KwaZulu-Natal – South coast farmer Len Pienaar is used to people trespassing daily on his land. But when a shack went up, he knew he had to act swiftly.
“That’s a land grab and I knew if I did not do something about it, I’d run the risk of other people doing the same,” said Pienaar, whose Lion Valley Farm is 5km from Margate.
He is one of several farmers across the country fighting squatters and has called in AfriForum, the civil rights organisation, to help him. AfriForum is dealing with 10 cases countryside, four of them in KwaZulu-Natal.
It has warned KZN farmers to join security networks to protect themselves and each other.
Pienaar said for eight years, he had had to put up with “hundreds” of people from the Gamalakhe township cutting his R480 000 fence and taking shortcuts across his 90ha of land to get to and from Margate or Uvongo. Boundary pegs had also been removed.
He farms instant lawn, but soccer players regularly carve out a pitch on his land. Once a pitch is ruined, they move on to the next.
“I have just lost a R200 000 order because I could not supply enough lawn because the soccer players have ruined my land,” he said.
He claimed off-duty policemen also play. Local police spokesman, Captain Gerald Mfeka though asked, did not comment.
“I wanted to put in a pond for irrigation and hired an excavator for R2 800, but when the community made threats, saying children would drown, I had to send it away.”
The final straw was when a corrugated-iron shack went up on his land and several people took up residence.
Pienaar’s staff had tipped him off about a death threat against him by unknown members of the community, so he hired a security company to accompany Chris Fourie, AfriForum’s KZN community co-ordinator, to the shack.
Fourie delivered a letter on behalf of Pienaar explaining to the occupant he had entered the farmer’s property without permission and demanding he vacate the premises by the next day. The letter said a trespassing case would be opened.
That was in November.
Pienaar duly opened a case of trespassing at the Gamalakhe police station and the docket was referred to the senior public prosecutor in Port Shepstone. Mfeka said it was decided not to prosecute as it was considered a civil matter.
Mfeka said the owner of the shack, who is unnamed, said he was given “the place” by Inkosi Dumisani Mavundla.
The matter was allegedly handed to Mavundla, who is dealing with his indunas…
Farm Invasions: Three Afrikaner-owned farms torched by large mob from Gamalakhe who said the Land Belongs To Them- Farmers had won land-claim lawsuits
3 white-owned farms torched by black farm-invaders Gamalakhe KZN 4am June142014 – local had won land-claim against local community – now they are taking the land by force with SAPS just standing by and watching…
: three farms including this ruined wreck of Len Pienaar’s homestead and store, (pics) were overrun by a mob from Gamalakhe KZN who claim ‘the land belongs to them’… report by Chris Fourie of Afriforum in KwaZulu Natal – who tweeted to the SA Police Service at 18h00 that the ‘protest march by the Gamalakhe community is ‘protected’ but we demand protection for the farmers.’
South Africa Today – South Africa News
