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Lex Libertas maintains that the quickest and least confrontational route forward remains for the South African government to take meaningful action itself.
The brutal murder of Hannetjie van Zyl (55) near Ottosdal in the North West Province of South Africa once again demonstrates that the crisis highlighted by Lex Libertas through the White Cross Project is real and that the South African government should be regarded as complicit until the necessary action is taken.
Van Zyl was attacked at the entrance gate to her farm on Monday, 5 October. Reports indicate that she was struck repeatedly on the head and neck with an iron bar and later died on the way to hospital. Two suspects have reportedly been arrested in connection with the murder, while another remains at large.
‘The White Cross Project succeeded in dramatically increasing international awareness of farm attacks and the broader crisis facing minority communities in South Africa,’ said Dr Ernst Roets, Executive Director of Lex Libertas. ‘However, our position from the start was that this awareness has to be channeled towards support for tangible solutions.’
Lex Libertas maintains that the quickest and least confrontational route forward remains for the South African government to take meaningful action itself.
Lex Libertas recently published the White Cross Project Campaign Report in Washington, D.C., in which several immediate measures that could be taken by the South African government are outlined. These include:
‘These are not impossible demands. In fact, they aren’t even difficult,’ Roets said. ‘These are practical steps that can be taken immediately to save lives. We have learned from experience, however, that the political elite in South Africa are not prepared to take even the most basic measures to address this ongoing crisis. That is why more action needs to be taken. Action includes applying more pressure on the South African government to do its part, but also advocating for a decentralised political dispensation in which communities have more authority over their own affairs, including their own safety.’
This is why it is argued in the report that rural insecurity forms part of a deeper political problem and that meaningful decentralisation and greater self-governance remain necessary in the long term, particularly where communities remain heavily dependent on central institutions that repeatedly fail to protect them.
‘If the South African government chooses to act, we will welcome it and support effective measures,’ Roets said. ‘But continued denial, minimisation or inaction cannot be treated as neutrality. If the state continues to fail in its responsibility while people are being murdered, then Lex Libertas will have no choice but to intensify its domestic and international campaigns, expand pressure for reform and continue building support for communities to take greater responsibility for their own safety and future.’
Roets extended Lex Libertas’s condolences to Van Zyl’s family and community.
‘The White Cross Project may have concluded in Washington, but the work clearly has not. Every new victim reminds us why the campaign was necessary in the first place, and why we cannot stop now.’
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