agricultural structures that expressed their concerns about safety in the area.
Cele asked the police in the area to work and follow up on all open cases at the local police station without favoritism or racial prejudice.
The police minister said that even if the entire South African National Defense Force and the country’s police were deployed to the agricultural community, security in the area would not increase without human relations being fixed.
Cele said the accounts of community members who spoke in the imbizo about their experiences “are painful.”
A community member said that it was necessary for whites, white farmers, to see blacks as equals and teach their children to do the same and that they should respect blacks.
Cele commissioned the police commissioner, Lieutenant General Khehla Sitole, to “send” a team to the Normandien police station to deal with the cases registered there.
The rural security imbizo comes after KwaZulu-Natal Prime Minister Sihle Zikalala’s engagement with the local community on Saturday.
After her engagement, Zikalala called for calm in the area amid tensions in the farming community.
During Zikalala’s engagement, the police were accused of taking sides in her investigations of crimes within the farming community.
“We will continue to work with SAPS to address surveillance issues and monitor police operations in the area. We would like to see farmers and farm residents working together to address the issue of access to basic services, ”said Zikalala.
The slaughter of farmers is a serious concern for the provincial government, Zikalala said, adding that it was necessary to find “final solutions” to the problem.
Aside from the recent slaughter of a farm in Normandien, the prime minister also pointed to an incident three years ago in the same area when tensions between farm owner Lawrence Hoatson and farm workers reached a boiling point.
This resulted in four farm workers being shot and injured while protesting at the farm gate. Tensions escalated further when Hoatson confiscated a herd of 300 head of cattle belonging to the local community under the charge of herding.
Zikalala said the farm killings were an indication of deep-rooted and unresolved issues surrounding land ownership and land poverty, as well as the country’s racist past.
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