General Phiyega, please come and visit our farm

Dear Gen. Riah Phiyega, national police chief:

I considered writing an open letter to you, but decided against it because by now I also had enough of that.

I will get right to the point and extend an open invitation to you.

This week you made comments about farm murders and attacks that really upset me very deeply. Like all your predecessors, you obviously have no idea what is happening on farms in South Africa these days.

You have a problem with the interpretation of the crime statistics regarding farms and you believe the real problem is actually people whose emotions are running high. According to you, the farm murder problem is improving. In 2013/14 there were 58 murders and 493 attacks. If you consider how the number of farmers is decreasing annually, you will know that these numbers are much higher than the normal statistics for the population in general.

You know nothing of the general struggle for survival and the extremely tense security situation to which the farmer, his wife and young children are exposed day after day.

I agree with you. No distinction can be made between murders. Every murder in this country is a tragedy that for a family and relatives out there means the end of their world.

I would suggest, however, that you again do an analysis of the police’s inadequate statistics. It has been confirmed in various quarters and by experts that farmers and their families are now the most endangered and exposed group in the country.

Your attitude that it cannot be described as a national crisis, only confirms that the ANC government is not serious about protecting the commercial farmers in the country or to support them in any manner. Despite numerous conferences, seminars and expert opinions that South Africa is heading for a disaster if the issue is not addressed urgently, the government avoids tackling the problem.

Now, returning to my invitation …

I would very much like to take you to the farm where Johan Strydom (40), a school friend and the most gentle person, was killed in the cruellest way imaginable in 2010, about 50 km from our farm in the Buffelshoek area near Potchefstroom. He was dragged behind his bakkie while still alive, and his liver burst and his skull was crushed.

If there was one person who never deserved this, it was Johan …

When we have finished there, we can go to the farm Somerset, where my ancestors have been farming for years and where the bodies of Annetjie van Rooyen (74) and her husband, Ernst (75), were found.

Annetjie’s body was found by a cousin of mine, in the freezer in their tuck shop. Ernst lay on the floor, with a piece of cloth tied around his head.

Just like Johan, Annetjie and Ernst were the “salt of the earth”. They were always friendly and good to all those who crossed their path.

These incidents tore those communities apart and they will never be able to forget it or to put it behind them. And worse … for some of them, it will never, never again be possible not to live in fear and anxiety.

But what I really want to say, is: Come and visit us on our farm in the Free State … and see how we as families are now trying to survive day by day, in fear, but with courage … with barbed wire fences, vicious dogs, alarm systems, CB radios and children that learn to lock doors as soon as they learn to walk.

Come and see if you can stay there one night without your bodyguards and police escort, while every sound of the night tears you from your sleep – a spotted dikkop crying for too long, a dog barking in a slightly odd manner or a genet making a commotion that makes it sound as if someone is breaking through the roof.

Come and see for yourself whether people nowadays stay on farms because they are clinging to some idea of ​​Utopia, or whether they are there because they can farm and because they realise that people in Africa will always be hungry and because someone has to work to meet that need. And of course also because it is their heritage and land for which they paid every penny with sweat and toil.

I am eagerly waiting to hear whether you will accept the invitation.

Maybe then we can finally start an honest conversation about the agricultural community in South Africa, which to date has had to endure only blows and at whom punches are constantly directed from all directions.

True understanding, after all, begins with communication and it begins the moment we can say that we know what it is like in stand in each other’s shoes – doesn’t it?