Pretoria - Three years after her husband was brutally assaulted and then shot dead on their farm in Fochville on the West Rand, Bernadette Hall is no closer to finding out who was responsible for this despicable act.
Hall said five men entered their home and mercilessly started beating her husband David. Then they shot him at close range.
“While two suspects had initially been arrested for my husband’s murder, they were later released as police said there was insufficient evidence. We have had to resort to doing the policing ourselves just to get by,” she said.
She was among the many families who gathered outside the SAPS headquarters in Pretoria on Monday to lay wreaths calling for farm murders to be given priority attention.
“We are not here to fight with anyone, we just want to deliver our memorandum and then we will leave in peace. That is all we want,” an emotional Hall pleaded.
“We really need help to stop these killings, but we always get excuses from the police. It’s difficult to get hold of them on the phone, and when we do, either they don’t have vehicles or petrol or there is no one with a licence to drive,” she said.
Another participant in the protest, Claudia van Wyk, said she had lost three family members in separate killings and there had still been no progress as police had said the dockets had been lost.
“My 72-year-old father was beaten to death last year, and before that my uncle and his wife were also murdered on two separate occasions, and nothing was even taken in their case,” Van Wyk said.
They delivered a letter which stated that since the beginning of the year, 30 farm murders had been committed and nothing had been done about them.
The group also claimed that the refusal to release annual statistics by the police pertaining to farm murders compounded the situation.
Condescending commentary had been made by senior officials when the prioritisation of farm murders was requested and no discussions on possible solutions had been forthcoming, they said.
“While certain crimes have been prioritised, farm murders are not deemed important enough to be given the same attention,” AfriForum’s deputy chief executive officer, Ernst Roets, said.
After waiting for more than an hour for an official to receive their memorandum, there was shoving and insults outside the headquarters as AfriForum representatives, family members and police members clashed.
The police were attempting to bar them from delivering their memorandum.
Roets said the manner in which they had been treated by the police was another reason why the delivering of the motion of no confidence in addressing farm attacks and farm murders was so important.
“It is actually an embarrassment to the force as we just wanted someone to come and hear us out, and that is all, not this aggressive and hostile attitude towards us,” he said.
AfriForum would be laying charges against Police Minister Nkosinathi Nhleko, national police commissioner General Riah Phiyega and the Tshwane Metro Police Department.
“We showed proof that the minister’s office and the metro police had received our notice to hold this gathering, but we were told that no one had been informed and that this was an illegal meeting,” Roets said.
The Star