Kill the Boer: The ANC fuelled farm murders in South Africa, and then let it get worse

The African National Congress (ANC) instigated farm attacks in South Africa, and then allowed it to get worse after it took power in 1994.

This was revealed by James Myburgh, Politics Web editor and director of the Bremen Centre for Democratic Research.

Myburgh shared details about the history of farm attacks in South Africa and the ANC’s involvement in these attacks on a Sakeliga podcast.

He said that the origin of farm attacks dates back to the Rhodesian Bush War when the ‘Kill the Boer’ chant gained notoriety.

The chant was used by the Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA), the military wing of the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU).

ZAPU and the ANC were allies, and when ANC and MK guerrillas received training in Zambia, they learned the toyi-toyi alongside the ‘Kill the Boer’ chant.

MK (uMkhonto weSizwe) cadres, who served as the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC), brought the chants to ANC camps in Angola.

The war on white South African farmers moved to the next level after the ANC framed them as invaders who took the land by force.

The political movement established that driving white farmers off the land was intrinsic to the revolution.

In the mid-1980s, the ANC launched its People’s War strategy, declaring white farmers as a primary target alongside police officers.

“The ANC wanted to create liberated zones in the rural areas and to achieve that, they had to push white farmers off their land,” he said.

The political movement tried to achieve this goal through a three-part strategy against white farmers in rural areas:

• Using general incitement through calls to action broadcast from exile, urging people to rise up against ‘blood-sucking soldier-farmers’.

• Declaring white farmers as legitimate military targets due to their involvement in the local commando system.

• MK guerrillas were sent into South Africa to organise, indoctrinate, and train radical youth paramilitary combat units to attack farmers.

In June 1985, the first paramilitary farm murder attack happened after MK operatives infiltrated the Eastern Cape.

They indoctrinated local youths, taught them tactical methods and the ‘Kill the Boer’ chant, and directed them to attack a farm before withdrawing.

“The MK operatives instigated the attacks, but they never participated in the attacks, and their identities were never revealed,” he said.

Rapid increase in farm attacks in South Africa

After the initial Eastern Cape farm attack in 1985, there was a spate of new attacks which followed.

However, the National Party government responded with an aggressive campaign against the attacks, which included suppressing broader national insurrection.

Additionally, informal talks between the government and the ANC put the brakes on the campaign, causing attacks to temporarily die down.

Despite the campaign slowing down, the ANC continued to smuggle weapons into South Africa, storing them in caches across the country.

After the ANC was unbanned in early 1990, its underground structures set about re-establishing and covertly arming its paramilitary combat groups nationwide.

It was not long before violent attacks began escalating in the Eastern Cape, spreading into Natal and later the Free State border with Lesotho.

In 1991, the South African Agricultural Union counted 66 murders stemming from 327 attacks. The numbers continued to rise.

The ANC explicitly called on combat units to rob white households and farms to secure arms, ammunition, and funding.

In ANC guerrilla doctrine, robbery was categorised as a legitimate operational tool rather than mere opportunistic crime.

Curiously, the ANC later said that, because robberies formed part of the attacks, it proved that the attacks were not politically motivated.

After the 1994 general elections, counter-revolutionary and political violence in townships simmered down. However, farm attacks maintained momentum.

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.

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

“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.

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.

“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.”

Cyril Ramaphosa denies that farm attacks happen at all

Freedom Front Plus leader Corne Mulder said that not much has changed and that President Cyril Ramaphosa denies that farm attacks happen at all.

He cited a Bloomberg interview in 2018, where Ramaphosa said that there were no killings of white farmers in South Africa.

During the interview, he was asked about farm murders and President Donald Trump’s claim that the South African government was seizing land from white farmers.

“Whoever gave him that information was completely wrong. There are no killings of farmers or white farmers in South Africa,” Ramaphosa said.

Mulder criticised Ramaphosa and the ANC government for refusing to acknowledge the reality of farm attacks.

“The ANC and Ramaphosa bluntly deny that farm murders exist. However, 3,000 white crosses tell a different story,” he said.

“The ANC and President Ramaphosa bluntly refuse to accept the reality, and then things became worse.”

He further said that when Ramaphosa was confronted with brutal farm attacks by Trump in the Oval Office, he was emotionless.

“The Americans noticed that there was no emotion shown. The documents were simply taken and passed along without any acknowledgement of how awful it is,” he said.

He also criticised the government for not accepting help from the United States to address rural crime and farm attacks.

“The United States wants to assist with rural security, but that seems to be a bridge too far for the ANC,” he said.

Mulder also condemned the public chanting of ‘Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer’, arguing that targeting a specific segment of society is unacceptable.

“The chant constitutes hate speech, and should be unequivocally denounced by President Cyril Ramaphosa,” he said.