Description

71 farm murders in Colenso, Winterton rural areas since 2001
Since 2001 there have been 17 Farmers and around 54 staff / community members murdered on 83 farms in Winterton, Colenso and surrounding areas. In every attack a human being in this area has a 49% chance of dying in the first 5 minutes of the attack or house robbery. Unlike the urban areas the single greatest advantage to the very, very unprofessional criminals is that they have time on their side. Whilst in the urban areas the overall experience of what we term a "long attack" is 15 minutes, in the rural areas the shortest attack I have come across was 50 minutes whilst the longest was 33 hours. The challenge for the farmers and their staff is simply getting a message out that they need help. Contrary to popular belief, one of the bridges I have to cross within the community is to highlight that overall the SAPS are doing all they can. Whilst some meetings have been taking place they are normally with Ranking Officers. Farmers and staff have almost no relationships with the SAPS members on the ground, let alone other organizations such as RTI, Public Safety, Careline Crises Center, Jes Foord Foundation, NetCare, ER24, the security industry, technology development role-players and so on. The single greatest challenge is developing trust and convincing all parties that there is a solution in working together. At grass roots, right now, the farmers are divided into pockets of associations of around 30 Farmers in each (and some 27 associations), with no collective approach with their staff or other associations. http://www.sacan.co.za/?p=1281