The rural protection plan:

Farms still under attack

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Published in Nedbank ISS Crime Index
Volume 4 2000
Number 3, May - June

The high incidence of violent crime on farms and smallholdings in South Africa is a cause for great concern. Between January 1997 and December 1999 some 361 people were murdered in 2 030 separate attacks on farms and smallholdings. An ISS study evaluated the rural protection plan in the three provinces worst hit by the attacks. It revealed that the plan’s success varied from area to area and relied a lot on strong civilian participation.

Extent of attacks

The number of recorded incidents of attacks on farms and smallholdings increased substantially between 1997 and 1998 and to a lesser extent between 1998 and 1999. The number of murders committed during the attacks in 1999 was slightly lower than the number of murders committed in 1998 (Figure 1).1

The incidence of attacks on farms and smallholdings is not uniform throughout the country. During 1999 most attacks on farms and smallholdings occurred in Gauteng (224 attacks), followed by Mpumalanga (169 attacks), and KwaZulu-Natal (141 attacks). The province with the fewest attacks in 1999 was the Northern Cape with eleven attacks (Figure 2). During the last three years the number of farm and smallholding attacks was particularly high in Gauteng, Mpumalanga, and KwaZulu-Natal.

The murder rate in relation to the number of attacks on farms and smallholdings is high. In 1999 almost 17% of the attacks on farms and smallholdings resulted in a murder.

Between 1997 and 1999 the Western Cape experienced the highest ratio of murders measured as a proportion of the number of attacks on farms and smallholdings over this period. In this period, 27.6% of all recorded attacks on farms and smallholdings in the Western Cape resulted in a murder. In the Northern Cape it was 26.7%, and in KwaZulu-Natal 23.5%. In the Eastern Cape and Mpumalanga, less than 14% of all recorded attacks on farms and smallholdings between 1997 and 1999 resulted in a murder (Figure 3).

Rural safety summit

In October 1998 the former president, Nelson Mandela, convened a rural safety summit, aimed at achieving a consensus around a process to deal with the issue of attacks against farms and smallholdings. The summit also sought to strengthen the rural protection plan that was implemented in 1997.

The object of the rural protection plan is to encourage all role players (farmers, farm workers, security force personnel, organised agriculture, business people and others) concerned with rural safety to work together in a co-ordinated manner. Together, they are expected to engage in joint planning, action and monitoring to combat crime in the country’s rural areas.

Rural protection plan evaluated

In late 1999, the Institute for Security Studies undertook a research project to evaluate the rural protection plan’s effectiveness. The research was conducted in selected parts of the three provinces most affected by farm and smallholding attacks: Gauteng, Mpumalanga, and KwaZulu-Natal.

The study showed that the rural protection plan’s effectiveness to combat attacks on farms and smallholdings varied from area to area. In the country’s rural areas, where farms are far removed from the nearest police station or army base, the plan’s success depends primarily on strong civilian participation.

In the event of a farm attack, it is usually only the victim’s neighbours who can respond rapidly enough to apprehend the culprits. By the time the security forces arrive at the scene of a farm attack the culprits have usually fled.

Given that the police and the army do not have a rapid response capability in the country’s rural areas, it is crucial that farmers and smallholders themselves — through the organised structure of the South African National Defence Force’s commando system or the police’s reservist system — take greater responsibility for their safety and the welfare of their community.

Detection and intelligence

The police’s primary contribution in combating farm and smallholding attacks is in its detective and intelligence functions. In some areas the detective service functions well and many farm and smallholding attackers have been apprehended and convicted by the courts.

There are, however, other areas where the police is performing poorly in this regard. This is frequently the case where the perpetrators of farm and smallholding attacks operate from outside of the area where the attack takes place, and local detectives have to co-operate with their colleagues in other parts of the country. Inter-regional co-operation in the detective service needs to be improved.

An important weakness of the rural protection plan is that the police — and the security forces generally — have weak intelligence gathering capabilities. This is especially so in rural informal settlements and squatter camps from where farm and smallholding attacks are often planned, and to where many culprits flee after an attack. The security forces need to improve their intelligence gathering capabilities to be in a stronger position to pre-empt attacks on farms and smallholdings.

The rural protection plan is a good mechanism to drive and co-ordinate safety initiatives. Moreover, while the plan provides a sound framework for rural safety, the individual components of the plan must be adapted to local needs and capacities. Crucially, the plan needs to be accepted by local communities. Without their ongoing participation in the plan, its effectiveness will be limited.

Martin Schönteich
Institute for Security Studies

Jonny Steinberg
Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation

1 At the time of writing the Crime Information Analysis Centre (CIAC) had not released figures for the number of farm and smallholding attacks (and the number of murders committed during the attacks) for the period July — December 1999.

The figures for this period have been obtained from the National Operational Co-ordinating Committee (NOCOC). NOCOC’s figures are operational statistics and may differ slightly from the figures the CIAC will release in due course.

NOCOC uses the following definition for farm and smallholding attacks: "Attacks on farms and smallholdings are acts aimed against the person of residents on farms and smallholdings, whether with the intent to murder, rape, rob or inflict bodily harm."

Crimes included in the definition are: murder, attempted murder, rape, assault with the intent to do grievous bodily harm, robbery and armed robbery, vehicle hijacking, malicious damage to property where the damage exceeds R10000, and arson.

Cases relating to domestic violence, drunkenness or the ‘normal’ social interaction between people are excluded from the definition.