Western Cape - The Western Cape’s Witzenberg municipality is investigating a senior traffic officer for allegedly posting calls for violence against farmers on a social network. The municipality covers Ceres, Tulbagh and Wolseley.
This comes amid high tension between farmers and workers in the area, after a series of strikes for higher wages, which are set to resume on Wednesday.
The Food and Allied Workers Union called on farmworkers to “engage in peaceful strike actions and desist from engaging in violence, yet to remain militant in the course of protest, picketing and other actions”, said Fawu general secretary Katishi Masemola.
The officer’s Facebook page allegedly said, in Afrikaans: “It looks like we must again pick up our AK47s here in the f****** Western Cape. I am sick of farmers and the DA.”
It continued: “The f****** farmers know who our leaders are, and now our leaders are being targeted,” adding that the “DA wants to make the Western Cape a province for Boere”.
David Nasson, Witzenberg’s municipal manager, says he views the matter “very seriously”. Agri SA said it didn’t not want to comment until more information had been received.
The posts were allegedly reproduced by means of a screenshot from the officer’s Facebook page. The original posts appear to have been deleted after they started to gain attention.
Netherlands-based CensorBugbear.org, which reproduced screenshots of the posts, is a right-wing organisation which claims to promote “uncensored South African news”.
The postings sparked debate on Facebook and Twitter. “Race hatred!!“ posted one user. Others posted racist comments.
Cape Argus