The ANC launched a violent campaign to clear white farmers off their land

Dr James Myburgh provided details on the origins, history, and nature of farm attacks in South Africa, including an ANC campaign to drive white farmers off their land.

Myburgh, a South African political analyst, historian, and media professional, delivered a speech about farm murders at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

He cited data from the South African Police Service and farmer organisations, which have been tracking farm murders for decades.

In the mid-1980s, there was a burst of violence against people living isolated on farms driven by a campaign from the ANC.

“There was a major ANC campaign directed from exile to clear the white farmers off their land,” Myburgh said. This campaign took three forms.

• General incitement, with exhortations to people to rise up and seize the land.

• A landmine warfare campaign, which also involved an assassination component.

• Infiltrate guerrillas from their camps in Angola into South Africa to link up with the bands of youth to give them training and direction for attacks on targets in the white areas.

“This was how the first farm murders of this particular type were instigated in mid-1985,” Myburgh said.

“This was also how the ‘Kill the Boer’ chant was first injected into South Africa during the revolutionary ferment of that period.”

He added that it was part of ANC doctrine at the time that guerrillas could use robbery to secure weapons and operational funds in so-called repossession operations.

Farm attacks slowed and then accelerated in 1990

Myburgh said farm attacks disappeared for a period, but then dramatically reemerged in 1990. The reason for this was also ANC activity.

In February 1990, President F.W. de Klerk unbanned the ANC and lifted all restrictions on its legal operations.

“The ANC underground, however, continued with illegal work, and it set about rebuilding the paramilitary units that had been shattered through state repression,” Myburgh said.

In 1991, the South African Agricultural Union counted 66 murders stemming from 327 attacks.

The numbers rose relentlessly through the 1990s, reaching 150 murders per year in 1997, a level that was then sustained for several years.

This may seem strange, as it included a period of negotiations in which the ANC was involved, as well as the 1994 democratic elections.

Myburgh explained that throughout the negotiations, the ANC continued to covertly arm and train its paramilitary units.

“This was dramatically ramped up in 1993 to 1994. These units were encouraged to use their own initiative to secure both weapons and funds for operations,” he said.

In April 1994, all political factions were brought into the electoral process, with the ANC emerging triumphant.

“There was indeed a remarkable drop-off in most forms of politically charged violence, but attacks on farmers were a significant exception,” he said.

“Farm murders continued to increase from 84 in 1993, when you had these paramilitary units operating openly, to 92 in 1994 and 121 in 1995,” he said.

He said that by 1996, those living on farms and smallholdings were 20 times more likely to be killed in attacks on or near their homes than other South Africans.

“In mid-1998, a grim milestone was passed, with 500 people being killed in farm attacks under ANC rule,” he said.

Despite these concerning statistics, the ANC government rejected suggestions that farm attacks could be considered anything other than ordinary crime.

The ANC did nothing to stop farm murders

Myburgh said that the ANC government did not act to curtail this kind of predatory criminal violence by building up the state institutions necessary to combat it.

Instead, the government steadily decreased the capacity of the security services that were most suited to fight farm murders.

“Specialised police units, such as the murder and robbery units, were dismantled, and the rural commando system was abolished,” he said.

“Over time, armed attacks on people in or near their homes came to be regarded in South Africa as an unpleasant fact of life,” he said.

“This normalisation of farm and home attacks and the government’s dismantling of the state’s capacity to combat this crime has had terrible consequences.”

He said that reversing the demoralisation of South African society requires recognising the farm murder phenomenon for the horror that it is and was.

“No South African, wherever they live, should have to fear even their own houses, to fear both day and night alike,” he said.