Violent crime against white South African farmers threatens to reopen old wounds in nation still racked by racial divisions
White farmers control 73 per cent of arable land in the country compared with 85 per cent when apartheid ended in 1994, according to a recent study
“They beat him with a pole … and you could hear the bones breaking,” said Debbie Turner, recounting her husband’s murder in a slow, defiant voice.
She refuses to talk about him in the past tense and sleeps with a photo of him close by.
“I miss him so terribly – it’s just so hard,” she said, sitting in front of the frail-care unit that has been her home since the attack at their farm.
Robert “Oki” Turner, 66, was beaten to death before her eyes six months ago on their isolated stretch of mountain land in South Africa’s northeastern Limpopo province. He was one of the latest victims of a long campaign of violence against the country’s farmers, who are largely white.
The rural crime epidemic has inflamed political and racial tensions nearly a quarter-of-a-century after the fall of apartheid. Farm murders are just one issue that reveals how South Africa is struggling with violence, an economic slowdown and divisions along race lines.
We are concerned about hate speech, political leaders who … would say for example ‘the white farmers should be blamed for everything’
The Turners moved to the region, halfway between Kruger National Park and Zimbabwe, some 30 years ago. On their property, which spans dozens of acres, they grew gum trees which they sold to craftsmen or for firewood.
