By John Whitlock
When one reads the numerous press reports and listens to all the brouhaha surrounding the “Siege of Senekal”, one is inclined to conjure up a picture of thousands of heavily-armed farmers, in full battledress, descending on the sleepy hamlet of Senekal, burning down buildings, setting fire to taxis, beating up members of the SAPS and causing major havoc and chaos in the streets.
However, none of this took place. It was as violent as a nuns’ tea party and as exciting as a Sunday school picnic when compared to the usual excessive violence and utter destruction of property meted out by other protesters including the EFF. The EFF has no room to talk after the violent Clicks fiasco: bullies attacking and intimidating helpless salespeople.
There was no need for rubber bullets and tear gas in Senekal as it was mostly a peaceful protest with a few miscreants misbehaving themselves. Comparing it to the Marikana massacre is absolute hogwash. The #FeesMustFall protests were extremely violent and destructive. The EFF, with its “superior logic”, believes the endless murder of farmers is not a “genuine issue”.
This was (not a racial issue) genuine concern for the safety, not only of white farmers but black farmers as well. Trying to make a racial issue out of it is as dumb as a bucket with a hole in it.
Police Minister Bheki Cele states that “absolutely no one has the right to take the law into their own hands … this type of lawlessness can’t be justified”. The minister should rather be focusing on the inflammatory rhetoric by Julius Malema, Son of the Soil, inciting racial violence and racial warfare by suggesting that “fighters attack” with “machine guns” in response to the Senekal protests.
The Star