The seriousness of continued acts of violence and murders against rural communities, particularly farm murders, requires police to formulate a comprehensive and holistic strategy to ensure rural safety.
The Minister of Police, Nathi Mthethwa announced that the Ministry of Police is currently reviewing its rural safety plan, which gives impetus of its prioritisation of rural areas and rural development at the Agri-SA Rural Safety Crime Conference held in Pretoria this morning.
“Our rural safety plan needs to address vulnerable sectors of rural communities including, women, children, elderly, disabled and even immigrants. We would like to encourage all stakeholders within the rural safety sector to work together in a properly coordinated and integrated manner and engage at all levels in our planning and implementation of this plan,” stated the minister.
The revised plan is nearing finalisation and some of the key aspects within this plan include the following key aspects:
* To improve and enhance the service delivery at a local station level. We have recognised that rural police stations are often isolated and responsible to police vast areas. To address these problems we need to not only create more effective and efficient police stations but also ensure that the local police work in partnership with both rural communities and other government departments responsible for rural development.
* To increase and improve police visibility in rural areas and to increase the response times of police. The ministry will adopt and ensure a responsive integrated proactive and reactive policing approach to policing of rural areas. At the end of 2009 the moratorium on the recruitment of reservists was lifted and the department is currently finalising its revised approach to address the use of reservists within the force. Our rural safety plan will also find ways of best utilising reservists’ capacity in rural areas.
* To improve and enhance relationships between the police, farming community, stakeholders and extended rural communities. We have looked closely at the role of sector policing in rural areas and are ready to roll out the implementation of sector policing in the rural environment. These partnerships will also seek to establish enhanced communication within rural communities and among all role-players.
* To improve safety awareness in rural areas and educate rural communities on safety and security matters. Infra-structural development within the rural environment is essential to ensure equal accessibility to services and service delivery. Our rural safety plan will also support rural development through the implementation of sustainable safety plan.
* In addressing crime generally we have highlighted the need to improve both our intelligence and investigative capacity and this includes our abilities in this regard related to rural crimes. We must ensure that in rural areas proper investigation of all cases reported and closer cooperation with prosecuting authorities. In supporting both our crime investigations and our crime prevention we also need to improve our crime intelligence and analysis in rural area.
Some crime syndicates operate in rural areas, harassing and undermining the safety of communities. In particular; farmers, farm workers and residents within rural communities are considered soft targets of such criminals. Between 1997 and 2007 there were 1 248 murders on farms, both involving farmers and farm workers. However it needs to be noted that a docket analysis done in 2003 indicated that the majority of these murders which occurred between 1997 and 2003, did not actually involve farmers themselves and the victims of these murders were actually farm workers or people visiting farm workers.
The minister further reiterated that the while ministry remains committed to dealing with all rural crimes including murders committed on farms, it is important that farmers themselves also take steps to address vulnerabilities that have impacted on farm killings. While at times government has no control in terms of working conditions and agreements privately entered into between the farmers and these vulnerable workers, it is an area that farmers themselves need to seriously address. “While these killings are worrying and police will never rest until culprits are brought to book, our investigations have amongst others pointed out to the issue of labour relations having contributed to these killings. There had been empirical evidence that some farmers, not the majority though, hire workers from other foreign countries without proper paper documentations,” stated the Minister.
The minister also appealed to some of the trade union representatives as well as political parties not to politicise these farm killings unnecessarily. “To us this is crime and therefore needs to be condemned with vigour. We do not see it as a racist onslaught or politically motivated acts but murder is murder.”
Government recognises that both farmers and farm workers are valuable assets in the economic development and agricultural prosperity of our country. The two should therefore not be seen as opposing sides but as complementing each other towards the growth of the country’s agricultural programmes.“We commit ourselves to fighting crime in whatever form it manifest itself in our society including farm killings. We have placed the issue of rural development high on the agenda and view the safety and security of the rural community in South Africa as a priority. This priority therefore needs to find concrete expression in our policing strategies and we need to ensure that our programmes speak adequately to this important issue,” concluded the Minister.
The one-day conference was also attended by the Deputy Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development Mr Andre Nel, MEC for Safety and Security Liaison in Northern Cape Mr Patrick Mabilo, representatives from the SAPS, Agri-SA, farmers, business organisations as well as various agricultural associations.
For enquiries, please contact:
Zweli Mnisi
Cell: 082 045 4024
Issued by: Ministry of Police
8 March 2010
