Emotions peaked Friday when two black suspects gave the impression in a South African court accused of the murder of a white farmer, prompting racial tensions 26 years after the end of apartheid.
A barbed wire fence surrounded the courthouse in the central city of Senekal and police and a water cannon were deployed as opposing teams of white farmers and black activists gathered near the site.
The murder of Brendin Horner, a white man whose tortured body was discovered tied to a pole near his farm in Free State Province, caused riots this month and led President Cyril Ramaphosa to urge South Africans to “resist attempts. “. Mobilize communities according to racial criteria. “
The farmers, who accuse the government of failing them for violent crimes, arrived in vans before the court hearing for Horner’s two alleged killers. Farmers most often wore khaki shirts and shorts, some wearing army suits.
“We are tired now of all the murders on the farm,” said Geoffrey Marais, 30, a farm animal runner from Delmas, where a woman was strangled to death two weeks ago.
“Too much is too much. [The government] wants to start prioritizing these crimes. “
According to Al Jazeera’s report, Fehmida Miller of Senekal, while farmers deny that the challenge is race, but that their protection and that of their workers, the factor has “racial nuances”.
“We saw skirmishes between the two teams on the day. We’ve heard racist insults,” Miller said.
Left-wing economic freedom fighters (EFF), representing deficient black South Africans who feel excluded from the country’s prosperity after apartheid, organized a counter-row in the presence of thousands of demonstrators dressed in red shirts and branded berets in the city centre.
Police separated the two teams with barbed ropes in a street, but regrouped and clashed in the domain as police helicopters flew over the sky. Despite tensions, no cases of violence have been reported.
– Financial Freedom Fighters (@EFFSouthAfrica) October 2020
The EFF attributes to South Africa what it says is continuous control of the economy through whites.
Several buses full of EOP supporters passed by farmers singing “Kill the boer ( farmer)” through the window as they made their way to the city.
“We are afraid of them. We’ll have them on Friday. We will face white men face to face,” EFF leader Julius Malema told the local press this week.
“I’m here for the white people . . . who is earning credit for us,” said Khaya Langile, an EFF supporter of the city of Soweto in Johannesburg.
Tensions have been exacerbated through a government plan to expropriate the payment of white-owned land as a component of an effort to correct economic inequalities that remain austere a quarter of a century after the completion of a component of the law.
Approximately 70 per cent of South Africa’s agricultural land is owned by whites, representing less than nine per cent of the country’s 58 million inhabitants.
Western Cape farmers have left the team after negotiations did not meet their demands for a pay rise.
Police fire rubber bullets at a crowd of protesters in Western Cape province as staff search for higher wages.
© 2020 Al Jazeera Media Network