An epidemic of farm attacks in South Africa which has left 1,500 farmers dead over the past decade was largely carried out by gangs of thieves and did not amount to a Zimbabwe-style assault against a racial minority, an inquiry decided on Thursday.
The 487-page report of the state-sanctioned inquiry found that almost two-thirds of farm attacks were against mainly elderly white people in rural areas. The brutality and sadism which often accompanied the attacks led some survivors to suggest a campaign of ethnic cleansing.
But the inquiry chairman, Charl du Plessis, said that only about 2 percent of the incidents had overt political or racial motives.
PHOTO: EPA
Black people who were attacked on a farm had a lower chance of being killed or injured than white people, but the proportion of black victims was rising, said the chairman.
"The committee could find no general underlying racial motive for this discrepancy, and there may be a variety of factors which could account for it," said Du Plessis.
Launched in mid-2001 by the safety and security ministry after a spate of attacks, the inquiry concluded that there was a degree of organization behind some of the land invasions where hundreds, sometimes tens of thousands of people, squatted on a farm. "There are indications that these invasions are likely to increase. The matter is of great concern to the committee."
Some white farmers fear South Africa will eventually resemble Zimbabwe, with the state turning a blind eye as landless peasants and the semi-urban unemployed occupy private property, claiming it to be ancestral land stolen by white farmers.
Crime statistics published this week showed that farm attacks fell from 1,069 between 2001 and last year to 903 in the past year, and that the number of killings was down by more than a quarter to 103, an average of two a week.
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