This man’s job is to infiltrate the lives of the farmer and his family, learn their movements and habits, locate their safe and their weapons, identify their weaknesses, and use all that information to prime the gang preparing to attack.
He recruits others to do the same. His syndicate boss dresses him up with a nice watch and money for his wallet, lends him a car, and sends him to lure other farm workers to become informants.
He tells me, wide-eyed, how he sells them the dream:
“Look what you can have if you help us! You have nothing, you are treated like nothing, you have very little wages. The farmer is mean and cruel. If you help us, you can have all this.”
Farm attacks are not the random events they might appear to be. They are coordinated and equipped from the outside. But many it seems are set up from within.
And it is a story I hear repeated over and over by the farmers I meet. Robert, Marietta and Bernard have all been victims of these attacks. Robert knew the men who came to torture him and kill his wife, Sue. Marietta knew the voice behind the shotgun that blew her face away. Bernard knew the farm worker who sold the information on his dad; his dad was killed but the worker is still on the farm today, protected by employment law.
It is impossible to reconcile these truths. Black farm workers endure lives of relative servitude for food, a meagre salary and safety; and some like Maria seem perfectly content with this life.
But the biggest threat to the white farmer is the disgruntled worker paid, housed and fed by his hand.
Read the original article BKA Boere Krisis Aksie
South Africa Today – South Africa News
